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We are living in Peak Latke, and I think I know why
Peak Latke is upon us. Cruise the web and socials this time of year and the varieties of latke experience are astonishing. Umpteen variations on the standard Ashkenazi potato latke, endless takes on Sephardic vegetable latkes, and then, the most arresting category of all, the novelty latke.
Take Carolina Gelen, the Romanian-born Jewish queen of nouveau latke. Each day, or so it seems, Gelen fries up another twist: the pickle latke, for instance, the schnitzel latke — a pounded, fried chicken breast coated in shredded potato and onion — a cinnamon sugar noodle latke, the lemon latke, a miso mushroom latke, and the falatke, which combines falafel ingredients with shredded potatoes and onion and is, at the very least, the best name of all.
But wait, as they say, there’s more.
Onion ring latkes, really?
Online food-fluencer Dan Seidman just completed his own “Eight Days of Latkes” — right before the start of Hanukkah — featuring spicy tuna latkes, scallion latkes and a latke burger, which is Gelen’s schnitzel in burger form.
Jacqueline Spiegel, owner of Jaxsnaxx in New York, makes latkes topped with BBQ short ribs. Mandy Silverman’s onion ring latkes went viral, prompting many variations, as have latke boards, a holiday take on TikTok’s viral cheese and dessert boards. Chef Rafi Hasid at New York’s Miriam restaurant made garbanzo bean latkes, which I actually did cook myself.
The Israel-based cookbook author Adeena Sussman’s own take on the latke board is the latke sheet pan board, wedding the board idea to the many sheet pan latke recipes also out there. She roasts a sheet pan worth of latke batter in the oven, cuts the thing into squares, and tops them with labne, pear gorgonzola, avocado chili crisp. These presentations are all quite beautiful, something I never thought I’d say about latkes.
The latke board and viral Judaism
Sussman also has a latke tutorial for making the classic potato pancake: Alternately grate your onions and potatoes to keep the potatoes from quickly oxidizing. Squeeze the liquid out of your onions and potatoes. Use potato starch to bind, never flour or matzo meal. Fry in a heavy pan, preferably cast iron. Use plenty of oil. Freeze and reheat your latkes — it makes serving them to a crowd easier, and they actually taste better.
I’ve known and written about these latke non-negotiables many times, but now such advice goes viral, along with all those variations.
Think about it. For years, when Hanukkah came around, we’d pull out one of our favorite, reliable Jewish cookbooks — for me it was always Joan Nathan’s The Jewish Holiday Kitchen — find the dog-eared, oil-stained page with the latke recipe, and that was that.
Of course, those analogue days are gone. Now we go online for latkes because, well, we’re online anyway. Joan herself did a popular video of her recipe with Saveur this week.
Peak Latke is partly a function of the fact that Jewish culture mirrors the larger culture, and both are extremely online. We create the recipes we like, sure, but also the recipes that will get likes. I don’t know how many grilled cheese latkes a person can sit down and eat, if any, but I know oozing cheese is clickbait. Same goes for Gelen’s dirty martini latkes, which are packed with sliced green olives and served with a vodka blue cheese sauce. I will never make them, but I couldn’t stop watching her make them.
Beyond the internet’s bottomless content maw, there’s something about all the latke variations that speaks to this Jewish moment.
Latkes are my safe space
Jews are increasingly uncomfortable expressing their identity in public. As I wrote in the Forward this week, 42% of Jewish Americans report feeling unsafe wearing or displaying Jewish symbols in public since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent destruction of Gaza. Some 40% of Jews have avoided doing so, up from 26% in 2023.
Social media is far from neutral territory either, particularly for anything touching Israel. But food? Food feels safe.
Peak Latke is Jews insisting we’re more than one thing in a media environment that flattens Jewish identity into a single, toxic debate. Making and sharing elaborate latke content becomes an act of self-definition: We’re also this. We observe tradition and remix it and argue about potato starch. Not to deflect from the hard stuff, but to assert there’s more to us than crisis and conflict.
Online, Jewish holiday food offers visibility without vulnerability — a way to be publicly, proudly Jewish while staying in culturally neutral territory. It’s community without security guards. Whether this represents creative flowering or strategic withdrawal, or a little of both, I’m not sure. But there’s no question: When the world feels hostile, the kitchen is a refuge. There we find unalloyed joy, then fry it, photograph it and share it with the world.
The post We are living in Peak Latke, and I think I know why appeared first on The Forward.
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From Ancient Egypt to TikTok: The Transformations of Antisemitism, the World’s Oldest Hatred
TikTok app logo is seen in this illustration taken, Aug. 22, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
i24 News – While the term “antisemitism” just under 150 years ago, hatred of Jews has accompanied humanity for more than two thousand years. A historical review reveals how the mechanism of the world’s oldest hatred was born, changed form, and today blazes a trail through social media.
The roots of hatred are not in Nazi Germany, nor in Islam, but in third-century BCE Alexandria. The Egyptian historian Manetho then spread what could be called the first “fake news”: the claim that the Jews are descendants of lepers who were expelled from Egypt.
The stereotype of the Jew as a “disease spreader” and as a strange foreigner who observes peculiar customs accompanied the Roman Empire and led to violence already in ancient times.
With the rise of Christianity, hatred received official religious sanction. The accusations regarding the death of Jesus led to demonization that continued for hundreds of years, including blood libels, pogroms, and mass expulsions in Europe.
Under Islam, the Jews were defined as “protected people” (dhimmis) – a status that granted them protection and freedom of religion in exchange for a poll tax, but was also accompanied by social inferiority, and sometimes even by identifying markers and humiliations.
1879: The Rebranding of Hatred
In the 19th century, the hatred had undergone a “rebranding.” In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr coined the term “antisemitism.” His goal was to turn the hatred of Jews from a theological issue into one of blood and genetics. The Jew changed from a “heretic” to a “biological threat” and an invader threatening the German race—an ideology that became the basis for Nazism and the Holocaust.
At the same time, antisemitism served as a political and economic tool. Rulers used Jews as a “scapegoat” during times of crisis. The fake document “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” spread the conspiracy theory of global control—a lie that was also adopted in the Muslim world to fuel the struggle against Zionism.
Today, antisemitism is described as a “chameleon” coming from three directions: the extreme right (racism), the extreme left (denial of the state’s right to exist), and radical Islam.
The central arena has shifted to social networks, where algorithms that encourage engagement provide a platform for extreme content. Accusations of “genocide” and hashtags such as #HitlerWasRight are the modern incarnation of blood libels. Countries like Iran and Qatar invest fortunes in perception engineering, portraying the State of Israel as the modern-day “leper.” Today, antisemitism is a tool for destroying democratic societies; it starts with the Jews but does not stop there.
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Trump: US Has Taken Oil from Seized Venezuelan Tankers
US President Donald Trump speaks to the media during the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
The United States has taken the oil that was on seized Venezuelan tankers and will process it in US refineries, President Donald Trump said in a New York Post interview that was published on Saturday.
“Let’s put it this way — they don’t have any oil. We take the oil,” Trump told the newspaper.
The oil is being refined in “various places” including Houston, he said.
The US military has seized seven Venezuela-linked tankers since the start of Trump’s month-long campaign to control Venezuela’s oil flows.
Trump said on Tuesday that his administration had taken 50 million barrels of oil out of Venezuela, and was selling some of it in the open market.
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US Envoys in Israel to Discuss Future of Gaza
FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff take part in a charter announcement for US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts, alongside the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were in Israel on Saturday to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mainly to discuss Gaza, two people briefed on the matter said, as local authorities reported further violence in the enclave.
The US on Thursday announced plans for a “New Gaza” rebuilt from scratch, to include residential towers, data centers and seaside resorts.
The project forms part of President Donald Trump’s push to advance an October ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas that has been shaken by repeated violations.
LOCAL AUTHORITIES REPORT MORE DEATHS
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Saturday that Israeli fire had killed three people, including two children, in two separate incidents in the northern Gaza Strip.
A statement from the Israeli military said that its troops operating in the northern Gaza Strip identified several militants “who crossed the Yellow Line, planted an explosive device in the area, and approached the troops, posing an immediate threat to them.”
Under the ceasefire accord, Israeli troops were to retreat to a yellow line marked on military maps that runs nearly the full length of Gaza.
A source in the Israeli military told Reuters that the military was aware of only one incident on Saturday and that those involved were not children.
A spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office confirmed that the meeting was planned but did not provide further details.
Earlier this month, Washington announced that the plan had now moved into the second phase, under which Israel is expected to withdraw troops further from Gaza, and Hamas is due to yield control of the territory’s administration.