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Now that Saul Zabar is gone, what will become of the ‘Over 95’ club at NYC’s leading appetizing store?
It was a Thursday morning around 11:00 am. I had parked my car in the garage on 81st Street and started my short walk to Zabar’s. When I turned the corner on 81st street to Broadway, I saw dozens of Zabar’s employees standing on the sidewalk and the road, clapping. Soon, more employees emerged from the store to join those already out there.
Almost everyone had their cameras out, taking pictures of the scene outside the store. Everyone seemed to be waiting, all eyes looking north as though they were expecting a famous movie star to be driving south on Broadway. Horns from cars with disgruntled drivers blasted the area. Traffic was almost at a standstill, and red lights occasionally brought the cars to a complete halt. Finally, what we were all waiting for appeared: A hearse with close family and friends of Saul Zabar slowly passed the store amidst thunderous applause. Saul had passed away two days earlier and today was the funeral and burial which would take place at a cemetery on Long Island.
Slowly, the hearse passed and faded into distant Broadway, cameras were returned to their pockets and the employees returned to work.
I proceeded to the fish counter where I have been working for the last 35 years. I retrieved my knives from the secret hiding place where I store them when they’re not in use and readied them for the day’s work. One by one, my associates slowly appeared until all stations were tended. The fish counter was fully staffed and ready. Slowly, the store became filled with customers as if it were any other day. But it was not like every other day to me. When I looked out at the shoppers and the counters opposite mine, everything was the same yet different. The store’s usual brightness seemed to have faded somewhat. My mind started to wander:
What will happen at 2:00 pm next Thursday, and the Thursdays thereafter when the “Over 95″ Club convenes for its regular Thursday meeting? Will it convene? Now there is only one remaining member and he will be 96 on Jan. 1, 2026.
Only time knows the answer.
About ten months ago, just after I reached the age of 95, Saul appeared behind the fish counter at about 2 on a Thursday. He had been showing up here at the fish counter for about as far back as I could remember. We would greet each other and discuss what had occurred during the prior week. He would tell me about the doctors he had seen, the physical ailments that had been affecting him. He would often ask if I had experienced the same malady or situation.
We talked about films we had seen on television during the past week, which were the good ones, which were the bad. Sometimes we would talk about the fish. I thought the sable was exceptionally good this week, tender, sweet not salty, I might say. He would then slice off a piece and make his comment.
Then, suddenly he would turn and leave the fish counter. No “goodbyes,” no “see you next week.” He was gone. The meeting was officially over. On one particular Thursday, a while back, I told him that I had inaugurated “The Over 95 Club” and that he and I were its only members. I got a half smile from him on that one.
And so the “Over 95 Club” continued with its Thursday meetings until one Thursday, about six months ago, when he didn’t show up. I let it pass. I asked some of my co-workers if they had seen him in the store during the prior few days and they said he had been in the store every day as usual; however, he spent less time than was his custom.
As the days and weeks passed, he would come to the store even less frequently and on an irregular basis, until one day he stopped coming. I didn’t get details other than that he was sick.
The “Over 95 Club” met no more.
Every Thursday that followed I wondered if he would show up until one day, about six weeks ago, I got a call from the store’s general manager — Saul had had a stroke, was in the hospital and was not expected to make it. I sat down, stunned by those words: “Not expected to make it” I couldn’t let it go. I went to bed that night still hearing those words: “Not expected to make it.”
The following morning, at the breakfast table, I started to reminisce about Saul.
When I had started work at Zabar’s, he’d been a hands-on boss. No joking around when he appeared every day in each of our many departments, commenting on what he observed and making suggestions that he felt would increase efficiency. Even though he was firm and direct as “the Boss,” he was still “Saul” to everyone. No one called him Mr. Zabar.
He would visit the Acme and Banner locations in Brooklyn where all the fish was smoked; he was always given first choice of all the smoked fish. The smoked salmon he selected became the famous, one and only “Zabar’s Nova,” the choice of the lot. That hands-on style of his accounted for Zabar’s having the best smoked fish in all of New York and points north, east, south and west of the city.
Saul knew he would not be around forever, but maybe, just maybe Zabar’s would. So, he carefully selected those employees from the younger set who he thought were capable and had the foresight to realize the future that Zabar’s could have in store for them. He taught the staff all they needed to know, so that when the time came they would have the knowledge to follow in his footsteps.
He was a dynamo, and because of all that he did and was, I imagined him still there, still sitting with me on a break, still sharing details of his doctor’s appointments and the movies we both loved. I still saw him at the fish counter. I still saw him behind it or just walking through the store, his store. He wasn’t gone for me — and I wondered if people would still see me when I was gone.
The post Now that Saul Zabar is gone, what will become of the ‘Over 95’ club at NYC’s leading appetizing store? appeared first on The Forward.
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A quiet diplomatic shift in the Middle East, with monumental consequences for Israel
Something significant is happening between Israel and Syria, and it deserves more attention than it is getting.
With the backing of the United States, Israeli and Syrian officials have agreed to create what they call a “joint fusion mechanism” — a permanent channel for coordination on intelligence, de-escalation, diplomacy and economic matters — during meetings in Paris. It appears to be the beginning of institutionalized contact between two countries that have formally been at war since 1948.
If this process continues, it will count as a genuine foreign-policy success for President Donald Trump’s administration.
To understand how profound that change would be, it is worth recalling the two countries’ shared history.
Israel and Syria — which the U.S. struck with a set of targeted attacks on the Islamic State on Saturday — have fought openly or by proxy for decades. Before 1967, Syrian artillery positions in the Golan Heights regularly shelled Israeli communities in the Hula Valley and around the Sea of Galilee. After Israel captured that region in 1967, the direct shelling stopped, but the conflict did not.
Syria remained formally committed to a state of war; Israel entrenched itself in the Golan Heights; both sides treated the frontier as a potential flashpoint to be managed carefully. After Egypt and Israel made peace in 1979, Syria became Israel’s most dangerous neighboring state.
A 1974 disengagement agreement created a United Nations-monitored buffer zone, which mostly ensured peace along the border, but did not resolve anything fundamental. In Lebanon, Israel and Syria backed opposing forces for years, and their air forces clashed briefly during the 1982 Lebanon War. Later, Iran’s growing role in Syria and Hezbollah’s military buildup added new threats. The Syrian civil war then destroyed basic state capacity and created precisely the kind of militia-rich environment Israel fears along its borders.
Now, with the dictator Bashar al-Assad gone and the former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in power, Syria is a broken country trying to stabilize. Sharaa’s past associations, disturbingly, include leadership of jihadist groups that were part of the wartime landscape in Syria. But today he governs a state facing economic collapse, infrastructure ruin and a population that needs jobs and basic services. His incentives are simple and powerful: ensure the survival of his regime, invite foreign investment, and secure relief from isolation and sanctions. Those goals point toward the U.S. and its partners, including Israel.
The Trump administration has made it clear that it wants to see new Syrian cooperation with Israel, with the suggestion that progress with Israel will become a gateway to international investment, and to a degree of political acceptance that Syria has lacked for years. Al-Sharaa’s willingness to engage is therefore not a mystery.
Israel’s motivations are also straightforward. After the Gaza war, Israel is facing a severe reputational problem. It is widely viewed abroad as reckless and excessively militarized. The government is under pressure over not only the conduct of the war but also the perception that it has no political strategy and relies almost exclusively on force. A diplomatic track with Syria allows Israel to present a very different picture: that of a country capable of negotiations with ideologically opposed neighbors, de-escalation, and regional cooperation.
There are significant security incentives, too.
Israel wants to limit Iran and Hezbollah’s influence in Syria. It wants a predictable northern border. It wants assurances regarding the Druze population in southern Syria — brethren to the Israeli Druze who are extremely loyal to the state, and who were outraged after a massacre of Syrian Druze followed the installation of al-Sharaa’s regime. It wants to ensure that no armed Syrian groups will tread near the Golan. A coordinated mechanism supervised by the U.S. offers a strong diplomatic way to address these issues.
The U.S. will benefit as well. The Trump team is eager to show that it can deliver lasting diplomatic achievements in the Middle East after the success of the Abraham Accords in Trump’s first term. A meaningful shift in Israel–Syria relations would be a very welcome addition, especially as the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza war faces an uncertain future.
The main questions now are practical. Can the “joint fusion mechanism” function under pressure? What will happen when there is, almost inevitably, an incident — a drone downed, a militia clash, a cross-border strike? Will the new system effectively lower the temperature, or will it collapse at the first crisis?
Will Iran — facing its own profound internal political crisis — accept a Syria that coordinates with Israel under U.S. supervision, or will it work to undermine al-Sharaa? How will Hezbollah react if Damascus appears to move away from the axis of “resistance” and toward a security understanding with Israel?
How would an Israel-Syria deal impact Lebanon’s moribund efforts to dismantle Hezbollah’s military capacity? Al-Sharaa has already helped significantly by ending the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah from Iran through his territory. Might he also actively help with the disarming of the group?
No one should expect a full peace treaty soon. The question of possession of the Golan Heights probably remains a deal-breaker. Public opinion in Syria has been shaped by decades of official hostility to Israel, and Israeli politics is fragmented and volatile.
But diplomatic breakthroughs can confound expectations. They usually begin with mechanisms like this one, involving limited cooperation, routine contact and crisis management.
If this effort helps move the border from a zone of permanent tension to one of managed stability, that alone would be a major shift. It would also send a signal beyond the region: U.S. engagement still matters, and American pressure and incentives can still change behavior.
The post A quiet diplomatic shift in the Middle East, with monumental consequences for Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”