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Mimi Sheraton, pioneering food critic and scholar of the bialy, dies at 97
(JTA) — Growing up in a Jewish home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Mimi Sheraton seemed destined for a life in food. Her father, Joseph, sold wholesale fruit and vegetables to vendors in the Lower East Side, and her maternal grandmother, Greta Breit, was a talented cook who made her strictly kosher food from scratch.
Her mother Beatrice, meanwhile, had a “certain low-key snobbish pride about her Austrian style of cooking” and eschewed Jewish dietary laws in favor of culinary exploration. “My mother supplemented her Eastern European Jewish dishes with a wide repertory of American recipes from newspaper clippings: lobster Newburg, shrimp creole, her take on on subgum chow mein, creamed chicken a la king in puff pastry,” Sheraton wrote in her 2004 memoir “Eating My Words.”
Sheraton, born Miriam Schulman, combined all of these influences to become one of the best-known food critics and writers of her generation. During a six-decade career, she served as a contributing editor and critic for New York magazine and, from 1976 to 1983, as the food and restaurant critic for The New York Times. She was a frequent contributor to other magazines, and the author of some 16 books, including a classic history of an iconic Jewish food, “The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World.”
Sheraton died on Thursday in Manhattan. She was 97.
Sheraton, the first woman to serve as the Times’ chief restaurant critic, was widely praised for the research and sense of history she brought to her role as a critic and a journalist. “The most prominent characteristic of her reviews was the vast amount of knowledge she brought to the job and the enlivened, precise language she used to convey that information,” wrote Charlotte Druckman, in her 2019 book “Women On Food.” “It was service journalism with expertise and voice.”
Sheraton brought that expertise to the bialy, the sometimes overlooked cousin of the bagel. “‘The Bialy Eaters’ is essential reading for anyone who cares about Jewish and New York food culture, a book about the sadness and horror baked into a food she loves,” Chris Crowley, a writer for Grub Street, wrote Friday. “Published in 2000, it follows Sheraton’s search for bialys first in Bialystock, from which it had disappeared because of the Holocaust, and then throughout the Jewish diaspora.”
Sheraton also explored her Jewish background and influences in her 1985 memoir, “From My Mother’s Kitchen: Recipes and Reminiscences.”
“We were cultural Jews for sure,” Sheraton told Hadassah magazine in 2015; she was known for hosting an elaborate Passover seder “filled with food but absent the Haggada,” the Jewish text for the Passover meal. In other essays, she described the lavish preparations made for the seders of her childhood, which were presided over by her rabbi grandfather and featured gefilte fish prepared from carp that had been swimming in a bathtub until hours before the meal.
Sheraton was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 10, 1926. She graduated from Midwood High School and from New York University. Her marriage to William Schlifman ended in divorce in 1954, although she kept that new surname that he used, Sheraton. In 1955 she married Richard Falcone, who died in 2014; she is survived by their son, Marc, and a granddaughter.
Before landing a reporting job at The New York Times, Sheraton wrote for an ad agency and Good Housekeeping, worked as food editor for Seventeen magazine, and served as a restaurant critic for Cue magazine, The Village Voice and other publications.
Her books include “Is Salami and Eggs Better Than Sex?” (1985, written with the comedian Alan King), “The Whole World Loves Chicken Soup: Recipes and Lore to Comfort Body and Soul” (1995) and “The New York Times Jewish Cookbook” (2002, with Linda Amster).
In April 2016, the Culinary Institute of America honored her as a Legend of New York Dining.
In a 2009 essay in Tablet magazine, Sheraton made note of an increasingly creative Jewish cuisine and how Jewish cooks often absorbed the flavors and techniques of whatever culture they found themselves part of.
“In a way, Jews might well have been the unwitting pioneers in what is currently celebrated as fusion cooking,” she wrote. “Now, perhaps, a new worldwide Jewish cuisine is being born that, like the old Ashkenazic and Sephardic cookery, borrows from other cultures, fusing to modern tastes while still honoring their beliefs.”
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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.