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Zingerman’s, Michigan’s famous Jewish deli, is coming to New York City
(New York Jewish Week) — My hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is world-famous for precisely two things: It’s where the University of Michigan is located — Go Blue! — and it is home to Zingerman’s, a 41-year-old Jewish deli that’s both a local icon and a national treasure that regularly makes “best of” lists.
And now, one of these storied institutions will make an appearance in New York City for one day, and one day only — and it’s not the well-regarded public university.
On Saturday, Zingerman’s Deli will host a pop-up at Chelsea’s Olly Olly Market, where the Midwestern deli masters will be slinging sandwiches from noon to 8 p.m., or until sold out. There, at 601 West 26th St. near 11th Avenue, New Yorkers can expect top-notch variations on the classic Reuben sandwich, the company’s signature enthusiastic customer service and a host of Zingerman’s-branded sides and merch.
“We had this thought about taking the Reubens on the road, just having some fun with it,” Rodger Bowser, head chef and a managing partner of Zingerman’s Deli, told the New York Jewish Week.
Saturday’s event will be the popular deli’s second-ever popup; their first was in Chicago in 2019 at a location run by 16” on Center, a Windy City-based “hospitality collective.” The experience, said Bowser, was an overwhelmingly positive one — and when 160C expanded to Manhattan last year with Olly Olly Market, the Zingermen decided to give it another go.
Zingerman’s Deli was founded in 1982 by Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig, “two friends who dreamt of creating a traditional Jewish deli that would bring very special foods to Ann Arbor,” according to their web site.
The pair, who are both Jewish, came up with the name Zingerman’s because they wanted something “that would convey the sense of a good local deli, something that would ‘sound Jewish,’ would somehow telegraph that this was a real delicatessen,” Weinzweig once wrote. (Weinzweig declined to use his own surname, calling it “unpronounceable,” while the name Saginaw evokes the mid-Michigan town from which it took Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel four days to hitchhike.)
Their concept was a hit, and over the decades, Zingerman’s resisted the siren call of expansion or franchising and instead evolved into a progressive-minded “community of businesses” across the Ann Arbor area. These include the consulting business Zingtrain, which shares “the ‘Zingerman’s experience’ with forward-thinking organizations”; Zingerman’s Bakehouse, making classic breads and pastries; a candy manufactory, a creamery, event spaces and more.
These days, “the Zingerman’s Experience is now made and delivered by nearly six hundred people — partners, managers and staff in ten different businesses in addition to the Deli — to the tune of roughly $60,000,000 in annual sales,” Weinzweig writes. (A prolific writer, the Chicago native and Russian history major pens regular newsletters and has authored several books, including “Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon: Stories of Pork Bellies, Hush Puppies, Rock ‘n’ Roll Music and Bacon Fat Mayonnaise” and the four-part “Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business.”)
Despite all that growth, popups remain a relatively new venture for Zingerman’s — and for Olly Olly Market, too. “We thought, what better time than our one-year anniversary to start introducing a little bit more of the Midwest to New York?” Tim Wickes, director of food hall operations at 160C, told the New York Jewish Week. Zingerman’s “jumped on it. So we’re fortunate and we’re super excited for the weekend.”
“We also know that there is a large population of Michiganders here in New York, University of Michigan alumni,” said Wickes, who lives in Brooklyn and is, tragically, an alumnus of rival Michigan State. “And we felt like the city would resonate well with that as our first of hopefully [pop-ups] from Chicago and the Midwest in general.”
Initially the idea was “to bring the Zingerman’s gameday experience to as many people as we can in New York,” Bowser said of Saturday’s event. (The Wolverines play the Minnesota Golden Gophers on Saturday night.) “Clearly we have a pretty good fan base there that always can’t get to Ann Arbor for a game. And we just want to share that experience and have some fun.”
As anyone who ever worked at Zingerman’s attest — and that includes me: Working at Zingerman’s is practically a rite of passage for “townies” — and football game days are especially busy day at an already busy place; lines are long and the wait for sandwiches can exceed an hour.
Since the game and the open-to-the-public popup won’t overlap, the Zingerpeople are also selling tickets “to an exclusive tailgate experience with guaranteed seats and sandwiches.”
As for the six sandwich types on sale, all are Reubens or riffs on them, “what we like to call the Russian dressing group,” Bowser said. Among them is the deli’s most popular sandwich, the #2 Zingerman’s Reuben — made with corned beef, Swiss Emmental cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on grilled Jewish rye bread, a combination that former President Barack Obama described as “killer” — as well as the #18 Georgia Reuben, with turkey breast, Swiss Emmental cheese, coleslaw and Russian dressing.
Bowser, who was a vegetarian when he started working at the deli 28 years ago, will also be making “a personal favorite”: #36 Lila & Izzie’s Skokie Skidoo, a vegetarian Reuben consisting of Swiss Emmental cheese, coleslaw and Russian dressing on grilled farm bread.
As it happens, the Reuben’s origins lie neither in New York nor Ann Arbor: Legend has it the legendary sandwich was invented in an Omaha hotel in the 1920s “to satisfy a group of hungry Jewish poker players,” according to The Nosher.
To bring Zingerman’s Reubens to NYC, Bowser and his team will be driving two trucks packed with food and supplies from Ann Arbor to Manhattan — a distance of 621 miles, or 9 hours and 24 minutes in traffic at the time of this writing. “Obviously you can’t make a Zingerman’s sandwich without Zingerman’s Bakehouse bread,” said Bowser. “And it’s gonna take quite a few loaves of that.”
Bowser estimated the road crew of three will likely leave on Thursday, which would give them a day to set up the space on Friday. (Three other Zingerman’s employees will travel by plane.)
When asked if he had any qualms about bringing deli sandwiches to the birthplace of American deli culture — a place whose denizens are known to be “kind” but not exactly “nice” — Bowser demurred. “I’m not throwing shade at anybody,” he said, emphasizing the main impetus was to have a fun time.
Wickes concurs. Acknowledging that New York “is the mecca of Reuben sandwiches,” he said the pop-up will have a “humble approach.” “We’re certainly in tune with the fact that there’s plenty of fantastic Reubens in the city,” he said. “We just wanted to showcase Zingerman’s.”
As for Bowser, he conceded to one possible challenge: “Navigating two big trucks though traffic sounds daunting,” he said. “But I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
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‘Little Gaza’: US Sen. Tom Cotton Introduces Legislation to Combat Campus Radicalism
US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 11, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson
US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has proposed two new bills which would impose legal sanctions on purveyors of seditious, pro-terror ideologies on university campuses and the higher education institutions that harbor them, advancing the Republican Party’s offensive against the pro-Hamas student movement.
Shared first with Breitbart News, a news outlet that was instrumental in launching US President Donald Trump’s populist movement, the “No Student Loans for Campus Criminals Act” and “Woke Endowment Security Tax (WEST)” come amid a series of riotous demonstrations promoting antisemitic ideas, as well as the goals of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, and a widespread perception that elite universities have not done enough to combat them.
“First, any pro-Hamas protester convicted of a crime should be ineligible for federal student loans, and federal student loan relief. The American people should not be on the hook for the tuition of Little Gaza inhabitants,” Cotton said in a social media post on Tuesday announcing his introduction of the bills. “Second, our elite universities need to know the cost of pushing anti-American and pro-terrorist agendas.”
He continued, “The WEST Act would tax the largest university endowments to help pay down national debt and secure our southern border.”
As Cotton mentioned in his social media posts, the No Student Loans for Campus Criminals Act would prevent any campus protestor convicted of a crime from receiving federal student loans or student loan relief. Meanwhile, the WEST Act would institute a 6 percent excise tax on the endowments of 11 American universities, using the proceeds to pay down the national debt and secure the southern border shared with Mexico. According to Cotton’s office, the bill would generate $16.6 billion in revenue.
Republican lawmakers have called for holding higher education accountable since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel set off an explosion of antisemitic sentiment on college campuses, causing a succession of conflagrations which still are still burning hot at schools such as Columbia University.
In December, the Republican-led US House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued a report, which said that nothing short of a revolution of the current habits and ideas which constitute the current higher education regime can prevent similar episodes of unrest from occurring in the future. Colleges, it continued, need equal enforcement of civil rights laws to protect Jewish students from discrimination and “viewpoint diversity” to prevent the establishment of ideological echo chambers. It also said that “academic rigor,” undermined by years of dissolving educational standards for political purposes, would guard against the reduction of complex social issues into the sloganeering of “scholar activism,” in which faculty turn the classroom into a soapbox and reward students who mimic them.
The new Trump administration has taken steps to convert this vision into policy since assuming power in January.
On Friday, it canceled $400 million in funding to Columbia University as punishment for the school’s alleged harboring of antisemitic faculty, students, and staff and shielding them from disciplinary sanctions. Prior to that, US President Donald Trump issued a highly anticipated executive order which calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”
A major provision of the order authorizes the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction on college campuses. That policy is currently being challenged in the courts, as a federal judge in Manhattan has halted its application to the case of a male alumnus of Columbia University who was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after being identified as an architect of the Hamilton Hall building takeover, which took place during the closing weeks of the 2023-2024 academic year.
On Monday, US Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced that dozens of colleges and universities will be investigated for civil rights violations stemming from their alleged failure to address campus antisemitism. McMahon named 55 institutions, public and private, in total that were not included in the administration’s February announcement of five investigations of antisemitism at Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
The new schools include: Harvard University, Swarthmore College, Drexel University, and Princeton University — all of which have struggled with antisemitic anti-Israel activity and pro-Hamas agitation, as The Algemeiner has previously reported.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Little Gaza’: US Sen. Tom Cotton Introduces Legislation to Combat Campus Radicalism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Disney Curtails ‘Snow White’ Premiere Events Amid Scandals With ‘Free Palestine’ Supporter Rachel Zegler
Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot present the award for Best Visual Effects during the Oscars show at the 97th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, US, March 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Disney has not invited media outlets to attend the Hollywood premiere of “Snow White” on Saturday and canceled the film’s premiere in the United Kingdom in a reported effort to manage controversies involving the movie’s lead actress Rachel Zegler, an outspoken pro-Palestinian activist.
Disney will host a pre-party and screening at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday for the live-action remake of the beloved 1937 animated film, and guests will include the “Snow White” title star as well as Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen. A number of media outlets are typically invited to premieres to interview talent on the red carpet. However, Disney is not allowing red carpet press at the LA premiere except for photographers and a house crew in order to avoid having Zegler and Gadot answer questions on the spot, Variety reported. Disney said they will instead have “a more celebratory, family-friendly afternoon event to match the tone and target audience for the film,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film, directed by Marc Webb, will be released in theaters March 21.
Plans for a star-studded premiere in the UK have also been nixed, and Disney will instead host a “handful” of tightly controlled press events, a source told the Daily Mail. “Disney are already anticipating an anti-woke backlash against ‘Snow White’ and have reduced the media schedule to just a handful of tightly controlled press events,” the insider said. “That is why they have taken the highly unusual step not to host a London premiere for the film and are minimizing the amount of press questions that Rachel Zegler gets.”
Zegler, 23, has made a number of controversial remarks about her role in the film but also triggered a political media storm when she posted on social media in support of a “Free Palestine.” In August last year, three days after the trailer for the new “Snow White” film was released, the Golden Globe-winning actress took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to thank fans for their support of the film. Zegler wrote in part, “I love you all so much! thank you for the love.” In a separate post on X, she added: “And always remember, free palestine [sic].” Zegler was heavily criticized for the comment by many pro-Israel supporters, especially in light of the fact that Gadot, her lead co-star in “Snow White,” was born and raised in Israel, and is a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.
Gadot, who is the eighth generation in her family to be born in Israel, is an avid supporter of her home country, and has several times condemned on social media the Hamas terrorist attack that took place in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Earlier this month, the “Wonder Woman” star addressed hundreds at the Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 Never is Now Summit on Antisemitism and Hate, expressing pride in being Israeli and Jewish. She told the crowd: “My name is Gal … I am a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, an actress, I am an Israeli – and I am Jewish. Isn’t it crazy that just saying that, just expressing such a simple fact about who I am feels like a controversial statement? But sadly, this is where we’re at today.” She also declared on stage “Am Yisrael Chai (Long Live Israel).”
When Ziegler’s casting was first announced in 2021, some Disney fans took offense to the fact that the character of Snow White will being played by an actress of Colombian descent even though the character is meant to famously have skin “as white as snow.” Some also questioned the studio’s decision to have Snow White be played by Zegler after the “West Side Story” star called the 1937 original film “weird” and “dated,” and said the prince “literally stalks Snow White” in various interviews two years ago. Supporters of US President Donald Trump also criticized Zegler for her negative comments about his reelection. “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace. There is a deep deep sickness in this country,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. She later apologized for her remarks.
Others took offense to the fact that the film’s title makes no mention of “seven dwarfs,” even though they are critical characters in the movie, while the original film was titled “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
Famed actor Peter Dinklage accused Disney of promoting negative stereotypes with the film’s portrayal of little people. “Literally no offense to anything, but I was sort of taken aback,” the “Game of Thrones” star said in January 2024. “They were very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there.”
Not long afterward, Disney clarified how it will handle Dinklage’s concerns in the new film. “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community,” the studio said in a statement to “Good Morning America.” They will appear as CGI characters in the new film.
The post Disney Curtails ‘Snow White’ Premiere Events Amid Scandals With ‘Free Palestine’ Supporter Rachel Zegler first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Seeking to Normalize Ties With Lebanon in New Border Talks: Reports
Smoke billows after an Israeli Air Force air strike in southern Lebanon village, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from northern Israel, Oct. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jim Urquhar
Israel is seeking to normalize ties with Lebanon in upcoming talks that could potentially bring an end to decades of tensions and conflict, according to Israeli media reports.
Upcoming discussions between Beirut and Jerusalem to demarcate their countries’ shared border are part of “a broad and comprehensive plan,” with Israel aiming to establish formal diplomatic relations with Lebanon, unnamed sources told multiple Israeli news publications on Wednesday,
“The prime minister’s policy has already changed the Middle East, and we want to continue the momentum and reach normalization with Lebanon,” a political source told the Israeli news outlet Ynet. “We and the Americans think that this is possible after the changes that have occurred in Beirut.”
“Just as Lebanon has claims regarding borders, we also have claims and we will discuss these matters,” the source continued.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported similar quotes, as did the Times of Israel, the latter of which cited an unnamed official as saying that “the goal is to reach normalization.”
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that Israel and Lebanon will begin negotiations to resolve border disputes.
“During the meeting, it was agreed to establish three joint working groups aimed at stabilizing the region which will focus on the following issues: the five points over which Israel controls southern Lebanon, discussions on the Blue Line and points that remain in dispute, and the issue of Lebanese detainees held by Israel,” the statement read.
Following US and French mediation, Israel and Lebanon agreed to establish “working groups” to discuss the demarcation line between the two countries and keep the process on track. The groups would also address Israel’s ongoing presence at five strategic points in southern Lebanon, which borders northern Israel.
“Everyone involved remains committed to maintaining the ceasefire agreement and to fully implement all its terms,” US Deputy Presidential Special Envoy Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. “We look forward to quickly convening these diplomat-led working groups to resolve outstanding issues, along with our international partners.”
Despite a brief peace agreement in 1983 and past military and economic ties with Christian factions in Lebanon, Israel’s relations with Beirut have remained tense, with no formal diplomatic ties, an unstable border, and ongoing concerns about a major conflict.
A key reason for conflict has been the role of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist group that for years has wielded significant political and military influence in Lebanon, especially the country’s south. Hezbollah leaders have long stated their goal is to destroy Israel.
Since 2020, as part of the Abraham Accords — a series of historic US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries — Jerusalem has expanded defense and economic cooperation with the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Bahrain, and Morocco. Israel also has long-standing peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan.
On Wednesday, the editor of the Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet Al-Akhbar said that Israel is trying to disarm Hezbollah by force, arguing that this”“will lead to civil war” and “devastating results.”
“Opening the door to negotiations under these conditions means that there are those in Lebanon who do not read history and who do not know the risks inherent in such a step,” editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin said. “Those responsible must understand that they bear responsibility for everything that results from this process of normalizing relations, and there will be devastating results.”
He also accused Israel of kidnapping Lebanese prisoners from their villages and forcibly occupying Lebanese territory.
“There are no security or military considerations that justify their continued occupation, other than to exert pressure on the residents of the border villages to prevent their return to their villages and to prevent the rehabilitation process,” Amin said.
According to local media reports, a total of 11 Lebanese nationals are currently being held by Israel. In a post on X, the Lebanese president’s office announced that Beirut had already received four Lebanese “hostages” from Israel, with a fifth to be handed over on Wednesday.
In November, Lebanon and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended a year of fighting between the Jewish state and Hezbollah. Under the agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from Beirut’s southern border, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.
However, Israel announced last month that it would keep troops in five locations in southern Lebanon past a Feb. 18 ceasefire deadline for their withdrawal, as Israeli leaders sought to reassure northern residents that they can return home safely.
Tens of thousands of residents in northern Israel were forced to evacuate their homes last year and in late 2023 amid unrelenting barrages of rockets, missiles, and drones from Hezbollah, which expressed solidarity with Hamas amid the Gaza war.
Last fall, Israel decimated much of Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, which ended with the ceasefire.
The post Israel Seeking to Normalize Ties With Lebanon in New Border Talks: Reports first appeared on Algemeiner.com.