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Founded by a Holocaust survivor, a Bronx bakery’s kosher cheesecake is as tasty as ever after 6 decades
(New York Jewish Week) — Near the northern terminus of the 1 train, just south of Van Cortlandt Park, an unassuming Bronx storefront has been producing thousands of dense, delectable cheesecakes each day for more than 60 years.
Adorned with a simple red-and-blue sign and occupying the same storefront throughout its history, S&S Cheesecake has become the stuff of legend: Though other spots — say, Junior’s — may have better name recognition, many in-the-know New Yorkers consider S&S’s cheesecakes to be the best in the city. What’s more, its cheesecake recipe hasn’t changed one bit since Holocaust survivor Fred Schuster, 98, first opened the kosher bakery in 1960.
Though Schuster remains a regular presence at the bakery, these days S&S Cheesecake is operated by one of his daughters, Brenda Ben-Zaken, and her husband Yair. But other than a few nods to modernity — an espresso machine and a small cafe for dine-in enjoyment; upgradedg equipment to increase output to 2,000 cheesecakes a day — little has changed in the past six decades.
“The secret is to bake with love and serve with pride and passion,” Yair Ben-Zaken told the New York Jewish Week of the shop’s success. Since its founding, S&S has supplied cheesecakes to countless restaurants and shops, from as far away as Alaska to as close as the iconic Upper West Side grocery Zabar’s. Their products are available for nationwide shipping via their web site or Goldbelly as well.
Ben-Zaken and Schuster spoke to the New York Jewish Week on a sunny, temperate morning just a few days ahead of Shavuot — a holiday, which this year begins the evening of Thursday, May 25, when Jews traditionally eat cheesecake and other dairy food. Ben-Zaken was busy packing up hundreds of cheesecakes that he is shipping around the country, as well as several that S&S donates to the Riverdale Jewish Center, the Orthodox synagogue where he and Schuster are members.
“It gets busy with Shavuot, [but] there is a lot to celebrate with summer and graduations this time of year as well,” Ben-Zaken said. “We are feeling [the busy season] now, but it’s not the same as Christmas and Thanksgiving — those are the real cheesecake holidays for us.”
Before he established his modest cheesecake empire, Fred Schuster was born in Germany in 1925 — only eight years before Hitler came to power. “That was the end of my childhood,” Schuster told the New York Jewish Week.
In an effort to keep him safe, Schuster’s parents first sent him to a Jewish boarding school near Frankfurt and, when it was forced to close down, he moved in with his grandparents. In 1938, when they became too old to take care of him, Schuster said goodbye to his family — with a commitment to see each other again — and went to live in an orphanage in Frankfurt.
Just before his 14th birthday, Schuster and other children at his orphanage were sent to Switzerland via the Kindertransport. On the train, he met a girl named Karola (middle name Ruth), who went on to become the famous sex therapist and talk show host Dr. Ruth Westheimer.
“I always say, of the group there, Dr. Ruth went into the sex business and did very well. And I went into the cheesecake business and didn’t do too badly myself,” Schuster joked.
In Switzerland, Schuster “developed a passion for baking and worked in kitchens and bakeries there,” he said. He arrived in New York in 1941, where he reunited with his parents and sister. (His father had arrived in the United States via England around 1939, and his mother and sister via France, Spain and Portugal in 1940.)
“Thank God, my parents and everybody made it here,” he said. “We are very happy here. The United States was very good to us.”
And yet, even though many of his family members survived — and Schuster is blessed with four grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren — Schuster still thinks about what the Holocaust took from him, especially his own grandparents. “I’ll never forget it,” he said. “I am very proud of what I have built in spite of that.”
In the 1940s and 50s, Schuster lived in Washington Heights — home to a sizable German Jewish community, including Dr. Ruth, who is still a fixture in the neighborhood at 94 — and worked as a general baker at various restaurants, where he learned to make all types of pastries. However, “cheesecake was always on my mind,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘There isn’t a good cheesecake here. Let me see what I can do.”
Yair Ben-Zaken joined the team in 1986 and works every day except for Shabbat. Pictured in the bakery in New York City, May 22, 2023. (Julia Gergely)
The recipe he landed on — a combination of eggs, vanilla, sugar, butter and heavy cream — is something Schuster calls “absolutely perfect.”
Though cheesecake may be an ancient food, Jews took to cheesecake the way a fish might take to water, according to The Nosher. Though its varieties are numerous — from light and fluffy to dense and sweet — it was Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who came to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who originated the ultra-rich dessert that’s known as New York-style (or Jewish-style) cheesecake.
That’s Schuster’s specialty, though when Schuster and his wife Sidi opened S&S Cheesecake, he baked all kinds of pastries and cakes. Quickly, however, he narrowed down the menu to only cheesecakes, the bestsellers. These days, S&S sells a chocolate mousse cheesecake, as well as strawberry-, pineapple- and cherry-topped versions of the classic original, which is flavored with vanilla. The OG — which retails in-store for $40 for an 11-inch cake and $20 for a 7-inch one — is his favorite, Schuster said, adding that he always keeps a cheesecake in his fridge for snacking on.
As for Ben-Zaken, after serving in the Israeli Defense Forces as a combat soldier, then working at various food labs in Israel, he began working at the bakery in 1986. Has he dared to change the recipe? “God forbid,” said Ben-Zaken. “Once you know it’s done right, that’s it.”
Schuster, whose wife died in 2017, moved into the Ben-Zakens’ Riverdale home around eight years ago. These days, the two men spend the majority of their time together, baking and talking. “We’ve worked together for many, many years shoulder to shoulder,” said Ben- Zaken, who affectionately calls Schuster “Opa,” which is German for grandfather. “But he is still in charge, I still learn from him.”
During the course of the New York Jewish Week’s visit to the bakery, a handful of customers came in to pick up the cheesecakes for Shavuot. “It’s always worth a trip,” said a man, who was picking up half a dozen cheesecakes for his synagogue in Pelham Parkway, who declined to provide his name. “It’d be worth the trip even if I lived in Atlantic City.”
For Ben-Zaken, his favorite part of the job is working alongside Schuster. Running S&S Cheesecake has been life-changing, he said, particularly following his recovery from post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered as an Israeli soldier. “I think if there’s anybody that I love more than anything in the world, it is this guy. I owe him everything,” Ben-Zaken said. “But I don’t just owe him, I also just enjoy being with him all the time. He’s still young. In spirit, he’s younger than all of us.”
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The post Founded by a Holocaust survivor, a Bronx bakery’s kosher cheesecake is as tasty as ever after 6 decades appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Why The 36 Award
Antisemitism is, unfortunately, a fact of life in the United States and around the world. Jewish people continue to experience harassment, discrimination, and violence. Antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories exacerbate the problem.
Antisemitism does not exist in isolation; it both reflects and accelerates the erosion of democratic norms, institutions, and trust, emerging alongside other forms of hate and prejudice that collectively weaken the social fabric and the shared commitments on which all communities depend.
And while naming antisemitism and its impact is necessary, what truly matters is our shared responsibility to confront it.
This is a moment to push back collectively, within and beyond the Jewish community. No single organization, community, or ideology can meet this challenge alone. The pursuit of solutions requires acknowledging what we do not yet know, remaining open to learning, and committing to the collective effort.
Nathan Cummings Foundation (NCF) approaches this work as part of a broader justice journey and our commitment to Racial, Economic, and Environmental Justice (REEJ). As an institution rooted in the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam, repairing the world, our commitment to social justice and Jewish values has long guided our work across our focus areas, which includes being in partnership with leaders across REEJ.
We believe that our pursuit of justice is incomplete if it does not also address antisemitism. Antisemitism is oppression and is inseparable from broader struggles against bigotry, exclusion, and threats to democratic life. Addressing it strengthens movements, deepens solidarity, and reinforces the conditions necessary for collective progress.
Recognizing and engaging this challenge is essential to building a more just, inclusive, and democratic society and advancing our pursuit of REEJ.
With all of this in mind, NCF, in collaboration with the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and supported by a growing coalition of partners across the country, created The 36 Award. The award takes its name from a powerful concept in Jewish tradition: the belief that in every generation there are 36 righteous individuals whose actions help sustain the world.
Across the country, there are people confronting antisemitism in ways that do not always attract headlines. They are building relationships across lines of race, faith, geography, and ideology. They are helping communities navigate difficult conversations. They are creating new models, narratives, and pathways toward understanding. In many cases, they are demonstrating that combating antisemitism and advancing broader justice are not competing goals but mutually reinforcing ones. The 36 Award is designed to find those individuals and elevate and support their work.
The challenges before us are significant. Yet history reminds us that lasting progress often begins with people willing to see possibilities others overlook. The search for those people is what The 36 Award truly represents.
We believe that new ideas matter and that solidarity can be built through courageous leadership, which often emerges where few are looking. We are excited to announce the inaugural winners of The 36 Award. Please visit 36award.us to learn about these inspiring individuals.
Sincerely,
Rey Ramsey, President & CEO
Amy Sorensen Ben-Dov, Chair, Board of Trustees
Nathan Cummings Foundation
The post Why The 36 Award appeared first on The Forward.
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The 36 Award Winner: Building a Public Health Response to Antisemitism
Myrieme Churchill, Executive Director of Parents for Peace (P4P), has been named an inaugural recipient of The 36 Award, honoring a decade of work building what may be the first confidential intervention program in the world focused specifically on antisemitism.
Churchill leads P4P, a national public health organization serving families, schools, and communities across the United States and Canada. Through its Antisemitism Intervention and Recovery (AIR) Program, P4P brings together licensed psychologists, peer interventionists, and a team that includes former neo-Nazis and former jihadists. Its central argument once sounded unlikely to many in the field: extremism is not just a security issue, but a public health crisis that demands early intervention, education, and community-based support. The need has grown sharply. P4P says it saw a steep rise in anti-Jewish hatred after October 7, 2023, both in its own caseload and across society. In 2025, 70 percent of its helpline cases involved antisemitism, spanning far-right white nationalism, jihadist networks, and far-left movements.
Churchill’s path to this work began in Morocco. The daughter of a Black Moroccan Muslim father and a white French Christian mother, she grew up biracial and rarely felt she belonged anywhere. As a child, she was excluded and targeted by other children who misidentified her as Jewish and often used the word “Jew” to insult her.
“That history gives me a deep appreciation for how identity, exclusion, and belonging shape people’s lives,” Churchill said.
Those early experiences left her with questions that have stayed with her ever since: Why do people hurt one another? Where does hate come from? Why have Jews so often been made the scapegoat? The questions led her to a career as a therapist. Her early work took her to the streets of Marseille, where she worked with young immigrants targeted by traffickers, and later to Boston, where she treated people with mental illness and addiction. Both jobs, she said, taught her how vulnerable people are at risk for abuse, self-destruction, and harming others.
Over years of clinical work in addressing addiction, Churchill began to notice a pattern. For some people, extremism seemed to work the way a drug does, offering relief from pain along with a sense of identity and purpose. People could get hooked on hate the way others get hooked on substances.
That insight became the foundation of the P4P model. Rather than treating extremism of any kind, including antisemitism, as a set of beliefs to argue with, the organization treats it as a maladaptive way of coping with grievance, isolation, and trauma. In P4P’s framing, extremism works like a psychological addiction, offering belonging at the cost of truth, safety, and humanity. Instead of relying on shame, public condemnation, or debate, P4P helps families recognize warning signs and assess escalating behavior, and helps their loved ones build healthier sources of identity, belonging, and purpose, while working with public safety resources when necessary. The goal is to replace hate with resilience, education, and genuine connection.
AIR, which P4P bills as the world’s first antisemitism helpline, builds on the organization’s existing public health approach and helpline model. It offers free, confidential support from trained interventionists to worried families, educators, and community members, as well as to people who are trying to step away from anti-Jewish beliefs themselves. P4P is also developing trainings for families, schools, and religious organizations on recognizing early warning signs, navigating online risks, and responding with evidence-based intervention.
The model was tested on the very first call to the AIR helpline in 2016. A mother had found several rifles under her son’s bed, along with a manifesto describing his plan to attack a synagogue. She was terrified and reluctant to contact law enforcement. Churchill stayed on the line and worked to earn the mother’s trust enough that she would call 911. The FBI later confirmed that the guns had been confiscated and that the young man had been hospitalized for treatment of psychosis.
“Courage sometimes means entering the worst moment of someone’s life and not looking away,” Churchill said.
P4P says its early intervention work has since helped prevent potential attacks on synagogues and violence against Jews, and has helped hundreds of people repair relationships, return to school or work, and rebuild lives no longer governed by extremist ideology.
Sagit Sade Attia, a member of the P4P board, described that work as a deliberate moral choice. “Rather than writing off people consumed by hate as beyond redemption, Myrieme has chosen the far more difficult path of engaging directly with individuals and families affected by radicalization, while never losing sight of the needs and safety of those targeted by hate,” she said.
The choice has not always been easy to explain. When Churchill first began describing extremism as an addiction, she recalled, people looked at her as if she had three heads. Public health framing has since moved closer to the mainstream, but an approach that begins with compassion for people who hold antisemitic views can still invite skepticism at a moment when Jewish communities feel under threat. Churchill answers by pointing to outcomes like the hundreds of families supported.
P4P doesn’t do this work alone. It has partnered with the Combat Antisemitism Movement, the ADL, the American Muslim and Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council, and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as Bangladeshi and other immigrant communities. It has worked with the Harvard School of Public Health and Georgia State University to evaluate its work and to train former extremists as interventionists. Churchill has spoken at Eradicate Hate following the 2018 Tree of Life shooting, briefed Congress as part of a bipartisan effort, and testified before the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, where she urged antisemitism trainings in schools. Churchill puts it simply: “Antisemitism is not a Jewish problem alone; it is an all-of-us problem, and everyone pays the price when it spreads.”
The post The 36 Award Winner: Building a Public Health Response to Antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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Building the Legal Case Against White Nationalism
David Brody, founder of the Alliance of Jewish Americans, has been named an honorable mention for The 36 Award in its inaugural year. Brody has spent his career in courtrooms and coalitions confronting hate, and he believes Jewish safety in the United States depends on standing with every community that white nationalism targets.
Brody traces his commitment to his family and to the South. “As a Jew from Georgia, my Jewish identity was defined against the backdrop of the Black-Jewish shared struggle in the South,” he said. His great-grandmother fled pogroms, arrived in the United States as an unaccompanied minor with no English or education, and became a union organizer. His father registered voters for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and spent four decades researching how poverty and discrimination affect the health of rural Black families. “My family taught that being Jewish in America means fighting for social justice,” Brody said.
Before launching the Alliance in 2026, Brody founded and led the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the first tech policy program at a legacy racial justice organization. There, he built the first case applying public accommodations law to online harassment, representing Taylor Dumpson, the first Black woman to serve as student government president at American University, against a neo-Nazi website’s publisher who targeted her. Brody co-led the team representing Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C., in its case against the Proud Boys after the group vandalized the church. He helped draft and championed what became the AI Civil Rights Act of 2025, which more than 80 civil rights, privacy, consumer, and labor groups have endorsed. His nominator, Erin Simpson of the Ford Foundation, said Brody coined the phrase “privacy rights are civil rights” at a time when many did not yet see the connection. She described him as “the engine that powered an entire community of racial justice and technology policy organizations.”
Brody said Jewish civil society is robust but has lacked a dedicated national legal organization, similar to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or Lambda Legal. The Alliance is meant to fill that gap. It uses open-source investigative techniques to collect and preserve evidence of civil and human rights violations and white nationalist threats, with the goal of making that evidence admissible in court.
From his years litigating against white supremacists, Brody saw that few organizations take on litigation against white nationalism systematically, and that most investigative work in the field produces research reports rather than evidence that can stand up in a legal proceeding. He argues that white nationalism, which has motivated deadly attacks ranging from Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018 to a Buffalo grocery store in 2022, poses the greatest threat to Jewish safety in the United States in generations.
The Alliance’s work includes both near-term and longer-term legal investigations. Part of this work involves leveraging AI tools responsibly, such as using them to accelerate needle-in-a-haystack investigations of white nationalist activity or other threats that would not be cost-effective for human researchers. Other work is meant to provide evidentiary foundations for long-term efforts to research, document, and seek accountability for rights violations in the U.S. Brody said he is focused on what the field needs now and what it will need in five years.
Brody’s approach to coalitions is grounded in patience. He spent six years drafting model bills, persuading allies with different priorities, and testifying twice before Congress in support of privacy protections. In 2024, when a bipartisan privacy bill in Congress was stripped of its civil rights protections, Brody gathered signatures from more than 50 organizations on an opposition letter in under 24 hours, and the bill died. “Those groups did not sign because I told them what to do,” he said. “They signed because I spent years working with them, earning their trust, and advocating for their interests.”
Brody credits the courage of his clients for putting their names and faces on high-profile cases against violent white supremacists. He arranges his work so that, by the time a moment of risk arrives, “we have friends at our side.” He resists the idea that this takes a special method. “Building bridges does not require a special approach,” he said. “One should show up for everyone, listen with empathy, and do the work.”
The post Building the Legal Case Against White Nationalism appeared first on The Forward.
