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How the Lower East Side has changed since the 1988 rom-com ‘Crossing Delancey’
(New York Jewish Week) — The classic and very Jewish 1988 film “Crossing Delancey” is one of those movies that feels both extremely of its time and also completely timeless.
Director Joan Micklin Silver’s film has all the classic rom-com trappings: A woman who’s torn between two men (and to that end, two worlds); complaints about how hard it is to meet a man in New York City (as true in 1988 as it is in 2022), and a “mother” figure who knows better (here, a Jewish grandmother known as Bubbe, and in this case, she actually does know better). You could pluck all these specifics and drop them into a present-day film — and, if told with the heart and care of “Crossing Delancey,” still have a pretty good movie.
Yet there’s one thing about the “Crossing Delancey” that fully anchors it in the past, and that is its late-1980s Lower East Side setting. While our heroine, Izzy (Amy Irving), lives and works on the Upper West Side, she pays frequent visits to her Bubbe (Yiddish theater actress Reizl Bozyk), her grandmother, downtown. From the moment that Izzy steps off the train at Delancey Street, she’s transported to another world: a bustling Jewish enclave with market-goers shopping for produce, friends and neighbors in the streets kibbitzing and a Hasidic child sitting outside the subway, enjoying a treat from a local bakery.
This dichotomy between the “Old World” of the Lower East Side and the “New World” uptown is the central conflict of the film: Izzy’s inability to reconcile her Jewish roots with her desire to live a secular, intelligentsia lifestyle, as represented by her two love interests (Sam the Pickle Man and Anton, the self-important author).
However, rewatching the film in the present day, I can’t help but wonder: Would Izzy run from the shtetl if she knew that in a few years, it wouldn’t exist anymore? That due to rising rents and a shift in population, many Jewish businesses would meet their end — or, somewhat ironically, be part of the flight to Brooklyn that began in the early-to-mid 2000s? In some ways, 1988 itself was the beginning and the end: It marked the opening of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, an effort to preserve the neighborhood’s immigrant past, and it was the very same year that Mayor Koch created a new redevelopment proposal for the Seward Park Extension, a canary in the coal mine for the sea change of development the city would see over the next 30 years.
Re-watching the film in 2022, it struck me how the Lower East Side’s bustling Jewish enclave — the same place where my grandparents were born and raised — has since been lost to time, gentrification and re-zoning plans. These days, the neighborhood paints a different picture entirely: giant buildings hog entire city blocks, with construction promising even more sky-high buildings. There’s no specific character to the neighborhood, no story to tell, few places more integral to the city’s fabric than the Delancey-Essex McDonald’s.
Of course, if you’ve lived in the city long enough, you know there’s no getting comfortable. New Yorkers have to, in essence, harden their hearts. We must accept that the local business you love that’s here today very well could be gone tomorrow — even if that business is a Duane Reade. The Lower East Side of today is not the neighborhood of 1988, or 1968 or 1928.
But amongst all of the present-day residential developments, upscale clothing stores and fast food chains, old-school Jewish businesses like The Pickle Guys, Kossar’s Bagels and Bialys and Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery are still thriving. (And, I’d like to think that if you look hard enough, you’ll find some meddling but well-meaning bubbes and yentas, too.)
While we might not be able to fully experience the Lower East Side as the cast and crew of “Crossing Delancey,” here are four places from “Crossing Delancey” that you can still visit, and four that are sadly gone forever.
What Remains Today
Bubbe’s Apartment
154 Broome Street
The interior shots of Bubbe’s apartment, where Izzy fulfills all of her granddaughterly duties, like singing with her grandmother in Yiddish and plucking her chin hairs, were filmed at 154 Broome Street. The 181-unit building sits at the mouth of the Williamsburg Bridge — which is why Bubbe has that spectacular view — and is part of the New York City Housing Authority’s Seward Park Housing Extension. So while you still can visit the exterior of Bubbe’s apartment building today, don’t linger too long — it might weird out the current tenants.
Essex Market
108 Essex Street
This one is a little complicated. The original Essex Market, where Bubbe shows off her Korean-language skills, still stands today. (If you get off at the subway at Delancey Street, you can’t really miss it.) But that iteration of the market closed its doors in 2019 — in order to relocate to a building across the street so big and so glassy it would make Michael Bloomberg blush. In addition to apartments, office space and a movie theater (it’s a truly mixed-use building for our modern times!), Essex Market does boast local, independent vendors, such as Essex Olive & Spice, Porto Rico Importing Co. and Puebla Mexicana food. Per the New York Times, only one of the market’s vendors decided to forgo the move, opting instead for retirement. But you might want to pay a visit to the original Essex Market while you still can — even if only to give it one last look. Following the move, Essex Market initially housed some avant-garde art installations, but it has since seemingly closed its doors for good. According to Gothamist, it’s to be razed to create — what else? — more condos.
Seward Park Handball Court
Essex Street between Grand and Hester Streets
From the moment Sam and Izzy meet, he makes no effort to hide his ardor. In fact, I’d say he uses every weapon in his arsenal to demonstrate his interest — even going so far as to try to impress her with his handball skills when she unexpectedly drops by the court. (You might also clock his CUNY sweatshirt, as I most certainly did.) The handball court is still there, should you decide you want to play a pickup game, but sadly the court’s colorful mural depicted in the film has since been painted over.
Bonus: Gray’s Papaya
2090 Broadway
While this article is focused on the film’s Lower East Side locations, and with good reason, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that one important New York institution Izzy visits triumphantly remains: The Upper West Side Gray’s Papaya. There, Izzy celebrates her birthday with a friend and a hot dog — the right way to do it, in my opinion — when a woman bursts in singing “Some Enchanted Evening,” for everyone and no one in particular. It’s one of many of the film’s classic New York moments.
What’s Been Replaced
Steinberg’s Dairy
21 Essex Street
When Izzy emerges from that train at Delancey Street, director Silver takes great care to immerse us in this world. The camera stays on Izzy as she walks from the subway to Bubbe’s apartment, passing a host of local businesses along the way. Among them is Steinberg’s Dairy, which once lived at 21 Essex Street. Steinberg’s Dairy, which also had an Upper West Side location, offered staples like herring, egg salad and vegetarian chopped liver for less than a dollar back in 1941. Today, if you’re in the area, you can grab a drink at the punk rock bar Clockwork, which opened in 2013.
Zelig Blumenthal
13 Essex Street
Izzy also takes us by Zelig’s Blumenthal (also known as Z & A Kol Torah), where three older women sit outside, enjoying the sights and sounds around them. Once a popular Judaica store, it unexpectedly closed its Lower East Side doors in 2010 after 60 years in business. At the time, then-owner Mordechai Blumenthal made the decision to relocate the store to Flatbush due to a dwindling Orthodox population and foot traffic in the area, and a landlord who made clear he “wanted him gone.” It’s unclear if the Flatbush location remains open today, but a vintage clothing store called Country Of has taken up its original spot.
Posner’s Pickles (AKA Guss’ Pickles)
35 Essex Street
Posner’s Pickles, as run by Sam the Pickle Man in the film, was never exactly a real place to begin with. Filming took place at the world-famous Guss’ Pickles, which first opened on Hester Street in 1920, before relocating to Essex Street, where there were once over 80 pickle vendors for locals to choose from. After a stint on Orchard Street, Guss’ Pickles followed in the footsteps of so many others by then, leaving Manhattan to open up shop in Brooklyn’s Dekalb Market in 2017. While Guss’ Pickles is today based out of the Bronx, their delicious pickles are available to order no matter where you are in the country, via Goldbelly. Today, 35 Essex Street is home to Delancey Wine — appropriately named, but doesn’t offer possibilities for a slogan like “a joke and a pickle for only a nickel,” as Posner’s Pickles did in the film.
Schapiro’s Kosher Wines
124 Rivington Street
For 100 years, Schapiro’s Kosher Wines proudly served the Jewish community as the only kosher winery in New York City. It’s where Bubbe chides Izzy for her lack of interest in Sam, and while today the pair couldn’t have this conversation outside Schapiro’s, they could grab brunch at the restaurant Essex. Home to New York City’s “longest-running Brunch Party,” Essex salutes its Lower East Side roots with dishes like potato pancakes and Israeli couscous.
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The post How the Lower East Side has changed since the 1988 rom-com ‘Crossing Delancey’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Why Trump was able to succeed with a Gaza peace plan where Biden failed
If Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire deal delivers, American Jews and supporters of Israel will get what they have yearned for since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks — the return of the hostages, an end to Palestinian suffering, and a credible plan to remove Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza.
What complicates the possible resolution is that the plan’s authors, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are deeply unpopular figures among liberal Jews.
As news of the deal spread, Orthodox and politically conservative Jews, already among Trump’s strongest supporters, said they were vindicated. The Republican Jewish Coalition said that Trump not only merited the Nobel Peace Prize he has long sought, the award should be renamed for him. Netanyahu also called for Trump to win the Nobel.
Rabbi Ari Berman of Yeshiva University, who delivered the benediction at Trump’s inauguration in January, thanked God for “raising up” Trump to bring the hostages home.
Jewish groups affiliated with the Democratic Party avoided effusive praise for Trump, describing the deal as a “momentous” first step in a broader goal of creating the conditions for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and lasting peace.
When liberals mentioned Trump, it was begrudgingly. “Trump gets what he wants because he is a bully. Period,” Elana Sztokman, an Israeli American on the left, wrote. “And apparently, bullying was what was necessary to get this ceasefire done.”
The response reflected a Jewish community supportive of Israel’s security, exhausted by the ongoing war and deeply skeptical of its current leadership. A recent Washington Post survey of 815 Jewish Americans found that only 46% approved of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and 68% rated Netanyahu’s leadership of Israel as poor or fair. It mirrored polling after the joint Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites earlier this year: cautious approval of the outcome and concern about escalation.
Recent polls show Democratic voters generally are increasingly sympathetic to Palestinians. Zohran Mamdani’s primary win in the race for New York City mayor is prompting mainstream Democrats with national ambitions to mimic his sharp criticism of Israel.
The 20-point plan — relief first, reconstruction and governance later, backed by Arab regional partners — gives both leaders a much-needed win. Trump can claim he succeeded where former President Joe Biden could not, securing his legacy and fulfilling a key campaign promise to both Arab American voters and his MAGA base to end the conflict. Netanyahu, meanwhile, deeply unpopular among Israelis who blame him for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 massacres, enters an election year with a diplomatic win, his right-wing coalition intact for now, and tangible results to show for what he called a seven-front war of redemption.
In Israel, there was unfettered jubilation. Across the political map, from Netanyahu loyalists to his harshest critics, Trump was hailed as the leader Israelis had longed for. A farmer who has used his land to send political messages in the past plowed the words “Nobel 4 Trump” into his fields. A town in Israel’s north said it was renaming its soccer stadium for Trump.
In his first interview after the deal was announced on Wednesday, Trump said that he told Netanyahu his post-war plan would enhance Israel’s standing in America and globally.
Why Trump succeeded where Biden failed
The Trump plan closely resembles the three-phase plan Biden outlined in April 2024, which called for postwar rebuilding, the removal of Hamas and a long-term regional strategy. The ceasefire-hostage deal signed in January, with the backing of both Biden and Trump, collapsed after just 42 days.
Gershon Baskin, a veteran Israeli hostage negotiator and an early conduit between U.S. envoys and Hamas, argued that Biden’s insistence on partial ceasefires rather than a full end to the war weakened America’s hand. Biden, Baskin said, was weakened by his concessions to Netanyahu, who feared that a long-term ceasefire would collapse his far-right coalition.
“To me, it was clear that President Biden projected American weakness while President Trump projects American power,” Baskin wrote in a Substack post. “From that moment, on December 26, 2024 it was clear to me that the only way that the war would come to an end is when President Trump makes the decision that it has to end.”
Trump also entered negotiations with advantages Biden never had.
First, there were no “daylight” theatrics. Biden’s public clashes with Netanyahu — over the judicial overhaul and Israel’s operation in Rafah — created visible friction. When Biden called for protections for Palestinian civilians and increased humanitarian aid, Netanyahu openly defied him. Trump, by contrast, backed Israel’s war goals, praised Netanyahu’s leadership and kept most disagreements behind closed doors.
Second, Trump focused on outcomes, not empathy. In her memoir 107 Days, former Vice President Kamala Harris wrote that Biden often appeared “inadequate and forced” when addressing Palestinian suffering, constrained by his strong emotional attachment to Israel.
Trump didn’t dwell on empathy. He was blunt. He called the war a “public relations disaster” and said his goal was simple: stop wars and bring peace. For an anxious Israeli public, that direct language resonated.
Finally, Trump’s transactional style and focus on results made his approach more effective. Netanyahu, who has over the last decade all but abandoned any pretense at cultivating Democrats, placed all his eggs in the Republican basket: He could not defy Trump.
Trump’s envoys — Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff — enjoy deep ties with governmental and business elites in Qatar and Turkey, two governments that are close to Hamas. Democrats had strained those relationships over human-rights disputes. The countries returned to the negotiations now as regional powerbrokers.
Another spur for Qatar: Trump enhanced the already expansive U.S. security relationship with the Gulf monarchy and pressured Netanyahu to apologize for an Israeli strike on the country’s capital targeting Hamas leadership.
That left Netanyahu no choice but to oblige. Trump, who plans to visit Israel and address the Knesset, will likely reward the embattled Israeli leader with the political backing needed to push the deal through and to jump-start a reelection bid.
JTA contributed to this report.
The post Why Trump was able to succeed with a Gaza peace plan where Biden failed appeared first on The Forward.
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How hostage families responded to learning that a ceasefire deal would return their loved ones
When the news broke in Tel Aviv that Israel and Hamas had, at long last, reached a deal that would return their sons, Einav Zangauker and Michael Ilouz embraced. Then Ilouz picked Zangauker up and danced, his unbridled joy commanding his body.
It was one of dozens of displays of jubilation captured on video of families who have rarely, if ever, had reason to smile in the public eye.
The families were all thrust into grim fraternity on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and abducted 250 people. At first, there were thousands of family members lobbying for the hostages’ release, but over the course of two ceasefires and as more information emerged about the conditions of the hostages, only 20 families still faced
Many of them have become well known within Israel and beyond for their indefatigable efforts to bring their sons, husbands and fathers home. Now, their glee is going viral.
Talia Berman, mother of hostages Gali and Ziv, was seen in a video posted to Instagram breaking down in tears and dancing in the arms of Emily Damari, their best friend who was released in a temporary ceasefire in January.
“Hugging Mama Talia and seeing her smile is the best thing that has happened to me since I returned,” wrote Damari in a post on Instagram.
Several hostage families and former hostages on a lobbying trip in Washington, D.C., were captured embracing and grinning ear-to-ear while learning the news of the ceasefire. They shouted a chorus of “thank you” to Trump on the phone as they met with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, in a video posted by the Hostage Families Forum.
Within the group were the freed American-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel and Arbel Yehud and Iair Horn, former hostages who were released earlier this year without their loved ones — Yehud’s partner Ariel Cunio and Horn’s brother Eitan.
And Alana Zeitchik, an American relative of the hostage David Cunio, Ariel’s brother posted a triumphant WhatsApp from her cousin Sharon Alony, David’s wife. Alony and her twin daughters were released from Hamas captivity in November 2023.
“It’s official – DAVID IS COMING HOME,” Alony wrote. Zeitchik responded with more than 30 emojis signifying crying.
Other former hostages also expressed their relief at the release of those still in captivity.
“I can’t believe it. Elkana, Yosef, Segev, Bar, Maksym, you’re coming home to your families,” said former hostage Ohad Ben Ami in a video posted on Instagram. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m going to see you, hug you…wow, I’m so excited.”
Former hostage Omar Wenkert wrote on Instagram: “Finally you’re coming back to life, can’t wait to hold you. My heart’s wish is coming true! Guy, Evyatar and all the kidnapped. Is this how it feels when dreams come true?”
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Who needs a Reichstag fire when you can just pretend Portland’s burning?
Here in Portland, this supposed city of darkness, happy kids splash around in a fountain next to the sparkling Willamette River, senior citizens practice tai chi in a park, bald eagles and ospreys soar past office building windows, chefs and bakers win national awards, world-class jazz musicians draw locals into clubs, and hiking trails course through the largest urban forest in the country, with glacier-draped Mount Hood as a backdrop.
It’s hardly the hellscape depicted by Donald Trump. What the city is, however, is a primary target in Trump’s scheming to militarize American cities — at least progressive ones like Portland, my home for the past 25 years.
Demonstrations have continued outside an ICE facility in Portland since the summer. The protests have been small, overall peaceful, occasionally tense, but often cheery — such as the time when a group of elderly Portlanders sang “This Land Is Your Land.” But Trump is using the protests as an excuse to launch what local officials and residents fear could be a major military intervention in the city, turning Portland, in essence, into a domestic battleground.
Trump is employing a playbook that’s eerily similar to ones that have been used by despots, including Adolf Hitler, who consolidated his control over Germany by deploying Sturmabteilung shock troops to spread fear across the populace.
Trump has effectively weaponized ICE as his own personal police force, and is using it to bait protestors into clashes and create a pretext for exerting military-style control over cities led by Democrats. From the very beginning of Trump’s second term, federal agents’ pursuit of undocumented immigrants has been marked by the spread of fear and terror. Trump says ICE’s heavy-handed tactics are necessary to fulfill his promise that undocumented immigrants “will not be tolerated.” But the scale and spectacle of ICE actions suggest another motive: to manufacture war-like images that justify crackdowns on leftists, whom Trump routinely portrays as domestic terrorists.
So far, no ICE raid has been more chilling than its assault last week on a five-story apartment building in Chicago. In the dead of night, armed federal agents rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters onto the roof. Others stormed the building from the ground, kicking down doors, throwing flash-bang grenades, and zip-tying screaming children and elderly residents. The target of the raid was a Venezuelan gang. But Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said many of those who were arrested were U.S. citizens with no criminal record — which has been disputed by the Trump administration.
Two weeks earlier, a pastor praying outside a Chicago ICE processing center was struck in the head by a pepper ball fired from a roof and then sprayed with tear gas as he lay on the ground. He has since sued ICE, alleging violations of religious freedom and free speech.
After weeks of threats, Trump has federalized 300 Illinois National Guard troops and ordered hundreds more to deploy from Texas — using protests against immigrant detention as a pretext for putting soldiers on the streets. The move defies the spirit of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the use of federal military forces to enforce civilian law without explicit congressional authorization.
At a press conference, Pritzker voiced angry defiance toward what he called “Trump’s invasion.”
“The state of Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get (Homeland Security Secretary Kristi) Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago,” Pritzker said.
Portland might well be next.
Over the weekend, a federal judge in Oregon, appointed by Trump in 2019, issued two rulings temporarily blocking his attempts to deploy National Guard troops to Portland. In a blistering decision Saturday, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut wrote that Trump’s claims of a “war zone” were “simply untethered to the facts.” She added: “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”
When Trump tried to circumvent her ruling by ordering California National Guard troops into Oregon, Immergut blocked that maneuver too, writing: “The executive cannot invoke emergency powers based on manufactured chaos.”
Trump responded by claiming that “Portland is on fire,” and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which legal experts note would effectively amount to imposing martial law.
Trump’s description of the situation in Portland is grossly exaggerated, and intentionally so. The protests have occurred in a very small area around the ICE detention center. There have been clashes involving pepper spray, but no ongoing battles. The scene is actually more like an episode of the TV show Portlandia. During Kristi Noem’s visit to the facility on Tuesday she was mocked by activists wearing inflatable animal costumes, including a dinosaur, a raccoon and a chicken. An activist in a giant toad costume has become a social media sensation, especially after an ICE agent shot pepper spray into the air vent on the costume’s back side. Another image making the social media rounds shows protestors using donuts dangling from fishing poles to taunt ICE agents — “ICE fishing,” as they call it.
Portland wears its progressivism on its sleeve, which does not always work in the city’s favor. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests downtown, city officials faced accusations of being too lenient on leftist agitators. Riots during those protests, coupled with COVID, led to the closure of numerous downtown stores. Leftists who relish confrontation with right-wing counter-protesters have posed another challenge. During one protest in late August 2020, Trump supporters rode their pickup trucks into downtown Portland and picked a fight with leftist demonstrators. That night, a right-wing counter-protester was shot and killed by a self-described anti-fascist activist, who was later tracked down and fatally shot by federal agents in neighboring Washington state. Before fleeing, the shooter said he was defending himself.
Even before Trump, Portland has had a rocky relationship with federal authority. The city was the site of massive protests against President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2019, Portland became the second U.S. city — after San Francisco — to withdraw its police officers from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, citing concerns over civil liberties and lack of transparency. In the 1990s, staffers for the first President Bush dubbed Portland “Little Beirut” in response to raucous anti-war protests that greeted his visits.
During his visit to Quantico Marine Base, Trump told top military commanders, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” He singled out Chicago, Portland, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. For now, Portland’s resistance may resemble a surreal episode of protest theater—complete with inflatable dinosaurs and the viral “anti-fascist” frog. But there will be no cause for chuckling if the city becomes a proving ground for martial law, with federal troops rehearsing the suppression of dissent.
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