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When it comes to a classic Jewish cookie, New York bakeries go beyond black and white
(New York Jewish Week) – As far as New York Jewish desserts go, perhaps the most ubiquitous is the black and white cookie, that soft, sweet, frosted treat found at bakeries and bagel stores throughout the city.
Black and white cookies, sometimes called half-moon cookies, are understood by most to be a Jewish dessert. “Seinfeld” once dedicated an episode to singing their praises. “You see, Elaine, the key to eating a black and white cookie is that you wanna get some black and some white in each bite,” Jerry says. “Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate. And yet still somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie, all our problems would be solved.”
But now, in a testament to New Yorkers’ innovation — or possibly the old adage, “everything old is new again” — bakeries across the city are riffing upon this tried-and-true classic. These days, black and white cookies are available in a myriad of colors and flavors: yellow and blue to support Ukraine, red to celebrate Valentine’s Day, brown and yellow to mark the merger of banana, chocolate and hazelnut.
The banana walnut flavored black and white cookie. (Zaro’s Family Bakery)
The latter is one of six new flavor combinations at Zaro’s Family Bakery, where brothers and fourth-generation owners Brian, Michael and Scott Zaro have wholeheartedly embraced new versions of the two-tone classic. Earlier this month, the bakery unveiled its new black and white cookie color and flavor combinations, which include orange and white (cream cheese frosted carrot cake), green and black (mint chip), as well as an M&M-topped cookie, a sprinkle-filled birthday cake flavor and a cookies and cream flavor.
“We’ve been making the black and white cookie for 95 years,” Brian Zaro, who has been working full time for his family’s business since 2006, told the New York Jewish Week. “My brother, Scott, had a vision to make an iconic item that meets innovation.”
A carrot cake flavored cookie is topped with orange and white cream cheese frosting. (Zaro’s Family Bakery)
The black and white is one of the signature offerings at Zaro’s, which is known for setting up shop in New York’s biggest transit hubs, including Grand Central Terminal, Penn Station and LaGuardia airport. The bakery’s website boasts that it sells over 90,000 black and white cookies annually, and this season’s new flavors join Zaro’s chocolate chip black and whites, which they have been offering for several years, Brian said. (Black and white on the outside, with chocolate chips baked into the dough.)
Of course, these creative interpretations prompt an obvious question: How far can a bakery stray from chocolate and vanilla before a black and white is no longer a black and white?
“It’s a valid point,” Brian Zaro admits. “But right now, yes, it’s a black and white. That could change; we always try to be as open-minded as possible.”
Shannon Sarna, author of “Modern Jewish Baker” and editor at our partner site The Nosher, agrees. “I’m not a purist,” she said. “I don’t think they have to be black and white to be a real black and white cookie.”
For Sarna, what are most important to the integrity of a black and white are the flavors and technique. “A good black and white cookie is going to have a little taste of vanilla or orange or lemon zest that might be in the dough,” she said. “It’s got to have a good quality icing. It’s not going to just taste like sugar. It’s going to have a little chocolate flavor and it’s going to have a little bit of the white, more vanilla-y taste.”
For some, the doughy cookie with its signature bi-color frosting is only as good as the sense of nostalgia it offers. As the New York Times wrote back in 1998, “Today’s black-and-whites cannot compare with the black-and-whites of yesteryear, of course, just as no mayor will ever be as good at LaGuardia and no team as beloved as the Dodgers.” Sarna, who grew up in New York, calls black and whites “the cookies of my childhood.”
The black and whites as we know them were said to have been popularized by the Upper East Side’s Glaser’s Bake Shop, which was founded in 1902 by John Herbert Glaser. Glaser reportedly brought the black and white recipe with him when he immigrated to the United States from Bavaria.
Third-generation owner Herb Glaser, who ran the bakery with his brother until it closed for good in 2018, is not able to confirm this — but, at 70, he says that they were a feature of the bakery since he was a young boy.
Though he now lives “in the country,” Glaser is well aware of the new black and white trends. “Some of the businesses are making them a little too outrageous,” he said. “They’re not really black and whites anymore.”
Still, Glaser said that his bakery did occasionally make the cookies in different colors — for graduation parties, schools and, most notably, in orange and blue when the Mets were in the World Series in 1986. “I’m a traditionalist but I understand,” Glaser added. “It’s a marketing thing and that’s fine. It’s a way to stay in business.”
“I think there’s a sort of New York pride associated with it as ‘the New York cookie,’ and it just so happens to be a really good cookie,” said Noah Aris, the baker and proprietor of The Cardamom Man, which sells its baked goods online and at street markets. Aris bakes black and whites with blue and gold frosting as a fundraiser for humanitarian relief in Ukraine. In addition to lemon zest in the dough, Aris has added lavender, leaving the dough flecked with dots of purple.
The different colors “help start a conversation for me to talk about what I’m about as a bakery and raising money for Ukraine,” he said. “Then you hear [the customers’] story about their experiences with black and whites. It’s fun.”
Breads Bakery started baking black and whites with their signature laminated dough when they opened their Upper East Side location last year. “I operate under the simple thesis that when you give people something great they’ll appreciate it regardless of what their expectation may have been.” Peleg said. (Ashley Solter)
At some bakeries, innovation starts in the dough. Last holiday season, Breads Bakery rolled out black and whites made with a laminated, croissant-like base instead of the classic doughy, cakey consistency .
“The first time I took a bite of it, it became very clear to me that we’ve elevated this cookie to a new level and given it the treatment that it deserves,” Breads owner Gadi Peleg said. “I think we have done enough to wink at the nostalgic nature of the cookie — there’s enough there to sort of connect you to the memories that you may have associated with a black and white cookie. But it’s just different enough to bring it into a more modern New York, the New York of today.”
At Kossar’s Bagels & Bialys — which now has three locations across the city and one more on the way — customers will find traditional black and whites sitting alongside all-chocolate or all-vanilla frosted versions, as well as multi-color and M&M-topped versions.
“Some people like only the chocolate, some people like only the vanilla. So we use that as our inspiration to move forward,” said general manager Sharon Bain. “People do love the fact that we’re doing something with the black and white. We’re catering to everyone.”
Kossar’s will frost the cookies with green for St. Patrick’s Day or red for Valentine’s Day, but the reboot is only skin deep. According to Bain, the “black and white refers to the chocolate and vanilla flavors of the frosting, and not the color.”
For Brian Zaro, too, the flavor and color innovations are all about customer satisfaction, and this year the new black and white varieties are also available at the Zaro’s outpost at the Bryant Park Winter Village. “It’s new for us,” Zaro said. “But so far so good.”
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Shots fired in Jewish neighborhood of Montreal
(JTA) — Montreal police said an alleged shooter in a neighborhood known for its large Jewish population had been “neutralized” after killing one police officer and wounding another officer and a civilian Monday.
“A suspect has been neutralized,” the official police account posted on X after advising residents Côte-des-Neiges to stay indoors. “Two police officers and one citizen have been injured. The police operation is still underway. Continue to avoid the area. Further details to follow.”
The Montreal Gazette later reported that the suspect and the civilian also were dead.
It was not clear if the intended targets were Jewish, but a Chabad emissary in the neighborhood told Ynet, an Israeli news site, that a nearby building was targeted and that he was sheltering about 100 people.
The Yeshiva World News news site posted a video of a SWAT team swarming around a home belonging to a family affiliated with Chabad, the Orthodox Jewish movement.
Côte-des-Neiges was the scene of postwar Jewish settlement as Jewish families ascending from the working to the middle class moved west from the area of St. Laurent Boulevard. The area, with treelined streets studded with duplexes and low-rise apartment buildings, had a friendly neighborhood ambience and lacked the anti-Jewish restrictions some of the wealthier enclaves maintained at the time.
There are a number of Jewish schools and synagogues in the area, including the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, the oldest congregation in the country, established in 1768 and which moved to the neighborhood in 1947. The neighborhood is now the site of a large Chabad community and a number of Jewish restaurants and delis.
This is a developing story.
The post Shots fired in Jewish neighborhood of Montreal appeared first on The Forward.
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Everyone was a fan of Clive Davis — even if they didn’t know it
Last September I spent about 30 seconds with Clive Davis in a crowded elevator.
I was in the Sony Building, having just seen a press screening of Richard Linklatter’s Blue Moon. The elevator was full of mostly young people — probably Sony employees — and some press. The doors pinged open and in stepped a man with two handlers and an adorable spaniel. I turned to a fellow journalist and whispered “That’s Clive Davis.”
Someone who knew Clive — enough to call him “Clive” — told him we’d just seen a movie about the creative breakup between lyricist Lorenz Hart and musical composer Richard Rodgers.
“Didn’t you play Janis Joplin for Richard Rodgers,” he asked Davis.
Davis replied with perfect comic timing: “Yes. He hated it.”
That anecdote tells us just how much Davis, the legendary music executive and producer who died Monday June 22 at the age of 94, changed the musical landscape.
Davis had been in the music business long enough to serve as a bridge figure between the Great American Songbook and the popular music of the latter half of the 20th Century. The artists he signed at CBS, and later Arista (he was ousted from the CBS/Columbia for allegedly using company money to finance his son’s bar mitzvah), are enduring icons even, in the case of Ms. Joplin, decades after their deaths.
But what hit me in the elevator was the feeling that not everyone there knew who he was. They did, of course, know the music: Pink Floyd, P!nk, Whitney Houston, Sly and the Family Stone, Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith, the very authors of “Love in an Elevator.”
It’s not overstating it to say that Davis’ influence across genres and his golden ear provided the soundtrack to American life. His own life was productive until the end.
He was in the Sony building because he was Chief Creative Officer at the company. A week before his death, the streets were thumping with a New York anthem from one of his late career discoveries: Alicia Keys.
Davis’ rise could be taught in Jewish Studies courses. Born in working-class Crown Heights, he — like Barba Streisand — was a graduate of Erasmus Hall High. He made good at NYU and got his law degree at Harvard.
He rose from the legal department at Columbia to become the company’s top tastemaker. Somewhere along the way he discovered Joplin — of a polar opposite disposition and background — and went from strength to strength.
Davis’ true triumph might have been just how adept he was at navigating everything the U.S. had to offer. The musicians he promoted had little in common save for his imprimatur.
In that elevator, which delivered us without much fuss to the lobby, there may have been people whose musical tastes gravitated to rock, R&B, jam bands, easy listening, guitar instrumentals and jazz.
Whether they knew it or not, Davis shepherded something they liked into existence. His genius was in recognizing genius.
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U.S. and Iran announce direct Lebanon track without Israel
(JTA) — Following tense high-level negotiations over the weekend, mediators in Switzerland announced Monday morning that Washington and Tehran have agreed on a 60-day roadmap toward ending the war.
The joint statement released by mediating countries Qatar and Pakistan also unveiled the creation of a Lebanon deconfliction mechanism. According to the mediators, this entails a direct U.S.-Iranian track to terminate military operations in Lebanon and includes the Lebanese government but not Israel. The mediators did not explain how that would operate or resolve the current hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Throughout the weekend Jerusalem, which watched the talks and the announcement from the sidelines with concern, doubled down on its hardline stance against Iran and its proxy group Hezbollah.
Speaking to reporters in Switzerland Monday before returning to Washington, U.S. Vice President JD Vance clarified that Israel had the right to self-defense, but that “every other nation in the region has the right of self-defense” as well. The mechanism was to resolve direct violations of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Vance explained, indicating that it augmented the ongoing diplomatic work.
“We also want to make sure that, you know, when things happen, they don’t spiral into a broader escalation,” he said, adding that “there really hasn’t been a mechanism to have those discussions until basically around 4 p.m. yesterday.” He said that the U.S. had been in constant contact with Israel on Sunday.
Prior to Vance’s statement, the Israeli government delivered its first overt criticism of the diplomatic efforts taking place at the Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland.
Addressing the Jerusalem News Syndicate Conference in Jerusalem Monday, Israeli President Issac Herzog said any negotiations to end the Israel-Lebanon conflict should be done by the two countries themselves and not “by Iranian extortion.”
He added, “Tying Iran to Lebanon not only leaves Israel exposed to constant threat; it leaves the Lebanese weak and powerless, and will prevent their president and government from moving forward.”
Herzog also noted that direct talks were already taking place between Lebanon and Israel in Washington under the auspices of the State Department. The next round of negotiations is scheduled for Tuesday, which Herzog said is designed to empower the Lebanese army to be the sole military force in its country. Hezbollah and Iran are not a party to those talks.
“The disarmament of Hezbollah must be inherent to any solution in Lebanon, and Iran cannot dictate the future of Lebanon – on these fundamental points there is full agreement between Israel and Lebanon,” Herzog stated.
He also thanked President Donald Trump for his efforts on Israel’s behalf, calling him “our closest friend and ally and leader of the free world.”
The Lebanese Presidency said Monday that President Joseph Aoun had received a phone call from US Vance, senior adviser Jared Kushner and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, but did not clarify when that call occurred.
According to the Lebanese statement, the discussion focused on “consolidating the ceasefire in Lebanon, halting the Israeli military escalation, and the steps that must be taken in this regard, including the possibility of forming a cell for this purpose.”
The ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and the IDF’s presence in southern Lebanon has been a point of tension throughout the ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran. The shaky ceasefire has been in place since April 8 after Israel and the U.S. started the war on Iran at the end of February.
In early March, Iranian proxy Hezbollah joined in by attacking northern Israel. Jerusalem has maintained that the Lebanese front needs to stay separate and has continued to take aggressive retaliatory action against Hezbollah despite the U.S. imposing a separate ceasefire in Lebanon as well.
Meanwhile, Qatar and Pakistan said the U.S.-Iran memorandum included the establishment of a “High Level Committee” to oversee negotiations aimed at a roadmap “towards reaching a final deal within 60 days, laying the foundation for the immediate commencement of further technical talks” on Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions and dispute resolution. These were the first formal discussions as part of the new U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding, with Vance representing Washington.
The vice president told reporters Monday that Sunday “was a very, very good day. We made a lot of good progress; we did exactly what we wanted to do,” including securing an agreement from Iran that inspectors from the International Atomic Inspection Agency be allowed back into Iran.
Negotiators also created a mechanism to ensure that the Straits of Hormuz remain open, Vance said, downplaying reports of disputes between the American and Iranian teams.
However, Iranian media reported that members of Tehran’s delegation briefly left the room during Vance’s remarks after learning that Trump was issuing threats against Iran following Iran’s announcement on Saturday that it planned to once again close the Strait of Hormuz.
Vance said it was true the Iranians had threatened to walk out, but in the end they stayed and negotiated until the early hours of the morning.
Trump told Fox News in a phone call on Sunday morning that he had spoken with Iran overnight and said that if the country closed the Strait, he would “blow the s— out of them.” Fox News also reported that Trump had said, “You won’t even make it back to your f—— country.”
Trump also posted on his Truth Social account on Sunday that unless Iran stops supporting Hezbollah, “We’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”
Iranian officials reportedly responded to what they termed U.S. “verbal threats,” saying that “any form of threat is considered a serious violation of the agreement.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday the talks had delivered “major progress to end [the] Lebanon War,” and added that discussions included oil exports, sanctions relief, frozen Iranian assets and reconstruction plans.
On Sunday, however, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as it takes in order to protect the residents of the North.”
Vance on Monday said that Israel would have to withdraw, but only when it can do so safely. The Trump administration, he explained, hoped to reach a situation where both Lebanon’s territorial integrity and Israel’s security were protected, noting that Israel itself has said it doesn’t have permanent “territorial intentions” with regard to southern Lebanon.
In separate remarks at Sunday’s JNS International Policy Summit, Netanyahu said, “We have prevented Iran from carrying out a plan to annihilate us. We removed an existential danger.” He added, “We changed Israel’s security doctrine. We initiate. We attack. We surprise.”
Directly addressing the U.S.-Iran negotiations, he added, “No matter what happens in the talks, with an agreement, without an agreement, I pledge to you that Iran, as long as I am prime minister, will never have a nuclear weapon. Never.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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