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Shake Shack is coming to Israel in 2024, bringing its burgers and custard to Tel Aviv
(JTA) — Shake Shack, the American fast-casual restaurant chain famous for its burgers and milkshakes, is heading to Israel.
The chain announced Wednesday on social media that a location will open next year in Tel Aviv, which has a robust burger scene — including local chains such as Moses, Burgerim and Black Bar ‘n’ Burger and international franchises including Burger King and McDonald’s. Over the next decade, the company announced, it plans to open 15 locations across Israel.
“We have long admired the rich and diverse food culture of Israel,” Michael Kark, chief global licensing officer of Shake Shack, said in a press release. “We couldn’t be more excited to arrive in Tel Aviv and reach 15 Shacks across Israel by 2033.”
In keeping with its international strategy — Shake Shack has 120 international locations, in addition to its 240 in the United States — the company says it will “collaborate with local purveyors and producers to create a one-of-a-kind Shack experience unique for the Israeli community.” Shake Shack’s Dubai restaurants offer up a “Falafel Shack” patty, for example. Its franchises in South Korea and Japan, meanwhile, have red bean and cherry blossom-flavored shakes.
Shake Shack did not offer details about its local products. The company also did not respond to a request for comment or to questions about whether any of its offerings in Israel would be kosher — something that would make its signature products impossible to pair because they would combine milk and meat.
Shake Shack will partner with two local business conglomerates to set up shop in Israel. The deal has been in the works since at least November, according to the Israeli economic publication Globes.
“We are thrilled to bring the iconic Shake Shack experience to Israel and share our passion for high-quality ingredients, hospitality, and community,” Harel Wizel, a partner in the venture and CEO of Fox Group, a leading Israeli fashion company, said in the press release.
Shake Shack launched in 2001 as a cart in New York City’s Madison Square Park, as a fast casual concept from the high-dining impresario Danny Meyer, who is Jewish and has connected his philanthropic ventures to Jewish values. Several years ago, when he opened Shake Shack’s first location in his native St Louis, he said he had no plans to open in Israel, which he had just visited for the first time.
Meyer told the St Louis Jewish Light that he had spotted a kiosk that “looked an awful lot like Shake Shack” while walking Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, where the median is dotted with tiny cafes.
“As it turned out, it was opened by a guy who worked for me many years ago,” he said. “And on a rainy day, they were packed.”
Shake Shack is the latest in a series of chains to open its doors in Israel. The convenience store chain 7-Eleven opened its first franchise in Israel this year, in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center mall. And the partners who brought Shake Shack to Israel also recently struck an initial deal to bring the global cafe franchise Pret A Manger to the country.
Past openings of major international food and drink franchises in Israel have had a mixed record. McDonald’s did not open any Israeli outposts until 1993 due to boycotts from the Arab world; now, it offers some kosher outposts but does not operate in Israeli West Bank settlements. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s, the U.S. ice cream chain, announced that it would not sell in what it termed “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” sparking a court battle that ended with the pints still on grocery shelves in Israeli settlements.
And after a brief experiment in Israel, Starbucks closed down its operations there two decades ago, due to what analysts attributed to competition from more established local cafes.
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The post Shake Shack is coming to Israel in 2024, bringing its burgers and custard to Tel Aviv appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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VIDEO: Rabbi Yosef Ber Soloveitchik speaks about the writer I. L. Peretz
אין די 1950ער האָט דער אָנגעזעענער רבֿ יוסף־בער סאָלאָווייטשיק (1903 — 1993) אָפּגעהאַלטן אַן אייגנאַרטיקע דרשה אויף ייִדיש פֿאַר אַן אומגעריכטן עולם: מיטגלידער פֿונעם אַרבעטער רינג. גערעדט האָט ער וועגן דעם גרויסן ייִדישן שרײַבער י. ל. פּרץ. אַ רעקאָרדירונג פֿון יענער לעקציע האָט מען לעצטנס אַרויפֿגעשטעלט אויף יוטוב.
הרבֿ סאָלאָווייטשיק איז געווען באַקאַנט פֿאַר זײַנע קלאָרע, פֿאַרשטענדלעכע דרשות און שיעורים, וואָס ער האָט תּמיד געהאַלטן אויף ייִדיש, כאָטש ער האָט זייער גוט געקענט ענגליש.
דער רבֿ — ווי עס רופֿן אים עד־היום זײַנע תּלמידים און אָנהענגער — הייבט אָן זײַן רעדע מיט דער פֿראַגע, „ווי קום איך, אַ גמרא־ייִד, צו רעדן וועגן פּרצן, אַ ראַדיקאַל, אַ מסכּיל, אַן אַפּיקורס, וועמען די אָרטאָדאָקסיע האָט כּמעט מחרים [געווען]?“
גלײַך נאָך דעם נעמט ער זיך אַנאַליזירן דעם אינערלעכן קאָנפֿליקט בײַ פּרצן, וואָס ער האַלט אַז מע קען זען דורך די פֿרומע פּערסאָנאַזשן פֿון זײַנע דערציילונגען. אמת, פּרץ האָט אָפֿט מבֿטל געווען יענע פֿיגורן, אָבער גלײַכצײַטיק — זאָגט הרבֿ סאָלאָווייטשיק — האָט פּרץ געהאַט אַ טיפֿע סענסיטיווקייט צו זיי, אַ גײַסטיקן מיטגעפֿיל, וואָס ער האָט דאָס גאַנצע לעבן געפּרוּווט דערשטיקן.
צווישן די דערציילונגען וואָס דער רבֿ דיסקוטירט זענען „באָנטשע שווײַג“, „אויב נישט נאָך העכער“, „דרײַ מתּנות“ און „דער משוגענער בטלן“.
הרבֿ סאָלאָווייטשיק איז געבוירן געוואָרן אינעם רײַסישן שטעטל פּרוזשענע, נישט ווײַט פֿון בריסק. זײַן זיידע איז געווען דער באַרימטער בריסקער רבֿ, ר׳ חיים סאָלאָווייטשיק, דער שאַפֿער פֿון אַן אייגנאַרטיקער שיטה פֿון גמרא־לערנען. ר׳ חיימס טאַטע, דער גרינדער פֿון דער דאָזיקער רבנישער משפּחה, וואָס האָט מחבר געווען דעם באַרימטן ספֿר שאלות־ותּשובֿות, „בית הלוי‟, האָט אויך געהייסן יוסף־בער.
להיפּוך צו זײַנע אָבֿות, וועלכע האָבן באַטראַכט די וועלטלעכע בילדונג ווי אַ טרייפֿענע זאַך, האָט דער יונגער סאָלאָווייטשיק פֿאַרענדיקט אַ גימנאַזיע אין דובנע. דערנאָך האָט ער זיך געלערנט אין אוניווערסיטעטן און פֿאַרטיידיקט זײַן דאָקטאָראַט אין 1932. אינעם זעלבן יאָר איז ער אַוועק קיין אַמעריקע.
דער ווידעאָ איז אַ טייל פֿון אַ סעריע יוטוב־רעקאָרדירונגען פֿונעם רבֿס דרשות אויף ייִדיש פּראָדוצירט פֿון Ohr Publishing. די ווידעאָס ווערן באַגלייט מיט ענגלישע אונטערקעפּלעך, כּדי צו דערמעגלעכן אַז מענטשן וואָס קענען נישט קיין ייִדיש זאָלן זיך אויך קענען צוהערן און לערנען פֿון די דרשות.
The post VIDEO: Rabbi Yosef Ber Soloveitchik speaks about the writer I. L. Peretz appeared first on The Forward.
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University of Michigan will have a leader who defended pro-Palestinian protesters in court
A civil rights attorney who defended pro-Palestinian protesters in court and made social media posts viewed as pro-Hezbollah and antisemitic, has won his bid for the University of Michigan Board of Regents.
Michigan is one of a few states in which voters play a direct role in choosing university overseers. As a regent, Amir Makled (D) will help oversee expenditures at the university where his clients, the student protesters, were arrested. The position is unpaid and carries an eight-year term. Democrat Paul Brown won the other seat up for election, maintaining the board’s 6-2 Democratic majority.
Makled beat out Republican challenger Lena Epstein, who is Jewish and previously identified as a “Jewish Messianic believer of Christ,” but recanted the statement and later said she was “100% Jewish.” Mainstream Judaism does not accept Messianic Jews because they believe in the divinity of Christ and try to convert Jews to Jesus.
Epstein told the Forward in an April interview that the Democrats had handed her an opportunity to win the seat by endorsing Makled, who was facing intense scrutiny. In one of his controversial posts, Makled called Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a “martyr” after he was killed by Israeli strikes in 2024. He lost an endorsement from Service Employees International Union for the posts and later deleted them.
In the regents race, voters picked up to two of six candidates, with the top two winning. Makled received 25.6% of the vote while Brown received 27.2%. Epstein received 22.2% while her fellow Republican Michael Schostak received 22.6%.
Makled’s election comes as part of a wave of Democratic Party wins, including in Michigan, which elected as Senator Abdul El-Sayed (D), who also faced severe backlash for statements related to Israel and Gaza and for appearing alongside streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric.
Israel played a major role in the rhetoric surrounding Michigan’s midterms. But voters, including 60% of Jewish voters that voted for El-Sayed according to early exit polls, favored sharp critics of the Jewish state to candidates in support of it.
The post University of Michigan will have a leader who defended pro-Palestinian protesters in court appeared first on The Forward.
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This grandson of Holocaust survivors is headed to Congress. The ADL has concerns about his antisemitism record.
The election of Daniel Biss, a Jewish critic of Israel, to an Illinois congressional seat Tuesday has sparked a public feud between the Anti-Defamation League and the liberal Zionist group J Street over whether the ADL remains a credible voice in the fight against antisemitism.
After Biss, the former Jewish mayor of Evanston, Ill., won his seat Tuesday night, the ADL Midwest took to social media to express “serious concerns” about Biss’ “approach to antisemitism.”
J Street, which had endorsed Biss, hit back, noting that Biss is the grandson of Holocaust survivors and calling the ADL’s statement “a shanda,” the Yiddish word for disgrace.
“It is hard to read this statement without wondering how far the ADL has drifted from the organization it once was – a gold standard in our community for standing up against bigotry, hatred and discrimination,” J street wrote on X.
Biss, who speaks Hebrew and spent childhood summers in Israel, was elected with 75% of the vote in a district where 11% of the electorate is Jewish.
“It saddens me to watch the ADL, once a preeminent civil rights organization, devolve into an entity that traffics in fear, intimidation and extremism,” Biss wrote in a statement to the Forward. “This kind of rhetoric does nothing to keep the Jewish people safe—in fact, it undermines that very cause.”
The ADL has long faced scrutiny from critics who view the watchdog group as labeling too broad a swath of Israel criticism as antisemitic, while less forcefully condemning antisemitism when it comes from the political right.
“Our statement speaks for itself,” an ADL spokesperson wrote in an email to the Forward.
In its statement, the ADL pointed to a specific set of concerns involving Biss’ record as mayor of Evanston, Illinois, the college town home to Northwestern University.
Biss did not provide Evanston police support that Northwestern requested after reported “antisemitic conduct” at the Gaza war encampment on campus in April 2024, the ADL said, “raising serious questions about whether the safety, dignity, and equal access of Jewish students were treated with the urgency they required.”
Biss has defended his decision not to dispatch police to the encampment, writing in response to a congressional inquiry that forcibly clearing the protest would have gone against police department advice and suppressed “constitutionally protected speech.”
The ADL also said that Biss “dismissed scrutiny of his response as a politically motivated attack fueled by AIPAC, rather than substantively addressing the concerns raised by Jewish students and community members.”
Biss made opposition to AIPAC a central theme of his primary campaign for Congress after the hardline pro-Israel lobbying group spent millions opposing him and supporting another candidate, state Sen. Laura Fine.
In an interview with the Forward in March, Biss said it was “absurd” that AIPAC opposes imposing any conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel. “And then try to enforce it with millions of dollars of dark money, is certainly bad for democracy and bad for our politics here in America,” Biss added.
At the same time, Biss faced pressure to his left on Israel in the primary, defeating Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American who has characterized Israel’s conduct in Gaza as a genocide. Biss, who has described himself as a progressive Zionist, declined to use the word genocide, despite repeated calls from Abughazaleh to do so.
In a March op-ed in The Nation, Biss wrote that he believed he was one of AIPAC’s top targets partly because “I’m the grandson of Holocaust survivors. My mother is Israeli. My extended family lives in Israel. AIPAC knew that they couldn’t dismiss me as anti-Israel or antisemitic.”
The ADL also criticized Biss for supporting the repeal of an anti-BDS law, which bars Illinois from investing public pension funds in companies that boycott Israel. That position, the ADL said, “raises additional concerns about his willingness to stand against efforts to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state.”
In an April Substack post explaining his position, Biss said that he personally opposes the global movement to boycott Israel, but he does not believe the government should “stop people from using their economic agency to advocate for their values.”
Biss will succeed Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Jewish lawmaker who represented the district for nearly three decades and was also an outspoken critic of AIPAC.
The post This grandson of Holocaust survivors is headed to Congress. The ADL has concerns about his antisemitism record. appeared first on The Forward.
