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Israeli sandwich shop Sherry Herring goes belly up on the UWS

(New York Jewish Week) – The Upper West Side outpost of the popular Israeli sandwich shop Sherry Herring closed last week, after less than two years in business. 

Sherry Herring announced its closure in an Instagram post on May 31. “We have some important news to share,” the post said. “Regrettably, we are closing the doors of Sherry Herring, our beloved restaurant at 245 West 72nd St. We appreciate your support and the memories we’ve created together.”

“The only thing I can say is that I’m very sad that we are closing,” Israel-based founder Sherry Ansky told the New York Jewish Week when asked the reason for the restaurant’s closure. “Maybe if I was there it would have been different, but I had to stay in Israel and couldn’t be there.”

Ansky started Sherry Herring in a Tel Aviv farmer’s market in 2011, where it quickly became a destination. Its signature herring sandwich consists of “a fresh baguette, slathered with sour cream and French butter, seasoned with hot pepper, seeds and juice from a tomato, onions and scallions, and finished off with brined herring.” 

Ansky got the idea to open a New York City outpost during the pandemic, sending her son-in-law and business partner, Eyal Amir, to scout a location for the first of what they hoped would be several Sherry Herring shops. They chose the Upper West Side, Amir told the New York Jewish Week, “because it is a Jewish neighborhood where our penetration to the market will be easiest.” 

Sherry Herring opened on West 72nd Street in October 2021 with “no sherry and no herring,” the New York Jewish Week reported at the time. Ansky was stuck in Israel waiting for travel documents to be approved, and the herring that would be the star of the menu was still aging in brine in the Netherlands. (It eventually arrived mid-December.) The New York menu also included salmon, mackerel and tuna sandwiches.

The first time Ansky saw the line for her shop, ““I fainted and ran away,” she said. “I told the people to go away! I can’t do it.”

The eatery was beloved both by locals and globe-trotting foodies. “Somebody Feed Phil” star and “Everybody Loves Raymond” creator Phil Rosenthal described the herring sandwich at the Tel Aviv shop as “a perfect example of something seemingly simple yet a very sophisticated work of art.” 

Changes had been made to the menu and the New York restaurant in the months leading up to its closure. In February, they announced an “elevated” evening menu called “Sherry Herring After Dark,” which featured various tapas style dishes and Israeli wine and beer. The restaurant also posted on Instagram that it was hiring on March 5. Later that month, Sherry Herring lost its kosher certification — and indicated to the website Yeah That’s Kosher that “they will likely close their UWS location by September.”

Instead, the closure happened several months earlier. “The owners decided that it’d be best for everybody to close,” the New York restaurant’s general manager, Alex Ben Chimol, said when reached by phone by the New York Jewish Week. “Maybe we’ll reopen another time in a different location.” 

Sherry Herring’s May 31 Instagram post hinted at that possibility, stating: “Although we won’t be at this location anymore, we’re excited for new culinary adventures. Stay connected for updates on our future plans.” The text on the image reads: “See you soon New York.”

“They made me fall in love with herring and they tried their best in recreating an old Jewish niche,” Uncle Edik’s Pickles proprietor Edward Ilyasov told the New York Jewish Week. “We loved their creativity and they carried our pickles from the very beginning. They will be missed!”


The post Israeli sandwich shop Sherry Herring goes belly up on the UWS appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Athens Police Ban Public Displays on Anniversary of Hamas Terror Mastermind Yahya Sinwar’s Death

L-R: Former Operations Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, former Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, and Gaza Division chief Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram stand over the body of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Oct. 17, 2024. The image was published by the army on Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: IDF.

Law enforcement in Athens on Thursday restricted pro-Hamas activists from staging demonstrations in the Greek capital to memorialize Yahya Sinwar — the architect behind Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel — who was killed on Oct. 16, 2024, by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Police stated that the planned events presented safety concerns and a significant risk. Organizers reportedly included Gather for Gaza, Stand with Palestine, and the Turkish People’s Front. The ban ran from 5:00 pm on Thursday through 6:00 am on Friday. It covered the city’s Syntagma Square and the inner-city area.

The IDF commemorated the anniversary of Sinwar’s killing by releasing a new image of the terrorist mastermind’s body. It features former Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, former Operations Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, and Gaza Division chief Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram standing above the Hamas leader’s corpse on Oct. 17, 2024.

The IDF posted on X on Thursday, “One year since Yahya Sinwar’s elimination. The man who began the war isn’t alive to see it end.”

On Oct. 11, The New York Times reported the discovery of an August 2022 handwritten memo by Sinwar seen as a planning document for the following year’s Oct. 7 attack, instructing “Two or three operations, in which an entire neighborhood, kibbutz, or something similar will be burned, must be prepared.”

On Tuesday, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published further translations from the document its author had titled “Necessary Clarifications.”

Sinwar used the religious language “In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful” and “Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds.” He described eight key points which MEMRI characterized as developing pre-stage preparations, using psychological warfare through imagery, deploying “horrifying events,” opening “gates” for infiltration, facilitating a flow of forces, coordinating with other factions, designating identification signals, and expanding the offensive.

Before the attack, Sinwar told his fighters to “engage in intensive movements weeks before any action that the enemy deems routine, providing cover for the larger movement.”

Sinwar also directed the use of creating terrifying media both to horrify Israelis and to inspire Palestinians. He wrote that he wanted both “images that spark feelings of euphoria, madness, and excitement among our people” while also fueling “terror and panic among the enemy.”

Sinwar instructed that he wanted Hamas fighters to engage in “trampling on the heads of soldiers and shooting them at point-blank range, slaughtering some with knives, blowing up tanks, and capturing prisoners kneeling with their hands on their heads.” He called for his followers to “deliberately create these events, film them, and broadcast the images as quickly as possible.”

The document continued to mix both calls for carnage with theological references. Sinwar cited the Quranic verse “So Allah came to them from where they did not expect and cast terror into their hearts” in the context of creating “flaming car bombs exploding in a location or building, causing terrifying destruction, a heart-rending sound, and a massive fire.”

Sinwar also named what he called “gates” as the entry to attack, identifying “one in the north (Erez Gate), one east of Gaza (Nahal Oz), and a third opposite the central one.” He called for bulldozers to first “advance to open the gates, remove obstacles, and level the roads” and then after the attack had begun to take out “all possible wire, barriers, barricades, earthworks, and the like.”

Foreseeing where he would direct his forces, Sinwar wrote that “the Northern Brigade’s objectives must be primarily directed toward the coastal strip, the Gaza Brigade’s objectives toward the northeast … the Rafah Brigade toward the southeast.” He also planned coordinating with other factions, instructing that brigade commanders should contact leaders of other groups to “muster their forces as quickly as possible to integrate them into the operational plan” which would involve the third and fourth waves of the attack.

Sinwar also suggested signals to avoid friendly fire, such as “a specific ribbon on [the] right arm” and with a codename like “The Jerusalem Army.”

The document captured Sinwar’s optimism at the potential for the strikes to grow. He called for his commanders to “expand the attack to the greatest possible extent” and to anticipate support from “movements of our people inside Israel, in Jerusalem, and the West Bank, and [the Lebanese terrorist group] Hezbollah’s intervention.”

Sinwar sought to capture “centers of power, command, and control” and aimed “to impose the most significant facts on the ground, making the possibility of a counterattack impossible.”

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South Africa Vows to Continue Genocide Case Against Israel at ICJ Despite Gaza Ceasefire

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Chatsworth, South Africa, May 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rogan Ward

South Africa has vowed to continue its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) despite the ceasefire in Gaza, the most significant effort yet to halt the nearly two-year Middle Eastern conflict, taking effect.

Speaking before parliament in Cape Town on Tuesday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa affirmed that the US-backed peace deal “will have no bearing” on the ongoing legal proceedings against the Jewish state.

Ramaphosa promised to continue seeking “justice for the people of Gaza,” while reiterating false accusations that Israel committed genocide under international law during its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

“The peace deal that has been struck, which we welcome, will have no bearing on the case that is before the International Court of Justice,” the South African leader said.

“The case is proceeding, and it now has to go to the stage where Israel has to respond to our pleadings that have been filed in the court, and they have to do so by January of next year,” he continued.

Israel has strongly rejected all allegations of genocide, calling South Africa’s case “baseless” and “politically motivated.”

However, Ramaphosa has once again defended South Africa’s efforts against Jerusalem, insisting that the case is driven not by politics but by moral and legal principles of accountability and human rights.

“We cannot go forward without the healing that needs to take place, which will also result from the case being properly heard,” the South African leader said. “True peace requires justice, recognition, and reparations.”

“Peace cannot come at the expense of justice,” he continued. “For the victims, for the families, and for humanity itself, the truth must be heard.”

Ramaphosa’s continuing push comes amid mounting international pressure, with the US, South African political leaders, and the local Jewish community all expressing opposition to his government’s actions, accusing it of pursuing an anti-Israel campaign instead of addressing the country’s own pressing issues.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) strongly condemned Ramaphosa’s latest remarks, denouncing him and the country’s leadership as showing no real concern for achieving peace in the Middle East.

“It is fascinating that [Ramaphosa] chose not to comment on the return of the hostages or the ceasefire. Seems peace is not their real goal. Maybe that’s why they aren’t sitting around the peace table in Sharm El-Sheik?” SAJBD wrote in a post on X, referring to the Gaza peace summit in Egypt, where leaders signed a US-brokered agreement aimed at ending the war.

“It is a profound disappointment that the South African government, despite its ties to Hamas, adopted a one-sided and performative stance from the conflict’s outset, choosing meaningless virtue signaling exercises, failing to leverage its position to contribute meaningfully to hostage negotiations, de-escalation, or the pursuit of a peace that could have saved countless lives,” the statement read.

Several countries, including Spain, Ireland, Turkey, and Colombia, have expressed their support for Pretoria’s efforts.

On Tuesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, one of Europe’s most outspoken critics of Israel since the start of war in Gaza, expressed his support for Ramaphosa’s decision to continue pursuing the ICJ case despite the newly brokered ceasefire.

“There cannot be impunity,” Sánchez told local media. “The main actors of the genocide will have to answer to justice.”

South Africa first filed its case in December 2023, accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza.

Israeli leaders have condemned the case as an “obscene exploitation” of the Genocide Convention, noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.

Last year, the ICJ ruled there was “plausibility” to South Africa’s claims that Palestinians had a right to be protected from genocide.

However, the top UN court did not make a determination on the merits of South Africa’s allegations, which may take years to go through the judicial process, nor did it call for Israel to halt its military campaign.

Instead, the ICJ issued a more general directive that Israel must make sure it prevents acts of genocide. The ruling also called for the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Under ICJ timelines, Israel must respond to South Africa’s allegations by January next year, with oral hearings scheduled for 2027 and a final judgment potentially arriving as late as 2028.

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Pomona College Pledges to Punish Pro-Hamas Activists Who Breached Oct. 7 Memorial Event

Screenshot of footage of pro-Hamas group raiding event held to honor Israelis who died during Oct. 7 massacre. Photo: Screenshot

Pomona College officials are investigating an outrage in which masked pro-Hamas activists breached an event held on the California campus to commemorate the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists raped, murdered, and abducted women, children, and men during their rampage across southern Israel.

Footage of the act circulating on social media shows the group attempting to raid the room while screaming expletives and pro-Hamas dogma. They ultimately failed due to the prompt response of the Claremont Colleges Jewish chaplain and other attendees who formed a barrier in front of the door to repel them, a defense they mounted on their own as campus security personnel did nothing to stop the disturbance, according to video of the incident and witnesses who spoke to The Claremont Independent.

“We have seen videos of the incident, and they are shocking and deeply disturbing,” Pomona College president Gabi Starr said in a statement. “It is both outrageous and cruel to interrupt a space where members of our community come together to mourn. Antisemitic hate cannot be tolerated here. Our community is better than this.”

Issuing a call for assistance in identifying the culprits, she continued, “While we have not yet identified the individuals, we are examining video footage taken during the event, as well as security footage to determine how access could have been gained.”

Claremont Hillel, the center of Jewish student life at the Claremont Colleges consortium, of which Pomona College is a member, denounced the incident as “completely unacceptable,” adding, “Jewish students must be able to gather, grieve, and remember without fear or intimidation. We are grateful for Pomona College’s swift response and strong condemnation of this incident, and we are working closely with the administration to strengthen safety protocols and support our students in the wake of this upsetting incident.”

Pomona College has historically followed through on its promise to punish antisemitic activity.

In October 2024, it imposed severe disciplinary sanctions, ranging from expulsion to banishment, on 12 students who participated in illegally occupying and vandalizing the Carnegie Hall administrative building on the first anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

A Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spinoff, Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA), led the assault on the building, flooding Carnegie Hall to graffiti its walls — with messages such as “F—k Pomona” and “From the river to the sea” — and to wreck “AV equipment, printers, plaques, and various materials.” The students destroyed important college “memorabilia” too, a campus paper reported at the time.

“The destruction in Carnegie Hall was extensive, and the harm done to individuals and our mission was so great,” Starr said after the incident. “Starting this week, disciplinary letters are going out to students from Pomona and other Claremont Colleges who have been identified as taking part in the takeover of Carnegie Hall. Student groups affiliated with this incident are also under investigation.”

Pro-Hamas groups at other higher education institutions are facing even worse consequences for their behavior.

A Santa Clara County, California grand jury has indicted, on federal charges of vandalism and trespassing, nearly a dozen pro-Hamas students from Stanford University who commandeered then-school president Richard Saller’s office in June 2024.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, anti-Israel activists associated with the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) raided Saller’s office, locking themselves inside using, the Stanford Daily said at the time, “bike locks, chains, ladders, and chairs.” The incident was part of a larger pro-Hamas demonstration in which SJP demanded that the university adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as the first step to its eventual elimination.

Twelve students in total had participated in the action, including one non-student, but the 12th student has reportedly become a “cooperating witness,” having agreed to tell on his friends in exchange for clemency. The remaining 11 are accused of causing some $300,00 in damages to Saller’s office and the administrative building in which it is located. As such, “Stanford is demanding restitution,” according to an email the group’s lawyer, Jeff Wozniak, sent to The Stanford Daily.

US college campuses saw an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents — including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students — after the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. In a two-month span following the atrocities, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 470 antisemitic incidents on college campuses alone. During that same period, antisemitic incidents across the US skyrocketed by 323 percent compared to the prior year.

To this day, Jewish students report feeling unsafe on the campus. According to a new survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), the vast majority of Jewish students around the world resort to hiding their Jewishness and support for Israel on university campuses to avoid becoming victims of antisemitism.

A striking 78 percent of Jewish students have opted to “conceal” their religious affiliation “at least once” over the past year, the study found, with Jewish women being more likely than men to do so. Meanwhile, 81 percent of those surveyed hid their support for Zionism, a movement which promotes Jewish self-determination and the existence of the State of Israel, at least once over the past year.

Among all students, Orthodox Jews reported the highest rates of “different treatment,” with 41 percent saying that their peers employ alternative social norms in dealing with them.

“This survey exposes a devastating reality: Jewish students across the globe are being forced to hide fundamental aspects of their identity just to feel safe on campus,” ADL senior vice president of international affairs Marina Rosenberg said in a statement. “When over three-quarters of Jewish students feel they must conceal their religious and Zionist identity for their own safety, the situation is nothing short of dire. As the academic year begins, the data provides essential insights to guide university leadership in addressing this campus crisis head on.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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