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A new photo book celebrates the very Jewish cafeteria culture of a vanished New York
(New York Jewish Week) – Back in 1975, Marcia Bricker Halperin had just graduated from Brooklyn College with the dream of becoming a professional photographer when she stepped into the Flatbush outpost of Dubrow’s, a cafeteria-style restaurant, for a warm cup of coffee.
It was there that inspiration hit. “I was wonderstruck,” Halperin writes in the introduction to her new book of photographs, “Kibbitz & Nosh: When We All Met at Dubrow’s Cafeteria,” describing the “cavernous” space with mirrored walls and a mosaic fountain. “It was the most idiosyncratic room I had ever seen.”
“I sensed it was a vanishing world on its last legs, and that impelled me to document it,” she continues. “On many visits, the tables were empty, sans a painterly still life of condiment bottles and jars in the morning light. I also perceived cafeterias as places that embodied a secular Jewish culture, something that was of great interest to me.”
“I attended a lecture by Isaac Bashevis Singer, who was billed as an “Outstanding Anglo -Yiddish” author, at the Brooklyn Jewish Center on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights,” Bricker Halperin writes in the introduction. “I adored his short stories, many of which were set in cafeterias, and I regret never finding the nerve that day to tell him about my own cafeterianiks.” (Marcia Bricker Halperin)
Halperin was prescient: She started photographing these once-ubiquitous eateries one decade before the final Dubrow’s location in the Garment District would close in 1985. The chain’s first location was founded in 1929 on the Lower East Side by Benjamin Dubrow, a Jewish immigrant from Minsk. By the mid-twentieth century, the family-owned company expanded throughout Brooklyn, Manhattan and Miami Beach, with ownership passing to the second generation, and then to the third. In Dubrow’s prime, a stop at one of the cafeterias was practically required for politicians such as John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.
Nearly 50 years after her first visit, Halperin’s new book is a tribute to this now-defunct New York City cafeteria culture and the characters she met during the five years she regularly photographed there. The compelling 152-page book features her original black-and-white photos along with essays from Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Donald Margulies and Jewish American historian Deborah Dash Moore.
“Although Jews were not the only ones to patronize cafeterias, they preferred them as inexpensive places to hang out to bars, which often attracted an Irish immigrant or working-class clientele,” Moore writes in her essay, titled “See You at Dubrow’s.” “By the 1930s, cafeterias were part of the fabric of Jewish neighborhood life in New York City, a welcome alternative for socializing to cramped apartments, street corners, or candy stores.”
Now living in Park Slope and retired from a career as a special education teacher, Halperin talked with the New York Jewish Week about the city’s lost cafeteria culture and what inspired her to capture it with her camera.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
New York Jewish Week: You took these photos nearly 50 years ago. What made you decide to publish them now?
Marcia Bricker Halperin: In the 1970s, there was such good feedback on the work. I was given a show, I was collected by a few people, I had a photo in The New York Times. People wrote me letters in the mail: “Ms. Bricker, I’m interested in buying one of your photos.” At the time, I was in a project called the CETA artists project, a federally funded arts project in the ’70s where I was paid to be a photographer. It was very much like the [Depression-era] WPA project, but one of the great differences with the CETA project was anything you shot, you owned.
So I continued photographing changing New York during those years — some of it by assignment for nonprofit organizations that I worked with, like the Jewish Museum and an organization in Brighton Beach that was resettling the Soviet Jews that were arriving in the ’70s. They wanted photographs to help both the Soviet Jews understand American life and the old Jewish population in Brighton Beach understand Russian life. What a great opportunity!
I was going to be an artist and I did adjunct teaching and different things to make it work. I kind of fell into teaching high school photography and then, from there, I fell into teaching special education — that took over. Thirty-five years later, I retired from teaching. The day after I retired, I took out my negatives and my photography stuff and bought a scanner and all kinds of printers and things.
So, I was a photographer once upon a time and then taught for many years and, overnight, I became one once again.
A man reads the Forvertz newspaper in Yiddish. (Marcia Bricker Halperin)
How did it feel to see these photos again? Had you developed any of them before?
Yes, I printed quite a few of them then. I worked as a darkroom lab technician, so I had an opportunity in the ’70s to do a lot of silver gelatin prints. I would bring in a thick envelope of the imperfect prints to the cafeteria and at that point, everybody knew me. I gave out portraits to people. If I hadn’t shot them, they would gather around me asking: “Do you have my picture? Did you print it?” Especially the staff — there was a very international cohort of people working there and they all wanted pictures to send home to their families.
After that, the pictures lay fallow for all these years. I protected them and stored them very carefully. When I had the opportunity to come back and put together a sample book, I started looking through the negatives and I said, “Oh, my God, I don’t remember that picture.” It was a time warp to see some of these photos taken in the 1970s. In Manhattan, the ’60s had happened, but Flatbush in Brooklyn was the “Old Country.” It hung onto the past for a while and some women dressed like they were still in the 1950s.
Dubrow’s Cafeteria, Kings’s Highway 1975. The photographer appears in the top left corner. (Marcia Bricker Halperin)
Dubrow’s closed just ten years after you started shooting there. Could you feel at the time that cafeteria culture was ending?
I kept a journal at the time. When I went back 42 years later to look at it, I had written: “One day I’m going to show up here and this is going to be closed.”
There were other cafeterias in Manhattan and the Bronx and they had all closed. I’ve collected like every article ever written about cafeterias, and there’s one from 1973: “Are cafeterias going to be gone?” So it was fairly well known that this was a vanishing kind of establishment in New York. The automats ceased having the little boxes, Burger King bought them out, they tried to modernize and it got pretty sad. Sometimes during the day, the huge cafeteria would be empty and people would say, “This business can’t survive.” So I knew I was photographing in the vein of needing to document the things that are there and will be gone. It was one of the things that propelled me to get out there and photograph.
Today, things are different. There’s food courts and wonderful little coffee places. There are many businesses, especially here in Brooklyn, trying to perpetuate “grandmother foods” and there are restaurants that are serving “reinvented Jewish-style foods.” So there are some continuations, but in terms of the huge, opulent cafeteria spaces — grand professional murals, intricate woodworking, food with a crazy amount of preparation, 300 items, 30 different cakes — no restaurant could possibly survive like that. The only thing that still exists are my photos of them.
Men and women converse around empty tables at Dubrow’s on Kings Highway. (Marcia Bricker Halperin)
What was the Jewish culture of Dubrow’s and Flatbush like at the time?
Growing up, we went to a little old “Conservadox” synagogue. We were the kind of family where my mother kept a kosher kitchen at home, but on Sunday nights we’d go out to the Chinese restaurant. Dubrow’s menu was “Jewish-style” but it was also a place you could go out and have your first shrimp salad sandwich, which became their most popular food. They were famous for shrimp salad!
These cafeterias were all started by Jewish immigrants. But they were democratic for everyone — there was ham on the menu, shrimp. You could choose whether to have just meat or have a meat meal and then have a cream pie for dessert. That was your choice. With cafeteria-style, like religion, you pick and choose what you want and what you want to observe.
When I would go there, all the older people would ask: “Are you Jewish? You don’t look Jewish.” I’d say,“I’m Jewish. I know a few words of Yiddish, my parents speak Yiddish at home.” They would be satisfied with that. There was this sense that it was a club a little bit, it was a Jewish establishment. Not that everybody wasn’t welcome, and everybody socialized with everyone else.
Socializing was a big thing there, not necessarily eating. Many of my pictures are people sitting around — sometimes it’s a coffee cup on the table, most of the time the table is empty. They were there to meet their friends and talk. Some people said it replaced the synagogues. The old men would go to Dubrow’s and have a cup of coffee with their friends in the morning and gossip and talk.
“Kibbitz & Nosh: When We All Met at Dubrow’s Cafeteria” will be published on May 15, 2023. The photos are on exhibit at the Edward Hopper House in Nyack, New York through June 25.
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Thomas Massie calls for USS Liberty probe, elevating anti-Israel conspiracy theory to House floor
(JTA) — Republican Rep. Thomas Massie took to the House floor Monday to call for an investigation into Israel’s 1967 attack on an American spy ship, giving new prominence to a decades-old conspiracy theory that has become a touchstone for critics of Israel.
“It’s my great honor, maybe one of the biggest honors of my lifetime, to stand here on the floor and do something that’s 59 years overdue, to recognize the survivors and those who gave their lives on the USS Liberty,” Massie said. “Fifty-nine years ago today when they were viciously attacked by IDF jets and also after that by torpedo boats.”
The attack on the USS Liberty occurred on June 8, 1967, in the midst of Israel’s Six-Day War. The intelligence-gathering ship was stationed off the shore of the Sinai Peninsula during the conflict when it came under attack by Israeli forces, killing 34 crew members and injuring 171 more.
Israel later apologized for the attack, explaining it had mistaken the boat as Egyptian, and paid damages to the United States and the families of the victims. Multiple U.S. investigations, including by the CIA, have since determined that the attack was a mistake.
Still, the incident has become a rallying point for critics of Israel who claim the attack was deliberate and gained more adherents lately as anti-Israel sentiment has swelled. On Friday, Massie cited a host of U.S. military and intelligence officials he said had cast doubt on the outcomes of the U.S. investigations.
“None of these distinguished men think this was an accident,” Massie continued. “They think it was intentional murder by the country of Israel, either as a false flag operation or because they simply didn’t want anybody observing what they were doing that day.”
Massie, who will be departing Congress next year after losing his primary in Kentucky, used the anniversary of the incident to call for Congress to pass a resolution honoring the victims of the attack and for a new investigation into the circumstances surrounding it.
The USS Liberty Veterans Association praised Massie’s remarks in a post on X, writing that it was a story that “NO other member of Congress will even listen to.”
Massie is far from the only critic of Israel to use the attack as broader evidence of Israeli misconduct.
Last year, the far-right influencer Candace Owens interviewed a survivor of the attack and tweeted that there was “perhaps no story that can more enlighten you to the deceitful and despicable nature of the modern state of Israel — and its stranglehold on the American government.”
Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback has called for the attack to be taught in schools, and the antisemitic streamer Nick Fuentes has claimed that Israel initiated the attack to “conceal their troop movements.”
During his speech at Amfest in December, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who devoted part of his podcast last year to elevating the conspiracy theory that the attack was a false flag operation on the part of Israel, told attendees that asking “why a foreign government tried to sink one of our ships in 1967” does not “make you an antisemite.”
Oren Segal, the ADL’s vice president of counterextremism and intelligence, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that his organization had been concerned about the “normalization” of Carlson’s views, including his rhetoric on the USS Liberty attack.
“No one’s been a bigger boon to the USS Liberty conspiracy of late than Tucker Carlson,” Segal said.
Following Carlson’s remarks at Amfest, the annual conference of the right-wing group Turning Point USA’s, the ADL denounced conspiracy theories about the attack that it said had swirled for decades.
“Despite official findings that the attack was a tragic case of mistaken identity, these narratives continue to be amplified by actors seeking to inflame distrust and undermine U.S.-Israel relations,” the ADL said in a post on X.
At the conference, the Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro was also asked about the attack by an audience member, and responded that “the vast majority of people who bring this up are doing so to suggest that Israel deliberately attacked an American ship because Israel deliberately wants to harm America.”
Some of Massie’s fellow critics of Israel praised him for bringing up the incident on the floor of Congress on Monday.
“Thank you Thomas Massie for recognizing the heroic members of the USS Liberty, which was attacked by Israel, where 34 crew members were killed and 174 were wounded,” tweeted Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former member of Congress. “Why did our ‘greatest ally’ attack us??”
Other right-wing figures, including at least one member of Congress, criticized Massie’s gambit.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas tweeted that he had previously believed that Massie was “standing on heartfelt principles and had intellectual backing” even as they did not always agree.
“But comments like this make me question his authenticity,” Crenshaw wrote. “The USS Liberty incident is a tragic one, but it’s an incident with a clear conclusion if one uses any objective analysis of the facts. … Perhaps we are simply witnessing another example of the irresistible incentive to jump on the bandwagon of grifters that guarantee you a specific kind of social media audience and attention that ultimately results in profits.”
Adam Mossoff, a former legal fellow of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, took aim at Massie’s address in a post on X, writing that the Kentucky Republican had “fully gone down the rabbit hole of antsemitism and Jewish conspiracy theories — via the modern American antisemite’s favorite boogeyman, Israel.”
“For the American woke left and woke right, the USS Liberty is the equivalent of the Dreyfuss Affair in France,” Mossoff wrote. “It’s the cause celebres of nationalism and bigotry in which history’s greatest villains — the Jews — can be smeared again with nefarious and evil motives.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Thomas Massie calls for USS Liberty probe, elevating anti-Israel conspiracy theory to House floor appeared first on The Forward.
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Tribeca Festival denounces pro-Israel celebrities’ red-carpet jokes about Israeli dog rape allegations
(JTA) — The Tribeca Festival has denounced jokes alluding to allegations of rape against Israeli prison guards made on the red carpet by the comedian and actor Elon Gold and pro-Israel influencer Lizzy Savetsky.
The two Jewish figures made the jokes at the world premiere of Gold’s new film “The Wedding Entertainer (The Tale of Moishe Badhan)” on Thursday, and Savetsky included them in a highlights reel that she posted to Instagram on Friday.
In the reel, Gold notes that it’s significant that the Tribeca Festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, included a movie that was made in Israel. The implication was that at a time of surging anti-Israel sentiment, he would not have expected films with an Israeli connection to be admitted.
Then he joked about his time in Israel: “I was only raped by two Israeli dogs.”
Savetsky responded, “I thought they only raped Palestinians.”
“No,” Gold answered, laughing. “I got also a dog.”
The pair were alluding to allegations of sexual abuse by Israeli prison guards against Palestinian prisoners that The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof surfaced in an opinion column last month. One of the most sensational claims, which Israel rejected along with all the others, was that Israeli prison guards use dogs to rape prisoners.
After the comments drew criticism online, the Tribeca Festival said in a statement Saturday that it “unequivocally condemns the offensive and unacceptable remarks” made by Savetsky and Gold.
“Sexual violence and human suffering should never be mocked or minimized,” the festival said. “The comments do not reflect the Tribeca Festival’s values, and we regret the hurt and offense they have caused. We have not been able to reach the filmmakers.”
Pro-Israel activists have condemned the column, Kristof and the newspaper for airing the allegations against Israel, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to sue the newspaper over the claims.
In an Instagram video response to a New York Times reporter asking for comment over email, Savetsky compared the allegations made in Kristof’s column to an antisemitic blood libel.
In a comment to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Savetsky denied that the jokes she made on the red carpet were “about rape” as the festival alleged.
“It was a joke mocking the NYT story with a horrific blood libel,” she said in a message to JTA. “Any other interpretation is ridiculous and a deflection from the actual issue here which is irresponsible journalism meant to villainize Zionists. Comedy and the arts have always been used to address real issues—the issue here should not be dog rape, which is biologically impossible, it should be the blood libel spread by the NYT.”
She added, “I stand by it with no regrets. The outrage only exposes how the press and those poisoned by anti-Israel propaganda will twist anything to blame the Jews … even when it means justifying a story with zero evidence about something biologically impossible.”
Gold, who also served as executive producer on the film, did not respond to JTA’s request for comment.
“The Wedding Entertainer (The Tale of Moishe Badhan)” is an Israeli comedy about a Hasidic ex-comedian who re-enters the comedy world after a battle with addiction to earn enough money to marry off his daughter.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Tribeca Festival denounces pro-Israel celebrities’ red-carpet jokes about Israeli dog rape allegations appeared first on The Forward.
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‘This is sort of their normal’: Israelis confront yet another wartime flare after Iranian fire
(JTA) — TEL AVIV — As missiles flew toward Israel on Sunday night, beleaguered Israelis once again took to Facebook from their safe rooms.
“Whoever is in charge of naming wars over here, please do not give it a fierce animal name this time,” one Israeli wrote in an English-language group. “The last military operation was called ‘Roaring Lion,’ and the Twelve Day War in June 2025, ‘Rising Lion.’”
Another replied with a suggestion: “I hope it’s something like ‘The One Day War.’”
The idea may not have been far off. U.S. President Donald Trump said early Monday that he hoped both Iran and Israel would halt their fire. By mid-morning, Iran’s military announced the strikes were on pause, saying it had sufficiently retaliated for the Israeli strikes in Beirut, a tit-for-tat exchange. By Monday evening Israel time, Netanyahu, too, said the fighting was halted, but warned that Israel would respond “with force” to any future attacks.
Despite the tenuous pause — not quite a ceasefire — Home Front Command restrictions remained in place by Monday evening, touching every layer of daily life in Israel. Schools were closed through at least Wednesday. Or Erez, head spokesperson for Clalit, Israel’s largest health care network, told JTA, “We will continue to remain operating in shelters until the Home Front Command restrictions change.”
By 10 p.m. Sunday, NICU infants and those in critical care were already being moved to bunkers beneath Beilinson hospital, home to the largest emergency room in the Middle East.
“This is the third time within a year that we have carried out such a transition,” said Dr. Erez Barenboim, director of Beilinson and Hasharon Hospitals.
Hospital staff were visibly fatigued but resilient. Soroka University Medical Center was struck by an Iranian ballistic missile during the June 2025 conflict, and as is standard during attacks, health care staff canceled non-essential visits and moved operations to shelters.
Alexi Wirpel, a student at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, was on a Birthright trip in the Galilee when the first sirens rang out. “We could hear the dome working, so we knew we were going to be relatively okay,” she said.
It was not Wirpel’s first trip to Israel, but it was her first time hearing sirens signaling incoming missiles. Others on the Birthright trip were more anxious and had to be consoled by staff, she said.
When word came of a tenuous pause, Wirpel said, she and others didn’t believe it would last long.
“All day today we’ve all kind of been just waiting for something to go off again,” she said. “It’s become a very real reality that this is something that my family has to go through instead of just hearing about it.”
Caroline Flannery manages an after-school program at a Tel Aviv middle school and has watched the cumulative toll of two and a half years of conflict reshape an entire generation of Israeli children. Added to the time lost during the pandemic, students in those grades have missed the equivalent of a year of school.
“We have kids in fifth and sixth grade that still don’t know the alphabet,” Flannery said.
Israel’s education system has been among the hardest hit since Oct. 7. Leaked results of a government aptitude test found that only 3% of Israeli ninth graders met the national benchmark for science, and just 22% met the benchmark for English, figures that prompted opposition leaders to call for a declaration of a “national educational emergency.”
The disruption extends to staff, who are just as rattled as students when a siren sounds and a week of lesson plans is suddenly worthless.
Flannery moved to Israel in 2019 and hadn’t planned to stay, but the impact she could make on Israeli children convinced her to commit to another year, and then another, until she was running the after-school program herself.
The conclusion she has come to in the wake of Oct. 7 is that many of her students, faced with constant disruption, will never fully catch up.
“It’s not just that they miss school, so now they have to work extra hard and catch up,” she said. “Their whole routine was disrupted and they come back. They’re not ready, not used to, not prepared to sit, to come into class, to sit in their seats, to learn. Their minds aren’t there.”
With Trump pressing Israel and Iran to return to the negotiating table, Flannery discussed contingency plans already on the table — such as Zoom classes, home visits — should the war return to its March tempo.
“This,” she said, “is sort of their normal.”
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