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Panettone, the Christmas cake, is having a moment — and a Jewish chef has carved off a big slice
(JTA) – Panettone, the fluffy, fruit-speckled archetypal Christmas cake, is this holiday season’s “it” dessert — and the creator of perhaps the most coveted version in the United States is an Israeli-American Jew.
The New York Times this week credited baker Roy Shvartzapel with spearheading “the American panettone revolution” through his business From Roy.
Shvartzapel has dedicated the bulk of his career to the airy Italian cakes, training under Iginio Massari, the undisputed master baker in Italy, and obsessing over each ingredient and step in the 40-hour production cycle. After a flurry of coverage in his company’s early days in 2016, and especially since being endorsed by Oprah Winfrey in 2018, Shvartzapel’s business has grown dramatically. Last year, he said he expected to sell nearly 300,000, at $75 a piece, both in stores and via mail order. This year, the price is $85, and preorders sold out by — without, Shvartzapel said on a podcast last year, any spending on marketing.
While Shvartzapel’s goal of turning panettone into a year-round treat means he has several non-traditional flavors in his repertoire, From Roy only offers a few at a time — and the company plans to keep it that way.
“There’s lots of pastry items that I love that I will never be making for my business,” Shvartzapel said on the podcast, with the chef Chris Cosentino. “I’m a big believer that less is more, generally speaking, in most things.”
Shvartzapel declined to comment to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this month, explaining through a publicist that he was too busy before Christmas to speak. But in public comments and social media posts made before this year’s panettone “gold rush,” as the New York Times put it, he has offered details about the intersection of his Jewish identity and his Christmas baking.
From Roy’s cherry, white chocolate and pistachio panettone with almond glaze and pearl sugar as seen in the company’s California kitchen, Oct. 20, 2016. (Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Born in Karmiel, Israel, where a statue modeled on his mother holding him as an infant stands in a park, Shvartzapel was raised in Houston and now lives in California’s Bay Area with his children and Israeli-born wife, who also helped launch From Roy. A devoted athlete as a teenager, he played collegiate basketball and spent time on Karmiel’s Maccabi team but realized he would never make the NBA.
“Like every good Jewish boy,” Shvartzapel told David Chang, the Momofuku chef, on a 2019 podcast interview, he considered becoming a lawyer before realizing that cooking played to his passions and strengths.
After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in 2004, Shvartzapel began looking for work in New York City. It was a cookbook by the Jewish baker Dorie Greenspan that indirectly led to his first job: He spotted a lemon tart in a new cafe that looked like one she had photographed by the master French chef Pierre Hermé, then talked his way into a job working there, at Bouley Bakery, under Hermé’s former executive chef. Ultimately, that led to him working in Paris, where he had the panettone that changed his life.
“The texture, the aroma, the chew,” he said in 2018. ”I tasted it and it was like one of those meditative lights-off moments. The crazy love affair began.”
Shvartzapel has spoken extensively about his intense work ethic, his struggles with depression and, of course, what sets his panettone apart from low-cost supermarket varieties. He has said less publicly about himself as a Jew. But last year, on Facebook, he wished his friends a happy Passover with a picture of a cheesy omelet and a side of chopped liver — both prepared with attention to the holiday’s prohibitions on leavened bread (such as panettone) but, together, not a kosher meal.
“Modern jew … I mean, gotta combine the dairy and the meat to make it particularly kosher for Passover,” he wrote, adding laughing emojis.
Although panettone is often mentioned in the same breath as its Jewish enriched-dough cousin, babka, its history is rooted in the Catholic Church. Legend has it that it was created by accident on a 15th-century Christmas Eve, and was served to Catholic students and even the pope by the 1500s, according to records from the time.
Still, it makes sense that America’s most prominent panettone maker is Jewish, according to Debbie Prinz, a food historian and author of the forthcoming book “On The Bread Trail,” which grew out of her exploration of Jewish celebration cakes.
“It’s not surprising that there’s this interchange, especially today, since the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews are even fewer than they used to be,” Prinz said.
But while Shvartzapel’s panettone path may be modern, historic patterns of cultural collision have often cut the other way, sending traditionally Jewish foods onto the Christmas table.
One notable example appears to be lebkuchen, a fruit-studded spice cookie popular in Germany. While the origins of the treat are not clear, one theory is that lebkuchen entered German cuisine through lekach, a honey cake eaten by Italian Jewish traders passing through during the Middle Ages, according to researchers at the Leo Baeck Institute, a German Jewish institution. (German Jews fleeing the Nazis imported contemporary lebkuchen recipes and, in several cases, became successful lebkuchen purveyors in New York.)
Meanwhile, in panettone’s home country of Italy, traditional Christmas menus include a host of dishes that are likely to have originated in Jewish kitchens: pezzetti fritti or mixed fried vegetables; bigoli, or buckwheat noodles, with onion and anchovies; spongata, a cake imported from Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition; and nociata, or nut bars.
Legendary panettone maker Iginio Massari poses in his bakery Pasticceria Veneto in Brescia, Italy, in June 2019. (Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)
Many of those foods were historically Jewish because they made use of ingredients such as eggplant that were considered distasteful by non-Jewish Italians, or of ingredients such as anchovies that Jews used because they were not permitted to access higher-quality fish.
“There are a number of recipes that we call Jewish that came out of the fact that the Italians were really nasty to Jews,” said Benedetta Jasmine Guetta, author of “Cooking all Guidia: A Celebration of the Jewish Food of Italy.”
“Most of the time, actually I’m going to say 100% of the time, people don’t know” that the dishes were originally Jewish, Guetta added. “This is a common problem and the reason why I wrote my book.”
But while Guetta’s focus is on the Jewish foods of Italy, in December, she often turns to that famous domed Christmas cake.
“I have definitely grown up eating a great deal of panettone. My parents checked the ingredients to make sure it didn’t contain pork fat,” she said. “It’s a yummy seasonal treat.”
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Ted Cruz Blasts Tucker Carlson for Plan to Buy Home in Qatar, Conduct at Doha Forum
Tucker Carlson speaks at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, Oct. 21, 2025. Photo: Gage Skidmore/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The ongoing foreign policy feud between US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and anti-Israel podcaster Tucker Carlson continued over the weekend, with the legislator responding bluntly to the former Fox News host’s conduct and declarations at the Doha Forum in Qatar.
In reply to Carlson’s announcement on Sunday that he intended to purchase a home in Doha and reports of anti-Israel sentiments at the event sponsored by the country’s ruling monarchy, Cruz asked, “I thought fellatio was illegal in Qatar?”
Carlson had a sit-down discussion with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani during the forum, during which the far-right media provocateur referenced widespread speculation that he was receiving Qatari money. Analysts have revealed in recent reports that Qatar, a longtime supporter of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood’s global network more broadly, has spent tens of billions of dollars to influence US policy making and public opinion in Doha’s favor.
“I have been criticized as being a tool of Qatar, and I just want to say – which you already know – which is I have never taken anything from your country and don’t plan to,” Carlson said over the weekend. “I am, however, tomorrow buying a place in Qatar. I like the city; I think it’s beautiful. But also want to make a statement that I’m an American and a free man and I’ll be wherever I want to be. I have not taken any money from Qatar, but I have now given money to Qatar.”
Carlson later confirmed his views of Qatar to the Doha News, saying that “I like it here a lot.” He previously told his fellow far-right podcaster Steve Bannon that “they know I’m not working for Qatar.”
Cruz also responded to an X post by Carlson’s longtime business partner Neil Patel which had tagged him and featured the podcaster extending a middle finger with the text, “Greetings from the booodthirsty, terror-supporting slave state of Qatar.”
The senator affirmed the sarcastic taunt, writing, “Fact check: true.”
Conservative talk radio host Mark Levin, also a frequent critic of Carlson who has previously deployed the epithet “Qatarlson,” wrote on Monday that “Neil Patel was top policy adviser to Dick Cheney. Tucker Carlson worked for Bill Kristol. Now they’re both monarchists — Qatar first lapdogs for a terrorist dictatorship.”
The Al Thani family monarchy has run Qatar since the 1800s and has long supported the Muslim Brotherhood. The country has provided the Hamas-run government in Gaza with an estimated $1.8 billion and allows the terrorist group to host an office in Doha.
The US State Department has affirmed severe human rights abuses in Qatar, including “enforced disappearance; arbitrary arrest; political prisoners; serious restrictions on free expression, including the existence of criminal libel laws; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on the organization, funding, or operation of nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations; restrictions on freedom of movement; inability of citizens to change their government peacefully in free and fair elections; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; extensive gender-based violence; existence of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct, which were not systematically enforced; and the prohibition of independent trade unions and significant or systematic restrictions on workers’ freedom of association.”
US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) defended Carlson from Cruz’s criticism.
“Canadian born Zionist Texas Senator Ted Cruz has lost his mind over Tucker Carlson,” Greene wrote Sunday on X. “You would think a United States Senator would be gravely concerned about affordability for Americans, the looming healthcare crisis, and actually passing appropriations with another government funding deadline coming end of January. But instead he’s gone mad with Tucker living rent free in his head.”
On Monday, Greene shared graphics on X critical of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) support for President Donald Trump, writing, “I AM AMERICA FIRST. Thank you for your attention to this matter. -MTG.” One green image of a smiling, colorful Greene from “TrackAIPAC” affirms $0 in donations. This juxtaposes with a red image of a black and white, scowling Trump who has allegedly received over $230 million.
AIPAC, a prominent American lobbying group, seeks to foster bipartisan support for a strong US-Israel alliance.
In a Sunday interview with “60 Minutes,” Greene defended her decision not to vote for a measure condemning antisemitism, saying, “We don’t have to get on our knees and say it over and over again.”
Mark Dubowitz, CEO at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, reflected on Carlson’s remarks in Doha by recalling the man’s father: “Watching Tucker in Doha, I think of Ambassador Richard W. Carlson — my former @FDD colleague and mentor. A true American patriot. A steadfast friend of Israel and the Jewish people. A fearless opponent of Islamists and Communists. May his memory be a blessing.”
While many observers both within and outside the American political right have expressed concerns about increases in antisemitic sentiment, Vice President JD Vance pushed back on the claim over the weekend.
“I think it’s kind of slanderous to say that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, is extremely antisemitic,” he said. “Do I think the Republican Party is substantially more antisemitic than it was 10 or 15 years ago? Absolutely not.”
Vance, who employs one of Carlson’s sons in his office and is reportedly friends with the podcaster, added, “I just don’t see the simmering antisemitism that’s exploding that some people claim.”
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French Nanny Faces Trial for Poisoning Jewish Family in Case Stirring Outrage Amid Rising Antisemitic Attacks
Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
An Algerian woman residing illegally in France is set to stand trial on Tuesday on antisemitism-aggravated charges after admitting to poisoning the food of the Jewish family that employed her as a nanny, in a case that has intensified public outrage amid a surge of antisemitic attacks across the country.
The 42-year-old nanny, who has worked as a live-in caregiver for a family with three children aged two, five, and seven since November 2023, will now appear at the criminal court in Nanterre, just west of Paris, accused of poisoning them by contaminating their food and drinks with toxic substances, according to French media.
She is expected to face multiple charges, including “administering a harmful substance that caused more than eight days of incapacity for racial or religious reasons.”
The nanny, who has been living in France in violation of a deportation order issued in February 2024, is currently in custody and faces additional charges for presenting her employers with a forged Belgian identity document.
The shocking incident, first reported by Le Parisien, in January last year occurred just two months after the caregiver was hired, when the mother discovered cleaning products in the wine she drank and suffered severe eye pain from using makeup remover that had been contaminated with a toxic substance, prompting her to call the police.
After a series of forensic tests, investigators detected polyethylene glycol — a chemical commonly used in industrial and pharmaceutical products — along with other toxic substances in the food consumed by the family and their three children.
According to court documents, these chemicals were described as “harmful, even corrosive, and capable of causing serious injuries to the digestive tract.”
When the mother explained that only her family and the nanny had access to the house, she was promptly taken into police custody for questioning.
Even though she initially denied the charges against her, the nanny later confessed to police that she had poured a soapy lotion into the family’s food as a warning because “they were disrespecting her.”
“They have money and power, so I should never have worked for a Jewish woman — it only brought me trouble,” the nanny told the police. “I knew I could hurt them, but not enough to kill them.”
According to her lawyer, Solange Marel, the nanny has withdrawn her confession, maintaining that there is no proof of an antisemitic motive and that jealousy and a perceived financial grievance were the primary factors.
She also emphasized that the substances were found only in the parents’ drinks, not the children’s.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews — is set to appear before the court on Tuesday as a witness for the family.
He described the case as “revealing of structural violence, whose singular severity should neither be minimized nor concealed.”
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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro Vows to Fight K-12 Antisemitism in Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro delivers remarks at a bill signing event at Cheyney University, an HBCU in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, US, Aug. 2, 2024. Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers via Reuters Connect
Administrative officials representing Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro have vowed to place K-12 antisemitism in Philadelphia public schools among its top priorities, citing rising incidents of hatred in schools across the city.
“Governor Shapiro takes a back seat to no one on these issues, and as he has repeatedly spoken out about antisemitism, and this kind of hateful rhetoric is unacceptable and has no place in Pennsylvania — especially not in our classrooms,” Rosie Lapowsky, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said in a statement first shared with Fox News Digital. “This is a matter the governor has made clear the district needs to take very seriously.”
Lapowsky’s comments come days after the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce began investigating antisemitism in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP), as well as other districts in Virginia and California, following reports of antisemitic invective, bullying, and inciting language regarding the murders of two Israeli embassy staffers earlier this year.
“Today, SDP employs numerous educators who allegedly promote antisemitic content in their classrooms,” education committee chairman Rep. Mark Wahlberg (R-MI) said in a letter to the district which announced the action. “One such teacher has allegedly threatened Jewish parents and students alone. She and other Philadelphia educators also allegedly use lessons from an effort called Teaching Palestine, whose class materials rationalize terrorist violence and advocate for the destruction of Israel.”
He added, “In addition to failing to exercise oversight of antisemitic materials in the classroom, SDP’s partnerships with external organizations raise concerns about whether antisemitic ideology is being taught in Philadelphia schools.”
In July, a bipartisan group of Pennsylvania state lawmakers called on Shapiro to intervene in what they described as a deepening crisis of antisemitism and political extremism within SDP.
On Monday, Dr. Mika Hackner, director of research at the North American Values Institute, told The Algemeiner in a statement that antisemitic “rot” in SPD runs “deep” and that “changes have to be made.”
“There is a very big problem in the School District of Philadelphia; not just with antisemitism but with extremism,” he said, citing “revelations of a private Signal chat in which teachers expose students to radical political actions like marches in support of Hamas or the idea that ‘all resistance is righteous.’”
Jewish civil rights advocates have been clamoring for lawmakers to address K-12 antisemitism in schools in Philadelphia and throughout the state of Pennsylvania, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
In July 2024, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) filed a civil rights complaint accusing SDP of allowing Jewish students to be subjected to a slew of antisemitic abuses. According to the complaint, antisemitic bullying at SDP is so severe that one Jewish student, after being told “f—k you and free Palestine” as well as “Praise Hitler,” left the school district entirely, according to the complaint. In another reported incident, an anti-Zionist student used the Halloween holiday to appear at school costumed as a terrorist and attempted to “drape a Palestinian flag over a Jewish student.” Their principal later allegedly “praised the costume.”
Discriminatory behavior is also rampant in the classroom. However, the ADL charges, at SDP, teachers contribute to intimidation and shaming, using their power and monopoly on class discussions to denounce Israel as “exterminators” and stream videos accusing the Jewish state of “making Palestinians homeless.”
Outside of Philadelphia, in Amber, Pennsylvania, the Wissahickon School District (WSD) is presenting as fact an anti-Zionist account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to its K-12 students by using it as the basis for courses taken by honors students.
“On May 14, 1948, Israel declared itself an independent nation: Based on a [United Nations] Mandate but not supported by other countries in the region; Recognized by the US and much of the non-Arab world; Expelled up to 750,000 Palestinians from their land, an event called ‘al-Nakba,’” says the material, provided by virtual learning platform Edgenuity, which implies that Israel is a settler-colonial state — a false assertion promoted by neo-Nazis and jihadist terror groups.
“Nakba,” the Arabic term for “catastrophe,” is used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Based on documents obtained by The Algemeiner, the material does not seemingly detail the varied reasons for Palestinian Arabs leaving the nascent State of Israel at the time, including that they were encouraged by Arab leaders to flee their homes to make way for the invading Arab armies. Nor does it appear to explain that some 850,000 Jews were forced to flee or expelled from Middle Eastern and North African countries in the 20th century, especially in the aftermath of Israel’s declaring independence.
Another module reviewed by The Algemeiner contains a question based on a May 15, 1948, statement from The Arab League — a group of countries which adamantly opposed Jewish immigration to the region in the years leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel and refused to condemn antisemitic violence Arabs perpetrated against Jewish refugees — after Israel declared its independence. The passage denies that Jews faced antisemitic indignities when the land was administered by the Ottoman Empire, a notion that is inconsistent with the historical record, and asserts that “Arab inhabitants” are “the lawful owners of the country.”
Wissahickon reemerged in the news cycle following reports that during a recent demonstration at Wissahickon High School a Muslim student group festooned signs which said, “Jerusalem is ours,” offered cash prizes related to anti-Israel activism, and swayed school principal, Dr. Lynne Blair, into being photographed with them, a feat which, according to concerns members of the community, created the impression that anti-Zionism is a viewpoint held by the administration.
“Wissahickon leadership keeps insisting this was just a cultural event, but the community sees it for what it was — intimidation wrapped in keffiyehs and candy,” NAVI told The Algemeiner. “Even a blind squirrel occasionally trips over a nut, and in this case, the nut is the explosive reality that schools are no longer neutral grounds. When a superintendent publicly supports one side of a geopolitical conflict inside a public high school, it stops being education and starts being indoctrination. Jewish students deserve better, and every school district in America should take notice.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.