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Citing industry changes, Kosherfest, oldest kosher food fair, announces its end
(JTA) — After more than three decades, an annual trade show of kosher foods that saw the evolution of the cuisine in America grow from gefilte fish and pastrami to “facon,” gluten-free cookies and CBD gum is no more.
“Exhibitors feel Kosherfest has run its course,” the company that organized the two-day event, Diversified Business Communications, announced on Wednesday.
The company’s statement attributed the decision to shifts in the supermarket industry and in how stores display and purchase kosher products. Buyers for supermarkets, it said, are increasingly likely to buy kosher products at general trade shows rather than events specific to kosher food.
“As this buyer is responsible for sourcing and purchasing a wide array of products, they are more likely to attend food events displaying items not just exclusive to kosher,” the company said. “A certified kosher only food show such as Kosherfest is too niche for their attendance.”
The decision to cancel Kosherfest — which has included more than 325 exhibitors displaying their products and has drawn as many as 6,000 attendees each fall — comes as kosher food has gone mainstream. As of 2018, according to the Boston Globe, some 40% of packaged food and drink sold in the United States was certified kosher. Last year, Rabbi Eli Lando, the executive manager of OK Kosher, a certification agency, said Jews make up just 20% of kosher products’ consumer base, according to the publication Food Dive.
At the same time, supermarkets and other pillars of the kosher marketplace have been joined by social media influencers in promoting new food products to Jews who keep kosher. That shift was accelerated during the pandemic, when Kosherfest was suspended for a year before returning to muted crowds in 2021. Recently, it had been showing signs of strain. Last year, the fair was still recruiting vendors just days before its opening. Vendors who had reserved booths for this year will have their payments refunded, the company said.
Some longstanding Kosherfest attendees thought the show had shifted to cater too much to influencers, while some influencers said the show never felt totally accessible to them.
“The food industry has evolved and social media influencers definitely have a voice and a presence and they get products in front of consumers,” said Chanie Apfelbaum, a kosher cookbook author and social media personality under the moniker “Busy in Brooklyn.” “So, it’s definitely something that was necessary that they weren’t really ready to bring to the table.”
Apfelbaum, who said she had been introduced to Korean cuisine after meeting a chef at Kosherfest, will be hosting a cooking competition at Kosher-Palooza, a new event that will take place later this month at the same New Jersey convention center that previously hosted Kosherfest.
Kosher-Palooza is geared to individual consumers, according to its website, with wine tastings, blind taste tests and cooking demonstrations taking place alongside displays of new products.
“You (and your appetite) are invited to a massive celebration of all things kosher with hundreds of food brands, cookbook authors, influencers, and experts, all under one roof,” announced a press release for the event distributed last month.
Among the companies highlighted on Kosher-Palooza’s website is KosherCatch, a New England-based fresh fish company. Its founder, Jeffrey Ingber, said he had been a longtime Kosherfest attendee but thought the show had waned recently.
“Over the past 10 years there was nothing new to see, which is a surprise because there are emerging products and new products and creative products coming out every year by manufacturers,” he said.
Apfelbaum said she had seen the same thing. “Definitely Kosherfest in the last couple of years has been very disappointing for anyone that’s in the industry,” she said. “I just found there weren’t that many vendors anymore. It really had slowed down.”
The demise coincided with a rapid explosion of accessible kosher products — in some ways making the show a victim of the success of its field.
“This year we’re celebrating the centennial of American kosher certification, and efforts by certifiers during that century have left the kosher industry in an excellent position,” said David Zvi Kalman, a scholar at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America who studies trends in Jewish life.
“The fact that there are kosher products up and down the supply chain means that manufacturers can easily source kosher ingredients, and ingredient manufacturers have an incentive to certify to stay competitive,” Kalman added. “While effective marketing has been important to the industry’s growth — it saved the [Orthodox Union] from a period of stagnation in the 1950s — there are now strong network effects that encourage companies to certify even without the help of events like Kosherfest.”
In a statement commenting on the end of Kosherfest, its founder, Menachem Lubinsky, said he was proud of the show’s 33-year run. Lubinsky sold the show to Diversified Business Communications in 2004 but remained involved in its production.
“Looking back, I can proudly say that the show was an amazing run and the impetus for a glorious chapter in the growth of kosher and the Jewish community,” Lubinsky wrote.
“The last three plus decades of the show was a period when tens of thousands of products became kosher, dozens of huge modern kosher independent supermarkets were launched, there was an explosion of kosher restaurants of diverse themes, dozens of new kosher cookbooks published, and we witnessed the advent of a new era in social media and the Internet to name but a few of these gigantic accomplishments,” he added. Kosher became popular in every area of life.”
With kosher products readily available in many places, observers said kosher-keeping consumers are increasingly looking for unique or boundary-pushing food experiences — a niche promoted by Fleishigs Magazine, a lead sponsor of Kosher-Palooza. “More than just the authority on kosher cooking, Fleishigs serves up kosher like never before,” the magazine, whose name is a Jewish term for meat dishes, promises.
“Kosher consumers are demanding fresh, new products that we want to see on the market and that’s what we want,” Apfelbaum said. “That’s what we’re looking for.”
One convener of discussion about new frontiers in kosher dining is Elan Kornblum, publisher and president of the Great Kosher Restaurants Magazine and the creator of the Great Kosher Restaurant Foodies Facebook group, which boasts more than 82,000 members. Kornblum will be hosting a meet-and-greet at Kosher-Palooza but this week took a moment to lament Kosherfest’s end in his Facebook group.
“In the 20 years I went, I certainly have had great memories, met some great people from all over the world and did a lot of business here,” he posted about Kosherfest. “Sad to see it end.”
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The post Citing industry changes, Kosherfest, oldest kosher food fair, announces its end appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Somerville councilors to discuss Israel divestment proposal
(JTA) — SOMERVILLE, Mass. — The issue of divestment from Israel returns to the Somerville City Council in Massachusetts on Tuesday night as lawmakers plan to discuss how to implement a nonbinding ballot question on the matter that passed last year.
The divestment push has divided the city of more than 84,000 residents, which has a long-standing Jewish population. It is located between Cambridge, home to Harvard University, and Medford, a city with which it shares the Tufts University campus.
After Question 3 passed with 55.7% of the residents’ vote in November 2025, the City Council that same month passed a resolution committing to work toward an ordinance within a year to enact the ballot’s goals.
The measure to that effect, introduced in June, would bar the city from investing in or procuring labor, services or goods from companies that support entities identified by the ordinance as violating international law, including Israel.
Unlike the divestment proposal awaiting a November ballot vote in Providence or the binding human rights divestment ordinance passed by Medford’s city council in 2025, the Somerville ordinance specifically mentions Israel and Palestine.
In response to the push for a binding ordinance, 74 registered voters in Somerville submitted a petition for a hearing, which was held in September, before final action is taken, citing concerns about its impact on the city. The issue has now moved to the city’s Legislative Matters Committee, which is meeting Tuesday night.
Among the groups opposing divestment is Shalom Somerville, which submitted the September petition stating that “the sense of belonging and safety experienced by Jewish, Israeli and other residents of diverse backgrounds” is at risk as a result of the ordinance.
Sam Gechter, co-founder and president of Shalom Somerville, said that the ordinance singles out Jews who support Israel, which makes it antisemitic. Deputy City Solicitor David Shapiro also advised in November 2024 that such an ordinance would be “likely invalid,” according to a letter from the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
“I think it’s incredibly irresponsible,” Gechter said, suggesting that the ordinance would slow down governmental action. “But the biggest thing for me is that it makes Jews feel unwelcome in Somerville.”
A local organization, Somerville for Palestine (S4P), has been a driving force behind both the ballot question and the ordinance, which the group developed in collaboration with sponsoring city councilors Ben Ewen-Campen, Ben Wheeler, Wilfred N. Mbah and Jon Link. “It’s what people voted for,” said Mo Katz-Christy, a member of S4P’s leadership and Jewish Caucus. “We want to follow the will of the people.”
The ADL issued a statement condemning the ordinance in June. It also joined the Brandeis Center in issuing a letter calling the proposal an unconstitutional intrusion into foreign affairs.
Other Jewish organizations disagree. Jewish Voice for Peace Boston has worked closely with S4P to back the measures. “I don’t think that those objections have validity,” said Eli Gerzon, a longtime member of JVP. “As a Jewish organization, we are especially concerned that ‘never again’ really means what it says: never again, that we never let a Holocaust, a genocide happen.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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A major Jewish museum hopes to join the Smithsonian – at a difficult moment for the storied institution
(JTA) — Philadelphia’s Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History is moving closer to becoming part of the Smithsonian Institution at a moment of significant upheaval for the storied museum network.
A new congressional commission will study whether to make the museum part of the Smithsonian. Its members were sworn in Tuesday, when they also held their first meeting.
In an exclusive interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the commission’s new chair Philip Darivoff, a former longtime chair of the Weitzman, and vice chair Dara Horn, a New York Times bestselling author, said that the Weitzman joining the Smithsonian would send a powerful message that Jews are a crucial component of the history of the country.
“It’s a different statement that our country makes when it says that the study of Jewish American history and culture is important to this nation,” Darivoff said. Both he and Horn also hope that a boost in the Weitzman’s profile could combat what they called an “epidemic of ignorance” among Americans when it comes to knowledge of Jewish history and culture.
“This really would be an elevation of the Jewish community,” Horn, author of “People Love Dead Jews” and “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” told JTA. “The place that Jews show up in a school curriculum is typically more about the Holocaust” — an area that the author has written critically about in the past as too limiting a view of Jewish life.
Horn believes in the Weitzman project, she said, because she hopes to emphasize the ways that Jews have contributed to American founding ideals such as religious pluralism.
“I’m really interested in the connections between the Jewish story and a lot of our foundational ideas in this country,” she said. Jewish ideas such as the Exodus from Egypt in the Passover story “were inspiring to Americans,” she added.
The wheels for the Weitzman joining the Smithsonian began turning in 2024, when Congress passed legislation in 2024, then signed by President Biden, to establish the commission. The group spent the next two years putting the commission together, and has two years from its first meeting to research and publish a report on the feasibility of such a move — though Darivoff said he hopes to finish the work well before the deadline.
Adding a new member to the Smithsonian has been known to take years, if not decades. The two most recent additions, the National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women’s History Museum, were both long in the works.
Founded in 1976, the Weitzman is already an existing, fully functioning institution — and also already a Smithsonian affiliate, meaning it can share resources with other museums in the system. Unlike a museum being built from scratch, the Weitzman already has a building and collection, which proponents hope could speed the process.”
Dan Tadmor, the Weitzman’s CEO, told JTA that joining the Smithsonian would improve their educational mission.
“We have a national footprint for our educational programming, but of course we’d like to widen it,” he said. “Who would say no to a curriculum that’s been developed by a Smithsonian museum?”
The Weitzman’s bid for increased prominence within the Smithsonian comes as the Trump administration has sought to exert greater control over the latter — home to such storied institutions as the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Zoo.
This summer the White House issued a report alleging “radical ideology” in the museums’ content, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently announced plans for signs accusing Smithsonian leaders of ideological bias. Observers say such signs are indicative of larger administration priorities opposing the teaching of historical subjects such as slavery. Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III is stepping down at the end of the year.
A representative from the Smithsonian declined to comment to JTA on the Weitzman’s bid, or on its current political conditions.
The commission’s chair and vice chair of the new Weitzman said that the current political upheaval shouldn’t affect their work. The Smithsonian, Horn said, “has lasted through many political winds.”
“I think we see this as a long-term project that’s about the place of Jewish Americans in this country’s history,” Darivoff said. “The Smithsonian is a really important institution for this country, and it is the great museum complex of our nation. God willing, it will be flourishing for centuries to come. It’d be an honor to be included in the Smithsonian.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post A major Jewish museum hopes to join the Smithsonian – at a difficult moment for the storied institution appeared first on The Forward.
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Two deaths in Manchester synagogue attack last year will be probed through public inquiry, Britain says
(JTA) — The deaths of two Jewish men in an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year will be examined through a public inquiry, the British home secretary announced on Monday, a necessary step to include sensitive information in the investigation.
Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were killed during the attack on Yom Kippur on Oct. 2, 2025, when Jihad Al-Shamie rammed a car into a group of worshippers outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester and stabbed two people. Cravitz died from stab wounds and another man, Andrew Franks, was seriously injured but survived. Daulby was shot by police while blocking the synagogue doors to stop Al-Shamie from entering. Two other people were seriously injured.
Al-Shamie, a Syrian-born British citizen, said he was acting for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, before police shot him dead.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the public inquiry in a statement about national security at the House of Commons, saying that “what happened that day must be fully understood.”
“This will ensure that all evidence can be heard, including any sensitive national security material that could not otherwise be fully heard in the coroner’s court,” said Mahmood.
Judge Alexia Durran, the chief coroner of England and Wales, was overseeing inquests into the deaths of Cravitz and Daulby. Durran last month recommended that Mahmood convert the inquests into a public inquiry, following statements from Home Office lawyers that some information from MI5 would be withheld from open court due to national security concerns. A full investigation that involves hearing sensitive material in private requires a public inquiry.
Earlier this year, Greater Manchester Police’s chief constable Stephen Watson said he was “deeply sorry” for a “missed opportunity” to uncover the plot against the Heaton Park synagogue. Watson made the apology after prosecutors revealed that Al-Shamie had two prior arrests for allegedly breaching a non-molestation order and alleged rape, and his mobile devices were not examined until after the synagogue attack.
Mahmood listed “a series of attacks on our Jewish community” in the year since the synagogue attack, including the stabbing of two Jewish men in the London neighborhood of Golders Green, a spate of arson attacks and a “foiled but potentially lethal plot” against Jews in Manchester on the eve of Yom Kippur last month. In the last case, two Iranian men have been charged with terrorism offenses.
“Faced with the threat posed to our Jewish community, we have increased funding to the police by an additional £250 million to boost police presence in key Jewish areas and to tackle antisemitism on our streets,” said Mahmood.
She added, “I know we cannot simply build higher walls around our Jewish community and expect them to live in fear. So we must root out the evil of antisemitism wherever it lurks in society, and this government is committed to that effort.”
Mahmood’s announcement comes days after the Home Office released data showing that hate crimes against Jewish people in England and Wales rose 10% in the year ending in March.
Mahmood said the United Kingdom was aware that “the Iranian state is targeting our Jewish community,” adding that the threat posed to Jews demonstrated “how the lines are increasingly blurring between extremism and state threats.”
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