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Breads Bakery employees unionize, call for end to Jewish Israeli owners’ ‘support for the genocide in Gaza’
(New York Jewish Week) — Employees at New York City’s biggest Israeli bakery chain are seeking to form a union — and one of their top demands is “an end to this company’s support of the genocide happening in Palestine.”
As an example, they cited Breads Bakery’s participation in last year’s Great Nosh, a citywide festival of Jewish food held on Governor’s Island.
“The workers refuse to participate in Zionist projects such as fundraisers that support the ‘Israeli’ occupation of Palestine, baking cookies with the ‘Israeli’ flag, and catering events such as the Great Nosh, which are connected to organizations that donate millions each year to the IDF,” the union, which is calling itself Breaking Breads, said in a statement issued Tuesday.
The employees at Breads, a spinoff of a Tel Aviv bakery with six outposts in New York City, have teamed up with the United Auto Workers to form their union. They are alleging poor working conditions, low and unfair pay and a lack of “respect” from management.
But they also are calling on the bakery’s operators, CEO Yonatan Floman and founder Gadi Peleg, to end Breads’ ties to Israel. Both men are themselves Israeli, and Breads’ menu features items from across the Jewish diaspora that are popular in Israel, such as rugelach, challah, bourekas and its award-winning babka.
“We cannot and will not ignore the implicit and explicit support this bakery has for Israel,” Breaking Breads posted on Instagram on Jan. 1 in a statement that appeared in English, Spanish, Arabic and French. It said it had announced itself to Breads’ management days earlier.
“We see our struggles for fair pay, respect, and safety as connected to struggles against genocide and forces of exploitation around the world,” the statement continued. “There are deep cultural changes that need to happen here, and we need to see accountability from upper management.”
To form a union under federal law, at least 30% of workers must sign on. Now, if the bakery does not agree to voluntarily recognize the union, Breaking Breads can petition the National Labor Relations Board for an election to be legally recognized. It’s rare for unions to announce themselves at the threshold, as Breaking Breads did, more often waiting until at least twice as many workers join in as a show of strength and a safeguard against challenges.
A representative from Breads Bakery did not respond to a request for comment.
Breaking Breads declined to speak further with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and referred back to the press release.
Breads is not the first employer to face worker demands related to support for Israel. In November 2023, about a month after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, five employees at New York’s Café Aronne quit after learning of the owner’s public support for Israel; volunteers stepped up to help run the café.
In 2024, employees at a Detroit bagel shop either quit or were fired following a dustup with management when their concerns about work conditions merged with their criticism of Israel. Earlier this year, workers at Alamo Drafthouse, a movie theater chain, petitioned their employer not to show the film “September 5,” calling it “Zionist propaganda.”
And in Philadelphia, workers were among those who protested after the celebrity chef Mike Solomonov’s restaurant group, CookNSolo, donated to United Hatzalah, an Israeli rescue service, soon after Oct. 7.
Breads, too, staged an emergency fundraiser to benefit Israel shortly after Oct. 7. The bakery worked with the Israeli food influencer (and now bakery owner himself) Ben Siman-Tov to create heart-shaped challahs that sold for $36 to benefit Magen David Adom, Israel’s national organization responsible for emergency pre-hospital medical care and blood services. The bakery raised more than $20,000 amid a stronger-than-anticipated response.
Peleg and Floman also donated Breads’ signature black-and-white cookies to a bake sale fundraiser that raised $27,000 for Israeli food relief efforts in the wake of Hamas’ attack.
“What happened in Israel was an act of pure evil,” Peleg said at the time. “What we are doing is an act of pure good.”
Such fundraisers would be prohibited if the union succeeds in being recognized and negotiates a contract reflecting its demands. So, too, would the ability of customers to order Israeli flags on custom products, which Breads produces for private events.
Breaking Breads is explicitly positioning itself in the context of Jewish baking labor history. In its statement, it says it is the largest New York City craft bakery union since the 1920s, when Bagel Bakers Local 338 had roughly 300 craftsmen across the city. In the 1960s, Local 338 was nicknamed the “bagel mafia” after it prevented the Italian mob from entering the industry.
Breads Bakery employs 275 workers overall. In its statement announcing itself, Breaking Breads alleges a host of offenses, including deference to violent customers, failure to follow regular schedules for workers, and telling workers that they cannot speak Arabic in the cafes.
For some Jewish Breads fans, the union’s objections to expressions of support for Israel were surprising.
“I think it’s ridiculous to work for a Jewish-slash-Israeli-owned company and then be appalled by their policies and affiliations,” said Morgan Raum, a Jewish food influencer who has promoted Breads in the past.
Raum said the union’s boycott of events like The Great Nosh, for which she sat on the host committee, was especially galling.
The event on Governor’s Island last June drew 2,000 people and had a waitlist of another 2,000. It was not billed as a fundraiser for Israeli organizations, or as an Israeli food event — but some of its supporters and vendors are Israeli, and have fundraised for Israeli causes, such as supporting border communities after Oct. 7, providing trauma care, or providing rehabilitation and civilian reintegration services for injured Israeli soldiers.
Jewish Food Society, the Great Nosh’s lead organizer, did not respond to a request for comment on the Breads unionization effort. UJA-Federation of New York, which gave $500,000 to the event and also raised $800 million for Israel after Oct. 7, also declined to comment.
“I think it’s antisemitic to target the Great Nosh,” Raum said. “Tons of organizations and events are connected to organizations that donate or are affiliated with or support Israel. So it would be extremely hard to navigate anything, any event, any world in which you’re not doing so.”
The post Breads Bakery employees unionize, call for end to Jewish Israeli owners’ ‘support for the genocide in Gaza’ appeared first on The Forward.
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US Officials Tell i24NEWS Israeli Concerns About Gaza Board of Peace Are ‘Unfounded’
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland (not pictured) during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
i24 News – Amid the criticism in Israel over the composition of the “Board of Peace” and the bodies set to govern the Gaza Strip, as well as concerns that Hamas could continue to threaten Israel under the new plan, officials in Washington suggest these concerns are unfounded, i24NEWS understands.
A Senior US official tells i24NEWS: “Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt were instrumental in achieving the ceasefire, securing the return of the living hostages, and bringing back the deceased. They have co-signed commitments that Hamas will follow through on its part of the plan, and the Board of Peace will work with them to ensure compliance.”
The underlying message is clear: President Trump will make the calls, and the US will ensure full implementation of all objectives of the plan, first and foremost the demilitarization of Gaza, regardless of the positions or hostile statements towards Israel coming from Turkey and Qatar.
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One Person Killed, 14 Hurt in Blast in Iranian Port of Bandar Abbas, Iranian Media Reports
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Iranian shores and Port of Bandar Abbas in the strait of Hormuz, December 10, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
At least one person was killed and 14 injured in an explosion in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, a local official told Iranian news agencies, but the cause of the blast was not known.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said that social media reports alleging that a Revolutionary Guard navy commander had been targeted in the explosion were “completely false.”
Iranian media said the blast was under investigation but provided no further information. Iranian authorities could not immediately be contacted for comment.
Separately, four people were killed after a gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to state-run Tehran Times. No further information was immediately available.
Two Israeli officials told Reuters that Israel was not involved in Saturday’s blasts, which come amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests and over the country’s nuclear program.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US President Donald Trump said on January 22 an “armada” was heading toward Iran. Multiple sources said on Friday that Trump was weighing options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused US, Israeli and European leaders of exploiting Iran’s economic problems, inciting unrest and providing people with the means to “tear the nation apart.”
Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s most important container port, lies on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman which handles about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.
The port suffered a major explosion last April that killed dozens and injured over 1,000 people. An investigative committee at the time blamed the blast on shortcomings in adherence to principles of civil defense and security.
Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests that erupted in December over economic hardship and have posed one of the toughest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers.
At least 5,000 people were killed in the protests, including 500 members of the security forces, an Iranian official told Reuters.
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How a law used to protect synagogues is now being deployed against ICE protesters and journalists
After a pro-Palestinian protest at a New Jersey synagogue turned violent in October, the Trump administration took an unusual step — using a federal law typically aimed at protecting abortion clinics to sue the demonstrators.
Now, federal authorities are attempting to deploy the same law against journalists as well as protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the agency’s at times violent crackdown in Minneapolis.
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon, a local journalist, and two protesters were arrested after attending a Jan. 18 anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, Justice Department officials said Friday. Protesters alleged the pastor at Cities Church worked for ICE.
The federal law they are accused of violating, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE, prohibits the use of force or intimidation to interfere with reproductive health care clinics and houses of worship.
But in the three decades since its passage in 1994, the law had almost entirely been deployed against anti-abortion protesters causing disruptions at clinics.
That changed in September of last year, when the Trump administration cited the FACE Act to sue pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, New Jersey.
It was the first time the Department of Justice had used the law against demonstrators outside a house of worship, Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said at the time.
The novel legal strategy — initially advanced by Jewish advocacy groups to fight antisemitism — is now front and center in what First Amendment advocates are describing as an attack on freedom of the press.
“I intend to identify and find every single person in that mob that interrupted that church service in that house of God and bring them to justice,” Dhillon told Newsmax last week. “And that includes so-called ‘journalists.’”
How the law has been used
The FACE Act has traditionally been used to prosecute protesters who interfere with patients entering abortion clinics. Conservative activists have long criticized the law as violating demonstrators’ First Amendment rights, and the Trump administration even issued a memo earlier this month saying the Justice Department should limit enforcement of the law.
But in September, the Trump administration applied the FACE Act in a new way: suing the New Jersey protesters at Congregation Ohr Torah.
They had disrupted an event at the Orthodox shul that promoted real estate sales in Israel and the West Bank, blowing plastic horns in people’s ears and chanting “globalize the intifada,” a complaint alleges.
Two pro-Israel demonstrators were charged by local law enforcement with aggravated assault, including a local dentist, Moshe Glick, who police said bashed a protester in the head with a metal flashlight, sending him to the hospital. Glick said he had acted in self defense, protecting a fellow congregant who had been tackled by a protester.
The event soon became a national flashpoint, with Glick’s lawyer alleging the prosecution had been “an attempt to criminalize Jewish self-defense.” Former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy pardoned Glick earlier this month.
The Trump administration sued the pro-Palestinian protesters under the FACE Act, seeking to ban them from protesting outside houses of worship and asking that they each pay thousands of dollars in fines.
At the time, Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, told JNS he applauded the Trump administration “for bringing this suit to protect the Jewish community and all people of faith, who have the constitutional right to worship without fear of harassment.”
Diament did not respond to the Forward’s email asking whether he supported the use of the FACE Act against the Minneapolis journalists and protesters.
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, a pro-Israel group that says it uses legal tools to counter antisemitism, did not express concern over the use of the FACE Act in the Minnesota arrests — and emphasized the necessity of protecting religious spaces from interference.
“The idea that ‘you can worship’ means nothing if a mob can make it unsafe or impossible,” Goldfeder wrote in a statement to the Forward. “So if you apply it consistently: to protect a church in Minnesota, a synagogue in New Jersey, a mosque in Detroit, what you are actually protecting is pluralism itself.”
Goldfeder has also attempted to use the FACE Act against protesters at a synagogue, citing the law in a July 2024 complaint against demonstrators who had converged on an event promoting Israel real estate at Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. That clash descended into violence.
The Trump administration Justice Department subsequently filed a statement of interest supporting that case, arguing that what constituted “physical obstruction” at a house of worship under the FACE Act could be interpreted broadly.
Now, similar legal reasoning may apply to journalists covering the Sunday church protest in Minneapolis. Press freedom groups have expressed deep alarm over the arrests, arguing that the journalists were there to document, not disrupt.
The arrests are “the latest example of the administration coming up with far-fetched ‘gotcha’ legal theories to send a message to journalists to tread cautiously,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Because the government is looking for any way to target them.”
The post How a law used to protect synagogues is now being deployed against ICE protesters and journalists appeared first on The Forward.