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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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Trump Hosts Saudi Crown Prince for Pomp-Filled, Deal-Making Visit
US President Donald Trump stands next to Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman during an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, Nov. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump hosted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday, with the Saudi de facto ruler seeking to further rehabilitate his global image after the 2018 killing of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi and deepen ties with Washington.
Making his first White House visit in more than seven years, the crown prince was greeted with a lavish display of pomp and ceremony presided over by Trump on the South Lawn, complete with a military honor guard, a cannon salute, and a flyover by US warplanes.
Talks between the two leaders are expected to advance security ties, civil nuclear cooperation, and multibillion-dollar business deals with the kingdom. But there will likely be no major breakthrough on Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel, despite pressure from Trump for such a landmark move.
The meeting underscores a key relationship — between the world’s biggest economy and the top oil exporter — that Trump has made a high priority in his second term as the international uproar around the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi insider-turned-critic, has gradually faded.
US intelligence concluded that bin Salman approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
The warm welcome for bin Salman in Washington is the latest sign that relations have recovered from the deep strain caused by Khashoggi’s murder.
Trump greeted bin Salman with a smile and a handshake on the red carpet, while dozens of military personnel lined the perimeter. The limousine was escorted up the South Drive by a US Army mounted honor guard. The two leaders then looked skyward as fighter jets roared overhead, before Trump led his guest inside.
Before sitting down for talks, the two leaders chatted amiably as Trump gave bin Salman a tour of presidential portraits lining the wall outside the Oval Office.
During a day of White House diplomacy, bin Salman will hold talks with Trump in the Oval Office, have lunch in the Cabinet Room, and attend a formal black-tie dinner in the evening, giving it many of the trappings of a state visit. US and Saudi flags festooned lamp posts in front of the White House.
Trump expects to build on a $600 billion Saudi investment pledge made during his visit to the kingdom in May, which will include the announcement of dozens of targeted projects, a senior US administration official said.
The US and Saudi Arabia were ready to strike deals on Tuesday for defense sales, enhanced cooperation on civil nuclear energy, and a multibillion-dollar investment in US artificial intelligence infrastructure, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Trump told reporters on Monday, “We’ll be selling” F-35s to Saudi, which has requested to buy 48 of the advanced aircraft.
This would be the first US sale of the fighter jets to Saudi Arabia and mark a significant policy shift. The deal could alter the military balance in the Middle East and test Washington’s definition of maintaining what the US has termed Israel’s “qualitative military edge.” Until now, Israel has been the only country in the Middle East to have the F-35.
Beyond military equipment, the Saudi leader is seeking new security guarantees. Most experts expect Trump to issue an executive order creating the kind of defense pact he recently gave to Qatar but still short of the congressionally ratified NATO-style treaty the Saudis initially sought.
EYE ON CHINA
Former US negotiator in the Middle East Dennis Ross, who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, said Trump wants to develop a multifaceted relationship that keeps Saudi Arabia out of China’s sphere.
“President Trump believes all these steps bind the Saudis increasingly to us on a range of issues, ranging from security to the finance-AI-energy nexus. He wants them bound to us on these issues and not China,” Ross said.
Trump is expected to keep up pressure on bin Salman for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel.
The Saudis have been reluctant to take such a major step without a clear path to Palestinian statehood, a goal that has been forced to the backburner as the region grapples with the Gaza war.
Trump reached Abraham Accords agreements between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan during his first term in 2020. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan agreed to join.
But Trump has always seen Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords as the linchpin to achieving a wider Middle East peace.
“It’s very important to him that they join the Abraham Accords during his term and so he has been hyping up the pressure on that,” the senior White House official said.
Jonathan Panikoff, former deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East, said that while Trump will urge bin Salman to move toward normalizing ties with Israel, any lack of progress there is unlikely to hinder reaching a new US-Saudi security pact.
“President Trump’s desire for investment into the US, which the crown prince previously promised, could help soften the ground for expanding defense ties even as the president is determined to advance Israeli-Saudi normalization,” said Panikoff, now at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington.
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After UN Vote, Netanyahu Calls for Hamas’s Expulsion From the Region
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the plenum of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem, Nov. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday called for Hamas to be expelled from the region, a day after the UN Security Council endorsed President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war that offers the Palestinian terrorist group amnesty.
Netanyahu publicly endorsed the plan during a White House visit in late September. However, his latest remarks appear to show that there are differences with the United States on the path forward. Hamas has also objected to parts of the plan.
Diplomats say privately that entrenched positions on both the Israeli and Hamas sides have made it difficult to advance the plan, which lacks specific timelines or enforcement mechanisms. Still, it has received strong international backing.
Netanyahu on Tuesday published a series of posts on X in response to the UN vote. In one post, he applauded Trump and in another wrote the Israeli government believes the plan would lead to peace and prosperity because it calls for the “full demilitarization, disarmament, and deradicalization of Gaza.”
“Israel extends its hand in peace and prosperity to all of our neighbors” and calls on neighboring countries to “join us in expelling Hamas and its supporters from the region,” he said.
Asked what the prime minister had meant by expelling Hamas, a spokesperson said that it would mean “ensuring there is no Hamas in Gaza as outlined in the 20-point plan, and Hamas has no ability to govern the Palestinian people inside the Gaza Strip.”
PLAN DOES NOT CALL FOR HAMAS’s EXPULSION
Trump’s 20-point plan includes a clause saying that Hamas members “who commit to peaceful coexistence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty” and members who wish to leave will be given safe passage to third countries.
Another clause says Hamas will agree to not having any role in Gaza’s governance. There is no clause that explicitly calls for the Islamist militant group to disband or to leave Gaza.
The plan says reforms to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority may ultimately allow conditions “for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
Ahead of the UN vote, Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel remained opposed to Palestinian statehood after protests by far-right coalition allies over a US-backed statement indicating support for a pathway to Palestinian independence.
Netanyahu also opposes any Palestinian Authority involvement in Gaza.
MULTINATIONAL FORCE FOR POST-WAR GAZA
The Security Council resolution authorized a multinational force that Trump’s plan says will be temporarily deployed to Gaza to stabilize the territory. The resolution’s text also says member states could join a “Board of Peace” that would oversee reconstruction and economic recovery inside Gaza.
Hamas has criticized the resolution as failing to “live up to the demands and political and humanitarian rights” of the Palestinian people, who it said rejected an international guardianship mechanism of Gaza.
Any international force must only be deployed along Gaza’s borders to monitor the ceasefire and under UN supervision, Hamas said in a statement, warning that such a force would lose its neutrality if it tried to disarm the terrorist group.
Reham Owda, a Palestinian political analyst from Gaza, said the Hamas statement should be viewed as an objection, rather than complete rejection, in an attempt to negotiate mechanisms for the international force and the role of the board of peace.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect on Oct. 10 as part of Trump’s multi-phased plan to end the war. Israel has partially withdrawn its forces but still controls 53% of Gaza and the sides have accused each other of violations.
Abu Abdallah, a businessman displaced in central Gaza, said Palestinians would support the deployment of international forces if it meant that Israel would fully withdraw its forces.
“Hamas can’t decide our fate alone, but we also don’t want to get rid of one occupation, Israel, and get another international occupation,” he said by phone.
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Car Ramming, Stabbing Attack in West Bank Kills One, Injures Three; Terrorists Killed by Israeli Soldiers
Israeli forces and emergency responders work at the scene of what Israel’s ambulance services said was a fatal stabbing attack at the Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank, Nov. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dedi Hayun
One man was killed and three other people were injured in a car ramming and stabbing attack in the West Bank on Tuesday, the Israeli military and ambulance service said, in what Israeli authorities described as a terrorist attack.
The Israeli military said in a statement two attackers were also killed by soldiers, but did not provide further details. It said explosive materials were found in the vehicle used by the attackers, which were being neutralized by bomb disposal specialists.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
The attack took place between Bethlehem and Hebron at a traffic junction at the entrance to a cluster of Israeli settlements known as the Etzion bloc.
A spokesperson for the Israeli ambulance service said a 71-year-old man died of stab wounds. Earlier he had been described as a 30-year-old. A woman, a boy, and another man were wounded.
The attack came as Israel has been under international pressure to curb attacks by some Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene an urgent meeting of ministers and security officials on Thursday to discuss steps to bring Israelis who attack Palestinians to justice, senior officials said.
On Monday, Israelis torched homes and vehicles in Jab’a, a Palestinian village near Bethlehem, after an earlier attack on property and civilians in the village of Sa’ir, the WAFA news agency said, quoting officials.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Monday the government will take unprecedented steps in coming weeks allocating resources and funding to curbing Israeli violence — a move he expected would have a significant impact.
“The Jewish rioters in Judea and Samaria harm the State of Israel, disgrace Judaism, and cause damage to the settlement project,” Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar posted on X on Monday, using the biblical names for the West Bank.
“The IDF, the Shin Bet, and the Israel Police must act decisively and firmly to stop this rampage, which is also directed at our soldiers and police officers.”