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A new exhibit on Jewish delis explores the roots and rise of a uniquely American phenomenon
(New York Jewish Week) — It was a stupendously bad idea to arrive at the press preview for the New-York Historical Society’s new exhibit, “‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli,” on an empty stomach.
The exhibit — which originated at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles and opens in New York on Friday, Nov. 11 — traces the mouthwatering history of the Jewish deli, beginning with the first waves of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These new Americans created a “fusion food born of immigration,” according to the exhibit, adapting Eastern and Central European dishes like pastrami and knishes to meet Jewish dietary needs and serving them all under the same roof.
From there, the exhibit examines how delis evolved and, as Jews left cities for the suburbs in the mid-20th century, how they spread from coast to coast. Relying on a mix of archival materials, informative panels, interactive displays and more, “I’ll Have What She’s Having” seems uniquely designed to make visitors crave a pastrami sandwich.
(Sadly, while a tray of babka and rugelach were laid out for the opening, there is no actual pastrami available on site.)
It’s also, as Louise Mirrer, the president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society said in her opening remarks, “a trip down memory lane” for any native New Yorker.
Most of all, “I’ll Have What She’s Having” establishes the Jewish delicatessen as a uniquely American phenomenon. Writer Lara Rabinovitch, a curator of the exhibit who has a PhD in history and Jewish studies, said there were “important caveats” before she got involved in its creation. “If we’re going to do this exhibition, it cannot be grounded in nostalgia and kitsch,” she told me. “It has to be grounded in research, in archival research, and it has to take the Jewish deli as a part of the American landscape — not as a Jewish niche object of rarified Jewish pleasure.”
The now-shuttered Carnegie Delicatessen in New York in 2008. (Ei Katsumata/Alamy Stock Photo)
“Because, to me, and I fundamentally believe this, the Jewish deli is a part of American culture,” she added. “And it is something that all Americans take part in, in one way or another, whether it’s through pop culture, or through actually going to the Jewish deli, or working in Jewish deli.”
This Americanness is emphasized throughout the exhibit, which includes an area dedicated to Levy’s iconic “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye” ad campaign and explanations of how many delis added a wider array of cuisines to attract more diverse customers. There’s also a focus on the deli in pop culture, which includes costumes from the deli scenes seen on the Amazon Prime hit “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Fascinatingly, one thing the exhibit doesn’t do is define what a deli actually is. “We came up with it as a community, a place where people gather to eat Jewish food of one kind or another, but it’s always changing,” Rabinovich said. “I mean, we all know, in certain capacities, what a Jewish deli is. But it’s sort of like pornography — it doesn’t have a definition, but you know it when you see it.”
Case in point: This version of “I’ll Have What She’s Having” has an area dedicated to dairy restaurants — not something that most people would associate with the classic Jewish deli. (For those who keep kosher, delis and dairy restaurants must be kept as separate as the meat- and milk-based dishes that they serve.)
Other New York-centric details include an area dedicated to “Bagels Over Broadway,” examining the relationship between iconic eateries like the Carnegie Deli and Stage Delicatessen — both closed, alas — and the greater theater community. There’s also an area on delis in the outer boroughs, including Ben’s Best Kosher Delicatessen, which was a popular gathering place for Holocaust survivors in Rego Park, Queens.
Among the compelling artifacts on display are a bottle of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda from 1930s; a meat grinder from the early 20th century for making kishke, salami and the like; and matchbooks from delis of yore.
Particularly notable is historical proof that New Yorkers did, in fact, listen to Katz’s Delicatessen’s famous slogan, “Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army”: On display is a 1944 letter from Italy from Private Benjamin Segan to his fiancée in Manhattan. “I had some tasty Jewish dishes just like home,” he writes, describing how his mother had sent him a, yes, salami.
According to the New-York Historical Society, by the 1930s, there were an estimated 3,000 delis in the city — today, only about a dozen remain. One classic survivor is Katz’s — the setting for the famous “When Harry Met Sally” scene that inspired the title of the exhibit. Third-generation owner Jake Dell told me that “food, tradition-slash-nostalgia, and atmosphere,” are the reasons for his deli’s enduring appeal today.
Among the items on view: a uniform from the 2nd Avenue Deli, left, and costumes from the set of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” (Lisa Keys)
Because, here in New York, especially, there are numerous options for deli delights, from the old-school classics to newer establishments like Frankel’s in Greenpoint. I remarked to Rabinovitch that there is something slightly incongruous about standing beneath the iconic 2nd Avenue Deli sign inside a museum. Here, its Hebraic letters are viewed as an artifact; meanwhile, while it’s no longer at its original Second Avenue location, we could still go there for lunch.
“You don’t have to go that far,” she pointed out. “You can go across the street to Nathan’s hot dog cart. And that is the Jewish deli, also. It’s literally a part of the American landscape. It’s part of the New York landscape. There is a trope, ‘Oh, the deli is dying, you can’t get a pastrami sandwich anywhere.’ We believe the deli is everywhere. It’s just how you think about it.”
As much as I loved this sentiment, I’m not really a street meat kind of person. It was a sunny, unseasonably warm morning, and I had a terrible urge to blow off the rest of the day, head to Katz’s for a pastrami sandwich and spend the afternoon wandering the Lower East Side.
But I had an article to write. So I hopped on a Citi Bike, headed to midtown, and picked up a bagel that I could hold one-handed as I wrote this story.
“‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli” is on view at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, beginning Friday, Nov. 11, 2022 through Sunday, April 2, 2023.
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The post A new exhibit on Jewish delis explores the roots and rise of a uniquely American phenomenon appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The World’s Moral Collapse and Israel’s Light
IsraAID doctor providing primary-care services following Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, 2017. Photo: IsraAid.
Our foundation, Time To Stand Up For Israel, usually focuses on one central mission; defending Israel and her people. But today, silence itself demands confrontation. What we are witnessing is not just bias. It is moral collapse.
For years, Israel has been the preferred target of global outrage. Protesters flood the streets, campuses erupt, flags burn, and Jewish students are harassed, all under the banner of “justice.”
Yet when Israel defends her citizens from Hamas terrorists who use civilians as human shields, the same “humanitarians” cry “genocide.” When Hamas fires rockets from hospitals, Israel is condemned. When Israel warns civilians before a strike, she’s labeled “apartheid.”
Meanwhile, true genocides unfold across Africa — and the world looks away.
The Forgotten Genocide in Sudan
While the anti-Israel mob marches, the people of Sudan are enduring what the US State Department now officially calls genocide.
Since war broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), tens of thousands have been killed. The RSF, descendants of the infamous Janjaweed militias, have unleashed another wave of ethnic cleansing.
Entire villages are wiped out. Non-Arab populations like the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa are slaughtered, starved, and driven into exile. Over 12 million people are displaced; 24 million face acute hunger. The United Nations and Human Rights Watch have confirmed systematic killings, mass rapes, and forced starvation.
Yet … silence.
No protests in London or Paris. No hashtags, no celebrity outrage, no “Free Sudan” campaigns. Because Sudan doesn’t fit neatly into a political narrative. There are no Jews to blame, and no headlines to weaponize.
The West’s Selective Outrage
Let’s be honest: this isn’t ignorance. It’s selective morality.
Those who rage at Israel while ignoring Sudan’s genocide are not defenders of human rights, they are performers of outrage. They cry for Gaza but say nothing for Nigeria’s Christians or Burkina Faso’s villagers, where Islamist militants have turned the region into mass graves.
In Nigeria, terror groups such as Boko Haram and ISWAP murder thousands every year. Up to 7,000 Christians are executed annually, often burned alive for refusing to renounce their faith. According to Open Doors, 70% of all Christians killed for their faith worldwide die in Nigeria.
In Burkina Faso, jihadist militias raid villages, destroy churches, and kill entire congregations.
And the world’s response? Silence. No marches. No petitions. No “Boycott Burkina Faso” movements.
Apparently, African lives don’t trend.
Israel: The Light They Refuse to See
While others stay silent, Israel acts.
Israel, the country accused of “genocide,” has spent decades saving lives across Africa through humanitarian innovation, aid, and technology.
- IsraAID, founded in 2001, operates in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and South Sudan, providing clean water, education, and health care. In Malawi, over 70% of local water leaders trained by IsraAID are women, a quiet revolution in empowerment.
- Innovation Africa, led by Sivan Ya’ari, brings Israeli solar and water technology to over 10 African nations, transforming villages once ravaged by drought into thriving communities.
- Fair Planet introduces high-quality Israeli seeds to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, multiplying harvests fivefold and improving food security.
- MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International Development, has worked in 43 African countries over six decades, training doctors, engineers, and educators — the very essence of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world.
This is Israel’s quiet legacy: while others accuse, she acts.
Light vs. Darkness
The contrast could not be clearer.
Israel, endlessly vilified, sends doctors to Africa, engineers to the desert, and water to drought-stricken communities.
Her enemies send rockets, propaganda, and death.
Israel does not just defend herself, she lifts others. And that, perhaps, is why so many cannot stand her.
The Truth of History
We stand with Israel because she stands with humanity.
When hospitals collapse in Gaza, it’s because Hamas hides weapons beneath them. When hospitals collapse in Sudan, it’s because the world doesn’t care enough to help. There is a difference between a nation defending itself and militias exterminating a people.
The Jewish people know what it means to be hunted, demonized, and abandoned. That is why Israel helps, not because it is popular, but because it is right.
You cannot call yourself “pro-human rights” while demonizing the only democracy in the Middle East that actually saves lives abroad.
You cannot claim to oppose genocide and ignore Sudan.
You cannot claim to love peace while hating Israel.
Because in a world collapsing under moral hypocrisy, Israel remains a light unto the nations and those who curse her are standing on the wrong side of history.
Sabine Sterk is CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.
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CNN’s New Qatar-Based Studio Raises Eyebrows — and Questions
Iran’s then-Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani enter a hall for a joint news conference, in Tehran, Iran, July 6, 2022. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
CNN’s latest series, produced in its new Doha-based studio, is causing quite a stir.
Not only has the first installment of CNN Creators been panned by viewers for its “cringiness” and seeming lack of journalistic depth, but it is also raising questions about the relationship between the American news network and the Qatari state.
As reported by Eliana Johnson and Collin Anderson of The Washington Free Beacon, CNN Creators is the first show to be aired from the network’s new studio, in a media complex located in the Qatari capital and funded by the emirate.
When CNN first announced its move to Media City in February 2025, it told The Free Beacon that Qatar would fund “facilities and technical support” while CNN would maintain editorial control over the content that is produced there. The network also clarified that any sponsored content would be labeled as such.
At the time, these claims appeared naive, if not downright laughable. Qatar has strict rules concerning what can and cannot be broadcast in its country. In particular, there is a heavy restriction on the airing of criticism of the government or publishing items that the state deems “harmful.”
Due to its repressive nature, Freedom House’s 2025 profile gave Qatar a “1 out of 4” rating for media independence, which contributed to it being designated as “not free” and at the lower end of Freedom House’s rankings (below Iraq and Pakistan, and just above Haiti and Djibouti).
Even during the 2022 soccer World Cup, Qatar placed various restrictions on foreign journalists covering the event from inside the emirate. One can only imagine the editorial restrictions that would be placed on foreign journalists who open up a permanent bureau there.
Meet CNN Creators, the completely, totally, absolutely not sponsored in any way new show from a “team of digital-native storytellers as they navigate the stories that matter most.”
— Eliana Johnson (@elianayjohnson) October 29, 2025
Now that the first episode of CNN’s Qatar-based broadcast has aired, it appears that qualms about the legendary American network basing itself in a repressive state like Qatar were well-justified.
Its flagship program, CNN Creators, focuses on four relatively unknown, young, and hip CNN journalists marveling at all that the Qatari capital has to offer in such overt displays of fawning that it would make Walter Duranty blush.
Is this journalism or a Qatari tourism advertisement for the TikTok generation?
Of course the Qatari-funded, Doha-based CNN office is producing sycophantic content like this.
There is no free media in Qatar. https://t.co/2uP4so93RP pic.twitter.com/HcGy0x5XlV
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 29, 2025
Aside from its “infantilizing” content, CNN’s Doha studio broadcast raises several key questions for the network and Western journalism at large:
- Can CNN truly maintain editorial independence while broadcasting content from a repressive state like Qatar?
- Will CNN’s Doha-based coverage only show a positive side of Qatar, or will it also deal with the dark side of the emirate, such as modern-day slavery and support for terror groups like Hamas?
- Will the existence of the Doha studio influence CNN’s programming outside of Qatar? Will coverage of Israel, Saudi Arabia, or any other topic in which it has an interest promote a Qatar-friendly narrative?
- CNN appears to be the first major Western outlet to set itself up in the government-sponsored Media City. Will other American and Western news organizations follow?
These are all important questions that must be reckoned with by those who support independent journalism.
With Qatar continually extending its influence in the United States and around the world, can we continue to trust CNN and other potential media partners of Qatar to publish independent content, or will they become watered-down versions of state propaganda outlets like Al Jazeera and Russia Today?
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Israel’s Oscar entry is, once again, about Palestinians
The distance between the Mediterranean Sea and Ramallah is less than 40 linear miles. For a Palestinian in the West Bank to get there is anything but straightforward.
In Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s film The Sea, 12-year-old Khaled (Muhammad Gazawi) is going on a school trip to the beach. His hurried morning, typical of an adolescent, begins with his grandmother insisting he eat breakfast and his younger brother begging to tag along when his friends arrive. On the coach bus, kids are on their feet, teasing, flirting, tossing inflatable balls to dance music.
And then they reach the checkpoint.
The bus quiets, a soldier with a machine gun steps on. Khaled doesn’t have a permit. He can’t join his classmates; a relative collects him and brings him home.
From here, Carmeli-Pollak, whose film swept the Ophirs and in so doing caused Israel’s culture minister to threaten to defund the awards, is a study of the humiliations heaped on Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank. Clashes with the IDF are so commonplace that Khaled’s relatives laugh at video of his uncle choking on a smoke grenade.
Khaled is determined to get to the sea, sneaking into Israel by nightfall through a tunnel with laborers who don’t have permits. His single father, Ribni (Khalifa Natour), also working without a permit on a construction project, leaves to find him. One of his colleagues offers him a kippah —“I wear one when I go out, so they think I’m Jewish,” he says.
The film is Israel’s official entry for the 2026 Oscars, but Israelis play bit parts. The Jewish ones are managers, police, soldiers (including one guy strapped up with a massive rifle and a backpack pin that says “vegan”).
Khaled is particularly vulnerable among them, not knowing any Hebrew. His father doesn’t alert the authorities in Ramallah of his son’s disappearance, knowing they’ll contact their Israeli counterparts. Relying on the kindness of strangers — mostly Israeli Arabs — Khaled is able to take the bus and find his way from Bnei Brak to Tel Aviv.
I won’t ruin how Khaled’s journey ends, except to say it’s not quite the beach scene at the end of The 400 Blows.
It’s hard to watch this film and not recall the September letter signed by filmmakers vowing to boycott “Israeli film institutions,” and how this work may fit into their calculus. Unequivocally critical of the occupation, it is nonetheless made, as most every film in Israel is, with the support of the Israeli Film Council. That the minister of culture now objects to the film’s win doesn’t take away its stamp on the opening credits.
The fact that The Sea was made with a joint crew of Israelis and Palestinians may do little to satisfy some. No Other Land, last year’s Oscar winner for documentary, was denounced by the BDS movement for “normalization.”
While I have yet to hear rumors of a boycott for Carmeli-Pollak’s film, festivals, most notably the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam, have barred state-backed Israeli films from its slate. In doing so, it risks silencing the voices of many of Israel’s strongest critics, who castigate their country from within.
The Sea is the kind of film that might show why the boycott tactic is shortsighted, and, in the end, detrimental to the Palestinian cause. The drama deserves to be seen even as we, as ever, need more Palestinian stories from Palestinian writer-directors. In this story, made to move Israelis — and those not already aware of what the occupation entails — the Israeli perspective allows not just for access and resources, but an insight into how Jewish citizens react, or fail to act, in the face of injustice.
At one moment toward the end of the film, an Israeli policeman make a humiliating arrest of two Palestinians. People at a nearby cafe observe and, after a beat, a waitress arrives with someone’s hot cappuccino, and the patrons resume their day.
Carmeli-Pollack has no doubt lived this moment, watching his countrypeople carry on. Many in Ramallah never got past the separation wall to witness it.
Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s The Sea debuts at the Other Israel Film Festival on Nov. 7. Tickets and more information can be found here.
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