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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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Netherlands Boosts Security Funding for Jewish Institutions Amid Surge in Antisemitic Attacks
Police outside a Jewish school following an explosion that caused minor damages, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, March 14, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
The Netherlands is significantly boosting security funding for Jewish communities amid a relentless surge of antisemitic incidents, as synagogues, schools, and cultural institutions across the country face escalating threats and authorities move to reinforce protection in response to growing alarm.
During a parliamentary session on Tuesday, Dutch Justice and Security Minister David van Weel announced an additional €700,000 in the 2026 security budget to safeguard Jewish buildings and institutions nationwide, raising total annual funding to €2 million in response to a sustained wave of antisemitic incidents.
Van Weel explained these funds will support security at synagogues, Jewish schools, cultural institutions, and public events, noting that the existing €1.3 million allocation had already been exhausted in 2025, leaving dozens of applications unfunded, with further demand expected this year.
“The additional funding is intended to strengthen protection for the Jewish community and reinforce its sense of security,” the Dutch official said.
Het veiligheidsfonds voor Joodse scholen, instellingen en evenementen verhoog ik met €700.000 naar €2 miljoen per jaar.
Hiermee kunnen Joodse instellingen nog beter worden beschermd en hoop ik het veiligheidsgevoel van de Joodse gemeenschap in Nederland te versterken. pic.twitter.com/FhGnoE8eQl
— David van Weel (@ministerjenv) April 22, 2026
Van Weel’s announcement came in the wake of a series of antisemitic attacks last month, including small explosions at a synagogue in Rotterdam, a second blast two days later at a Jewish school in Amsterdam, and a third near a Zuidas office building housing the Bank of New York Mellon.
During Tuesday’s session, lawmakers also reviewed proposals from an antisemitism taskforce aimed at strengthening protections for Jewish students and staff in higher education, alongside broader measures to counter rising hate incidents on campuses.
Mirjam Bikker, leader of the ChristenUnie, a Dutch Protestant political party, called for the government to fully cover security costs at Jewish institutions, describing the current system — under which synagogues and schools are expected to fund their own protection — as “a fundamental reversal of responsibility.”
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, the Netherlands has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
According to newly released figures, Dutch authorities reported antisemitism remained at alarmingly high levels across the country last year, with 867 registered cases in 2025 — virtually unchanged from the 880 incidents recorded the previous year.
Even though Jews make up less than 0.3 percent of the Dutch population, anti-Jewish hate crimes account for 26 percent of all discrimination cases.
Eddo Verdoner, the Dutch national coordinator for combating antisemitism (NCAB), said the data reflects a worrying normalization of antisemitic incidents.
“We have been recording hundreds of antisemitic incidents each year for years now. What I fear is that we are slowly getting used to figures that are unacceptable, that hatred is becoming the new normal,” Verdoner said in a statement.
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AIPAC Slightly More Popular Than Democratic Party, Poll Finds
Crews prepare the stage at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC, March 6, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Brian Snyder
A new survey reveals that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the premier pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, may be viewed more favorably than the Democratic Party itself amid ongoing debate over whether liberal candidates should continue engaging with the organization.
According to an April 2026 national survey conducted by Echelon Insights, AIPAC posts a net favorable rating that indicates the group is slightly more favorable than the Democratic Party. Per the poll, 18 percent of respondents view the organization positively and 25 percent view the organization negatively. Meanwhile, 27 percent have no opinion of the lobbying group.
Conversely, 42 percent of Americans have a positive opinion of the Democratic Party, according to the poll, and 52 percent have a negative opinion.
AIPAC and the Democratic Party therefore have net favorable ratings among the public of -7 and -10, respectively.
While Democrats remain one of the two dominant political coalitions in the United States, their favorability has been weighed down in part by intensifying internal divisions, including over US policy toward Israel. The liberal wing of the party has grown increasingly hostile toward the Jewish state amid the war in Gaza, with far-left members pushing the party to establish an anti-Israel posture and falsely accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians.
AIPAC, by contrast, occupies a different space in the public mind. As a single-issue advocacy organization focused on strengthening US–Israel relations, it does not carry the same ideological baggage or breadth of policy responsibility as a national party.
However, as the war in Gaza deteriorated the popularity of Israel within the Democratic base, AIPAC became the target of scrutiny by party activists seeking to isolate the Jewish state. In primary competitions across the country, Democratic contenders have scrambled to distance themselves from AIPAC, oftentimes publicly vowing not to accept any funding or assistance from the group.
Yet the polling from Echelon Insights suggests that this elite-level conflict has not translated into widespread public backlash against the organization itself, with 57 of respondents saying they either never heard of the group or have no opinion of it.
Indeed, although AIPAC has become unpopular, polling suggests that the organization has low salience with the general public. Few voters have strong opinions about it compared to other issues, suggesting that outsized attention has been given by progressive politicians and activists to the lobbying group.
Little evidence indicates that affiliation with AIPAC is an electoral liability within Democratic primaries. In March, several anti-Israel candidates lost to AIPAC-backed opponents, including Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller successfully winning the Illinois 2nd Congressional District race and former Rep. Melissa Bean winning the contest for the Illinois 8th Congressional District.
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Israel Estimates US Blockade of Strait of Hormuz to Slash Iran Oil Exports by 80%
A vessel at the Strait of Hormuz, off the coast of Oman’s Musandam province, April 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS
As Iran struggles to rebuild damaged military and energy infrastructure amid the current ceasefire, Israel estimates that a US naval blockade of Iranian ports will slash the regime’s oil exports by roughly 80 percent, nearly severing one of Tehran’s last remaining economic lifelines.
According to Israeli security assessments, the US closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global energy chokepoint through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes — triggered an immediate and dramatic collapse in Iran’s revenue that will lead to a loss of more than $1 billion a month, Walla reported.
US President Donald Trump has claimed the regime is losing about $500 million a day as a result of the blockade. Some experts, such as Miad Maleki of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, have put the figure at roughly $450 million lost in daily economic activity for Iran.
Regardless of the specific amount, given that energy exports remain the backbone of the regime’s economy, what is left of oil revenues now amounts to little more than a fragile lifeline keeping Tehran temporarily afloat as financial pressure continues to mount.
Even with the naval blockade in place, Iranian authorities have managed to maintain a limited flow of exports by transporting oil from inland production fields to the Gulf of Oman through the multi-billion-dollar Gura–Jask pipeline, an overland route that moves roughly 300,000 barrels per day to global markets.
Israeli officials assess that the blockade and resultant shortfall for Tehran could set off a chain reaction of disruptions, including the shutdown of entire segments of the oil industry.
They also point to severe damage across Iran’s petrochemical and defense sectors, which together have cost an estimated 100,000 jobs at multiple levels, arguing that the cumulative impact is pushing the Iranian regime into a corner.
After repeated efforts to bring Iran back to the negotiating table, the Trump administration escalated pressure on Tehran earlier this month by imposing a naval blockade on vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports through the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to force a deal that would bring an end to the conflict.
Since the start of the war earlier this year, Iran has used control over the Strait of Hormuz as a major source of leverage, militarizing the waterway and sharply restricting maritime traffic through one of the world’s most critical shipping corridors.
Iran has also signaled it intends to maintain control over the strategic shipping lane even after the war ends, potentially imposing transit fees framed as compensation for wartime damage.
After Trump extended the ceasefire indefinitely on Tuesday to allow for renewed diplomatic efforts, it now remains to be seen whether Iran will agree to return to negotiations, as questions persist over whether both sides can bridge widening differences to restart talks.
According to The New York Times, US officials previously proposed a 20-year halt to Iranian uranium enrichment, which Iranian negotiators countered with a five-year suspension that Washington rejected. The White House has also reportedly insisted that Iran dismantle major enrichment sites and surrender more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
Even as the regime faces one of its most severe economic crises in decades, Iranian authorities have continued pouring billions into rebuilding military and nuclear infrastructure and supporting regional proxy forces, prioritizing strategic confrontation with Israel over urgent domestic needs such as the country’s worsening water crisis.
The regime has spent billions of dollars supporting its terrorist proxies across the Middle East and operations abroad, with the Quds Force, Iran’s elite paramilitary unit, funneling funds to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, in defiance of international sanctions.
According to the US Treasury Department, Iran provided more than $100 million per month to Hezbollah in 2025, with $1 billion representing only a portion of Tehran’s overall support for the terrorist group, using a “shadow financial system” to transfer funds to Lebanon.