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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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Suspect at Large in Brown University Shooting that Killed at Least Two, Injured Eight
Police vehicles stand near the site of a mass shooting reported by authorities at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S., December 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Taylor Coester
Police in Rhode Island were searching for a suspect in a shooting at Brown University in Providence in which two people died and eight were critically wounded at the Ivy League school, officials said.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley told a news conference that police were still searching for the shooter, who struck at Brown’s Barus & Holley engineering building, where exams were taking place at the time. Officials said police were looking for a male dressed in black and were scouring local video cameras in the area for footage to get a better description of the suspect.
Smiley said officials could not yet disclose details about the victims, including whether they were students. He lamented the shooting.
“We are a week and a half away from Christmas. And two people died today and another eight are in the hospital,” he said. “So please pray for those families.”
Brown is on College Hill in Providence, Rhode Island‘s state capital. The university has hundreds of buildings, including lecture halls, laboratories and dormitories.
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he had been briefed on the situation, which he called “terrible.”
“All we can do right now is pray for the victims and for those that were very badly hurt.”
Compared to many countries, mass shootings in schools, workplaces, and places of worship are more common in the US, which has some of the most permissive gun laws in the developed world. The Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as any incident in which four or more victims have been shot, has counted 389 of them this year in the US.
Last year the US had more than 500 mass shootings, according to the archive.
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Rights Groups Condemn Re-Arrest of Nobel Laureate Mohammadi in Iran
Taghi Ramahi, husband of Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian women’s rights advocate, who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, poses with an undated photo of himself and his wife, during an interview at his home in Paris, France, October 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
International human rights groups have condemned the re-arrest of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi in Iran, with the Nobel committee calling on Iranian authorities to immediately clarify her whereabouts.
Mohammadi’s French lawyer, Chirine Ardakani, said on X that the human rights activist was arrested on Friday after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi at his memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
Mashhad prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters on Saturday that Mohammadi was among 39 people arrested after the ceremony.
Hematifar said she and Alikordi’s brother had made provocative remarks at the event and encouraged those present “to chant ‘norm‑breaking’ slogans” and disturb the peace, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
The prosecutor said Mashhad’s chief of police and another officer received knife wounds when trying to manage the scene.
CALLS FOR RELEASE
The Norwegian Nobel Committee called on Iranian authorities “to immediately clarify Mohammadi’s whereabouts, ensure her safety and integrity, and to release her without conditions.”
The European Union also called for Mohammadi’s release. “The EU urges Iranian authorities to release Ms Mohammadi, taking also into account her fragile health condition, as well as all those unjustly arrested in the exercise of their freedom of expression,” an EU spokesperson said on Saturday.
A video purportedly showing Mohammadi, 53, without the mandatory veil, standing on a car with a microphone and chanting “Long Live Iran” in front of a crowd, has gone viral on social media.
Ardakani said Mohammadi was beaten before her arrest.
Reporters Without Borders said four journalists and other participants were also arrested at the memorial for human rights lawyer Alikordi, who was found dead in his office on December 5.
Authorities gave the cause of his death as a heart attack, but rights groups have called for an investigation into his death.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said the crowd also chanted “death to the dictator,” a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as: “We fight, we die, we accept no humiliation.”
Mohammadi, who received the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, has spent more than 10 years of her life in prison, most recently from November 2021 when she was charged with “propaganda against the state,” “acting against national security,” and membership of “illegal organizations.”
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, said on Saturday that the opposition’s campaign in Venezuela was akin to that taking place in Iran.
“In Oslo this week, the world honored the power of conscience. I said to the ‘citizens of the world’ that our struggle is a long march toward freedom. That march is not Venezuelan alone. It is Iranian, it is universal,” she said on X on Saturday.
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Pete Hegseth Pledges Retribution After Islamist Gunmen in Syria Kills 2 US Soldiers and Civilian, Injuring 3
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on US President Donald Trump’s budget request for the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
i24 News – Two US Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in an Islamic State attack on Saturday in Palmyra, Syria, where they were supporting counterterrorism operations, the Pentagon said.
Three others were wounded, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the attacker was killed by partner forces.
The Syrian Interior Ministry said that shooter in the deadly attack in Palmyra was a “member of the Syrian security forces who was influence by extremist ideology.”
President Donald Trump posted that “We mourn the loss of three Great American Patriots in Syria, two soldiers, and one Civilian Interpreter. Likewise, we pray for the three injured soldiers who, it has just been confirmed, are doing well.”
“This was an ISIS attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them. The President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is extremely angry and disturbed by this attack. There will be very serious retaliation. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”