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A bagel and lox giveaway draws a crowd of hundreds in Midtown
(New York Jewish Week) — There are few things in the world that famously impatient New Yorkers will line up for: theater tickets, hot nightclubs and really good food — even more so if it is free.
So it was on Thursday morning, when several hundred people stood on line near Bryant Park in Midtown to celebrate National Bagels and Lox Day, which falls every year on Feb. 9. There, Whitestone, Queens’ Utopia Bagels and Greenpoint’s Acme Smoked Fish teamed up to hand out free bagels-and-lox sandwiches from a pop-up food truck.
The weather Thursday morning was gray but mild, and people had started to queue on the corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue at 8:00 a.m., one hour before the bagel bonanza was set to begin. By 8:30, the line stretched to two dozen people — arms crossed and earbuds in, scrolling on their phones or craning their necks to see when the windows would open.
Two intrepid staff from Utopia Bagels assembled the sandwiches fresh on Thursday morning for nearly three hours. (New York Jewish Week)
The line quickly took on a life of its own. Every five minutes, it seemed to double, then double again. By 9:25, it was snaking around the block, folding over itself two or three times. The NYPD was called in to help reroute the crowd. People began running to save their spots.
Those who got on line — and yes, according to Paul Brian’s “Common Errors in English Usage,” Americans typically wait in line, while New Yorkers and Bostonians wait on line — early were able to smugly enjoy their bagels and lox on their way to work. Anyone who got there after the food truck close to when it opened officially at 9:00 a.m. risked having to call in late — maybe very late.
“Are you in line for a bagel? Seriously, is it that good?” a passerby shouted at the line.
“Well, it’s free!” came a response just as quickly.
The onlooker simply shrugged and kept walking. “Have a good day, I guess,” she called out behind her shoulder.
The line began to curve around the block before the NYPD helped move the truck and the bagels across the street. (New York Jewish Week)
Donovan, a 51-year-old from Brooklyn, joined the throng after his nearby workout class. “I really don’t want to wait, but it’s free — and free is better than cheap,” he told the New York Jewish Week, adding that he had a Zoom meeting at 11 a.m. and he was worried he wouldn’t make it.
The time was 9:21, and Donovan was near the middle of the line, with some 50-plus people behind him. “Time is money, too, but I wanted to get myself a treat,” he said, adding that he was eager to try Utopia Bagels — considered by many to be among the best, if not the best — bagel in the city. Even with the long wait, this was quite possibly quicker than schlepping to Queens from his Manhattan home.
Near the front of the queue were Eric and Angelica, who live in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, respectively. They’d been on line for 15 minutes and in that time it had grown considerably behind them.
A chalkboard on 42nd and 5th Avenue with a callout that sounded almost too good to be true. (New York Jewish Week)
“We’re questioning if it’s worth it, but now the line is so long we feel like we have to stay,” Angelica said, illustrating what an economist might call the “sunk cost fallacy.” She’d grown up near Utopia Bagels, she said, and loves to get their bagels when she visits her parents. The opportunity to get one on the way to work is rare, she added, so she was willing to wait.
The reward at the end was a freshly made “Super Nova” sandwich, which included Acme nova salmon, cucumbers, tomato, onion, capers and cream cheese on a plain bagel. On a regular day, the sandwich runs $14.25, plus a trip out to Whitestone.
Of course, even if New Yorkers are willing to wait a while for something tasty and free, many will still have an attitude about it — efficiency being the biggest gripe. Toward the very end of the line at about 9:30 was a woman who heard about the giveaway from a colleague and really wanted to nab a bagel. “I’m about to give up,” she said. “I don’t understand why they need to make every bagel [sandwich] fresh. They should have prepared some in advance!”
Pure joy as those on line were handed their free bagel sandwiches. (New York Jewish Week)
By 11:40 a.m. — 400 bagels and 30 pounds of nova later — supplies had run out. But those with time to spare tomorrow morning can grab a freebie at Acme’s “Fish Fridays” at their headquarters at 30 Gem Street in Greenpoint. There, each week, New Yorkers in-the-know line up to get Acme’s iconic smoked fish at wholesale prices. In addition to giving away the Super Nova sandwich, they are offering whitefish salad sandwiches and, in honor of the Super Bowl, specialty Buffalo-glazed hot smoked-salmon sandwiches.
“Just looking at all these people, I feel so much pride in what my great-grandfather and grandfather started, and what my father and brothers and I have continued,” said Emily Caslow, a fourth-generation co-owner of Acme Smoked Fish.
Caslow wasn’t surprised at the length of the line. “New Yorkers are not known for their patience, but they will wait when something is worth it,” she said. “And they always show up for us.”
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The post A bagel and lox giveaway draws a crowd of hundreds in Midtown appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The Yiddishist Yeshiva is open for registration
ס׳האָט זיך לעצטנס געשאַפֿן אַ נײַער סאָרט לייענקרײַז דורך פֿייסבוק, וווּ מע לערנט תּורה אויף ייִדיש צוזאַמען.
אינעם לייענקרײַז, וואָס הייסט „די ייִדישיסטישע ישיבֿה“, לייענט מען חומש מיט רש״י — סײַ אויפֿן אָריגינעלן לשון־קודש סײַ אויף ייִדיש־טײַטש. „די גרופּע איז אָפֿן פֿאַר אַלע מינים מענטשן,“ האָט דערקלערט דער לינגוויסט און ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט לייזער בורקאָ, וועלכער האָט אָרגאַניזירט די גרופּע. „פֿרויען און מענער, ייִדן און נישט־ייִדן, געי און ׳גלײַך׳. נײַע תּלמידים דאַרפֿן פֿאַרשטיין ייִדיש גוט, אָבער זיי דאַרפֿן נישט האָבן קיין תּורהדיקן הינטערגרונט.“
די גרופּע טרעפֿט זיך יעדן דינסטיק דורך פֿייסבוק. נאָך מער פּרטים אָדער כּדי זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן, שטעלט זיך אין קאָנטאַקט מיט בורקאָ, אויפֿן אַדרעס leyzertag@gmail.com אָדער דורך פֿייסבוק.
The post The Yiddishist Yeshiva is open for registration appeared first on The Forward.
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A century-old Jerusalem photo album sparks search for forgotten images of the Western Wall
(JTA) — When David Freedman discovered a long-forgotten photo album in his parents’ Montreal basement last year, he found nearly 100 pages of century-old photographs from his grandfather’s year in British Mandate Palestine, capturing Jerusalem street scenes, market stalls and holy sites.
The photographs were not only century-old and in near-perfect condition, but included figures who would later become central to Jewish medical and political history, among them Israel’s future first president Chaim Weizmann, Jerusalem ophthalmologist Abraham Ticho, malaria researcher Israel Kligler, future British prime minister Winston Churchill and Herbert Samuel, Britain’s first high commissioner for Palestine.
David Freedman said he knew he had “struck gold” when he found the album, which had been untouched for decades. “I realized in disbelief I was looking at extraordinary images of Jerusalem,” he said.
Though Freedman said the album showed his grandfather’s “passion for skillful, impromptu photography,” it was images of a site that epitomizes endurance that are having the broadest impact.
Freedman’s pictures of the Western Wall has inspired a public appeal by the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum, which is asking people to look through old albums and attics for photographs, postcards and other visual material that could help expand the historical record of Judaism’s holiest site.
The request comes ahead of a major exhibition opening in 2027 marking 60 years since the 1967 Six-Day War brought the wall, known in Hebrew as the Kotel, under Jewish control for the first time in nearly two millennia.
Although the Western Wall is now one of the most photographed sites in the world, museum curators say the visual record of earlier decades remains surprisingly fragmented, with many of the most intimate images likely still tucked away in private collections and family albums.
“The Western Wall, the Kotel, in its simplest form, is a structure of ancient stones. Yet its true meaning has never resided in the stones alone — it has been shaped and elevated by the countless individuals who have stood before it over the centuries,” Eilat Lieber, the museum’s director and chief curator, said in a statement.
Next year’s exhibition, titled “Eyes on the Wall” and curated by Shimon Lev and Yael Brandt, will be the first large-scale exhibition dedicated entirely to the Western Wall, the museum said, and will trace its transformation over nearly 2,000 years. It will be one of the major exhibitions staged by the Tower of David Museum since it reopened in 2023 after a $50 million renovation of its ancient citadel complex.
The wall, the exposed section of an ancient retaining wall around the Temple Mount, the site of the biblical Jewish temples, has long been Judaism’s most sacred places of prayer and pilgrimage. From 1948 until the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the Old City and East Jerusalem from Jordan, Jews were barred from going there.
Among its most iconic images was David Rubinger’s photograph of three Israeli paratroopers standing at the wall shortly after its capture, looking upward in a mixture of awe and disbelief. The picture was taken 59 years ago this week.
Abraham Orkin Freedman, a Canadian physician and Zionist activist, took his photographs before the site was so contested. He arrived in Palestine in July 1920, just as Britain was replacing military rule with a civil administration, and stayed until 1922, serving during that period as managing director of Hadassah Hospital. His grandson David, also a doctor, said the album’s timing gives it much of its historical value, with photographs that capture people in the streets, as well as the terrain and buildings of Jerusalem during the nascent years of the British Mandate.
Among the images Freedman uncovered, the one that struck him most was a photograph of women praying side by side with men at the oldest part of the Western Wall, a scene far removed from the gender-separated prayer sections at the site today. The question of mixed-gender prayer at the Wall remains politically charged, with a recent High Court order to advance the egalitarian section followed by Knesset moves to strengthen Chief Rabbinate control over prayer at the site.
After recognizing the album’s significance, Freedman met with his family who decided collectively to give it to the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum for safekeeping, research and public access. Freedman said the family was proud the album had found “a new home, not many meters from where my grandfather once stood.”
Lev said he hoped the appeal would bring more discoveries like Freedman’s into public view, expanding the visual record of the Western Wall beyond official archives.
“There is something profoundly moving in the moment when an intimate private photograph transcends its original purpose and becomes an important historical testimony,” Lev said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post A century-old Jerusalem photo album sparks search for forgotten images of the Western Wall appeared first on The Forward.
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5th man charged in March arson of London’s Hatzola ambulances
(JTA) — Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced Tuesday that an 18-year-old man has been charged in connection with the March arson attack that destroyed four ambulances owned by Hatzola, a Jewish volunteer emergency service.
Subhan Ahmed, a British national, was charged on Monday with “assisting an offender” in connection with the arson.
The ambulances were set ablaze in the early morning of March 23 in Golders Green, a heavily Jewish neighborhood in London. The incident spurred increased patrols in Jewish communities.
The charge is the latest development in an investigation being led by the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit.
Four others have already been charged in connection with the attack.
Three British nationals — 20-year-old Hamza Iqbal, 19-year-old Rehan Khan and 18-year-old Judex Atshatshi — along with a 17-year-old dual British and Pakistani national were all charged in April with “committing arson, destroying or damaging property, and being reckless as to whether life would be endangered.”
The four have remained in custody ahead of a trial planned for January. Ahmed, meanwhile, was released ahead of a June 16 court date.
The ambulance arsons came at the early edge of a wave of incidents that have put London Jews on edge and induced the city’s police force to step up their presence in Jewish communities. The incidents have included multiple incendiary devices placed near synagogues as well as the stabbing in April of two Jewish men in Golders Green. The Metropolitan Police reported last week that antisemitic hate crimes in the capital rose 72% in May.
Following the announcement of Ahmed’s charge, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish organization, thanked the police and the Crown Prosecution Service “for their ongoing work investigating this attack and other arson incidents targeting the Jewish community.”
It added in a statement, “These are very serious allegations, and it is right that those responsible are being held accountable.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post 5th man charged in March arson of London’s Hatzola ambulances appeared first on The Forward.
