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When it comes to a classic Jewish cookie, New York bakeries go beyond black and white
(New York Jewish Week) – As far as New York Jewish desserts go, perhaps the most ubiquitous is the black and white cookie, that soft, sweet, frosted treat found at bakeries and bagel stores throughout the city.
Black and white cookies, sometimes called half-moon cookies, are understood by most to be a Jewish dessert. “Seinfeld” once dedicated an episode to singing their praises. “You see, Elaine, the key to eating a black and white cookie is that you wanna get some black and some white in each bite,” Jerry says. “Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate. And yet still somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie, all our problems would be solved.”
But now, in a testament to New Yorkers’ innovation — or possibly the old adage, “everything old is new again” — bakeries across the city are riffing upon this tried-and-true classic. These days, black and white cookies are available in a myriad of colors and flavors: yellow and blue to support Ukraine, red to celebrate Valentine’s Day, brown and yellow to mark the merger of banana, chocolate and hazelnut.
The banana walnut flavored black and white cookie. (Zaro’s Family Bakery)
The latter is one of six new flavor combinations at Zaro’s Family Bakery, where brothers and fourth-generation owners Brian, Michael and Scott Zaro have wholeheartedly embraced new versions of the two-tone classic. Earlier this month, the bakery unveiled its new black and white cookie color and flavor combinations, which include orange and white (cream cheese frosted carrot cake), green and black (mint chip), as well as an M&M-topped cookie, a sprinkle-filled birthday cake flavor and a cookies and cream flavor.
“We’ve been making the black and white cookie for 95 years,” Brian Zaro, who has been working full time for his family’s business since 2006, told the New York Jewish Week. “My brother, Scott, had a vision to make an iconic item that meets innovation.”
A carrot cake flavored cookie is topped with orange and white cream cheese frosting. (Zaro’s Family Bakery)
The black and white is one of the signature offerings at Zaro’s, which is known for setting up shop in New York’s biggest transit hubs, including Grand Central Terminal, Penn Station and LaGuardia airport. The bakery’s website boasts that it sells over 90,000 black and white cookies annually, and this season’s new flavors join Zaro’s chocolate chip black and whites, which they have been offering for several years, Brian said. (Black and white on the outside, with chocolate chips baked into the dough.)
Of course, these creative interpretations prompt an obvious question: How far can a bakery stray from chocolate and vanilla before a black and white is no longer a black and white?
“It’s a valid point,” Brian Zaro admits. “But right now, yes, it’s a black and white. That could change; we always try to be as open-minded as possible.”
Shannon Sarna, author of “Modern Jewish Baker” and editor at our partner site The Nosher, agrees. “I’m not a purist,” she said. “I don’t think they have to be black and white to be a real black and white cookie.”
For Sarna, what are most important to the integrity of a black and white are the flavors and technique. “A good black and white cookie is going to have a little taste of vanilla or orange or lemon zest that might be in the dough,” she said. “It’s got to have a good quality icing. It’s not going to just taste like sugar. It’s going to have a little chocolate flavor and it’s going to have a little bit of the white, more vanilla-y taste.”
For some, the doughy cookie with its signature bi-color frosting is only as good as the sense of nostalgia it offers. As the New York Times wrote back in 1998, “Today’s black-and-whites cannot compare with the black-and-whites of yesteryear, of course, just as no mayor will ever be as good at LaGuardia and no team as beloved as the Dodgers.” Sarna, who grew up in New York, calls black and whites “the cookies of my childhood.”
The black and whites as we know them were said to have been popularized by the Upper East Side’s Glaser’s Bake Shop, which was founded in 1902 by John Herbert Glaser. Glaser reportedly brought the black and white recipe with him when he immigrated to the United States from Bavaria.
Third-generation owner Herb Glaser, who ran the bakery with his brother until it closed for good in 2018, is not able to confirm this — but, at 70, he says that they were a feature of the bakery since he was a young boy.
Though he now lives “in the country,” Glaser is well aware of the new black and white trends. “Some of the businesses are making them a little too outrageous,” he said. “They’re not really black and whites anymore.”
Still, Glaser said that his bakery did occasionally make the cookies in different colors — for graduation parties, schools and, most notably, in orange and blue when the Mets were in the World Series in 1986. “I’m a traditionalist but I understand,” Glaser added. “It’s a marketing thing and that’s fine. It’s a way to stay in business.”
“I think there’s a sort of New York pride associated with it as ‘the New York cookie,’ and it just so happens to be a really good cookie,” said Noah Aris, the baker and proprietor of The Cardamom Man, which sells its baked goods online and at street markets. Aris bakes black and whites with blue and gold frosting as a fundraiser for humanitarian relief in Ukraine. In addition to lemon zest in the dough, Aris has added lavender, leaving the dough flecked with dots of purple.
The different colors “help start a conversation for me to talk about what I’m about as a bakery and raising money for Ukraine,” he said. “Then you hear [the customers’] story about their experiences with black and whites. It’s fun.”
Breads Bakery started baking black and whites with their signature laminated dough when they opened their Upper East Side location last year. “I operate under the simple thesis that when you give people something great they’ll appreciate it regardless of what their expectation may have been.” Peleg said. (Ashley Solter)
At some bakeries, innovation starts in the dough. Last holiday season, Breads Bakery rolled out black and whites made with a laminated, croissant-like base instead of the classic doughy, cakey consistency .
“The first time I took a bite of it, it became very clear to me that we’ve elevated this cookie to a new level and given it the treatment that it deserves,” Breads owner Gadi Peleg said. “I think we have done enough to wink at the nostalgic nature of the cookie — there’s enough there to sort of connect you to the memories that you may have associated with a black and white cookie. But it’s just different enough to bring it into a more modern New York, the New York of today.”
At Kossar’s Bagels & Bialys — which now has three locations across the city and one more on the way — customers will find traditional black and whites sitting alongside all-chocolate or all-vanilla frosted versions, as well as multi-color and M&M-topped versions.
“Some people like only the chocolate, some people like only the vanilla. So we use that as our inspiration to move forward,” said general manager Sharon Bain. “People do love the fact that we’re doing something with the black and white. We’re catering to everyone.”
Kossar’s will frost the cookies with green for St. Patrick’s Day or red for Valentine’s Day, but the reboot is only skin deep. According to Bain, the “black and white refers to the chocolate and vanilla flavors of the frosting, and not the color.”
For Brian Zaro, too, the flavor and color innovations are all about customer satisfaction, and this year the new black and white varieties are also available at the Zaro’s outpost at the Bryant Park Winter Village. “It’s new for us,” Zaro said. “But so far so good.”
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Trump Says US May Strike Iran Again but That Tehran Wants Deal
People walk past a mural depicting the late leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the late Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United States may need to strike Iran again and that he had been an hour away from ordering an attack before postponing it.
Trump made the comments a day after saying he had paused a planned resumption of hostilities following a new proposal by Tehran to end the US-Israeli war.
“I was an hour away from making the decision to go today,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
Iran‘s leaders are begging for a deal, he said, adding that a new US attack would happen in coming days if no agreement was reached.
The United States has been struggling to end the war it began with Israel nearly three months ago. Trump has previously said that a deal with Tehran was close, and similarly threatened heavy strikes on Iran if it did not reach an accord.
The US president is under intense political pressure at home to reach an accord that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz – a key route for global supplies of oil and other commodities. Gas prices remain high and Trump‘s approval rating has plummeted as congressional elections loom in November.
Oil prices settled lower on Tuesday after Vice President JD Vance said Washington and Tehran had made a lot of progress in talks and neither side wanted to see a resumption of the military campaign. “We’re in a pretty good spot here,” he said.
Speaking to reporters at a White House briefing, Vance acknowledged difficulties in negotiating with a fractured Iranian leadership. “It’s not sometimes totally clear what the negotiating position of the team is,” he said, so the US is trying to make its own red lines clear.
He also said one objective of Trump‘s policy is to prevent a nuclear arms race from spreading in the region.
IRAN PROMISES RESPONSE TO ANY NEW ATTACK
In Tehran, Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said on X that pausing an attack was due to Trump‘s realization that any move against Iran would mean “facing a decisive military response.”
Iranian state media said Tehran‘s latest peace proposal involves ending hostilities on all fronts including Lebanon, the exit of US forces from areas close to Iran, and reparations for destruction caused by the US-Israeli attacks.
Tehran also sought the lifting of sanctions, release of frozen funds, and an end to the US marine blockade, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi as cited by IRNA news agency.
The terms as described in the Iranian reports appeared little changed from Iran‘s previous offer, which Trump rejected last week as “garbage.”
BOTH SIDES ‘CHANGING GOALPOSTS,’ SAYS PAKISTANI SOURCE
Reuters could not determine whether military preparations had been made for strikes that would mark a renewal of the war Trump started in late February.
Trump said on Monday that Washington would be satisfied if it could reach an agreement that prevented Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
A Pakistani source confirmed that Islamabad, which has conveyed messages between the sides since hosting the only round of peace talks last month, had shared the Iranian proposal with Washington.
The sides “keep changing their goalposts,” the Pakistani source said, adding, “We don’t have much time.”
CEASEFIRE MOSTLY HOLDING
The US-Israeli bombing killed thousands of people in Iran before it was suspended in a ceasefire in early April. Israel has killed thousands more and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes in Lebanon, which it invaded in pursuit of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group.
Iranian strikes on Israel and neighboring Gulf states have killed dozens of people.
The Iran ceasefire has mostly held, although drones have lately been launched from Iraq towards Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, apparently by Iran and its allies.
The US seized an Iran-linked oil tanker in the Indian Ocean overnight, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing three US officials. The tanker, known as the Skywave, was sanctioned by the US in March for its role in transporting Iranian oil, the report said.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they launched the war to curb Iran‘s support for regional militias, dismantle its nuclear program, destroy its missile capabilities, and create conditions for Iranians to topple their rulers.
But the war has yet to deprive Iran of its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium or its ability to threaten neighbors with missiles, drones, and proxy militias.
The Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership, which had faced a mass uprising at the start of the year, withstood the superpower onslaught with no sign of organized opposition.
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Somaliland Says It Will Open an Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel to Reciprocate
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar meets with Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi on Jan. 6, 2026. Photo: Screenshot
Somaliland, a self-declared republic in East Africa, will set up an embassy in Jerusalem soon, its ambassador said on Tuesday, after Israel became the first country to formally recognize it as an independent and sovereign state.
In turn, Israel is expected to set up an embassy in Somaliland‘s capital Hargeisa, Ambassador Mohamed Hagi said in a post on X.
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement.
Unlike most states in its region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability.
Last month, Israel appointed Michael Lotem as its first ambassador to Somaliland, after the two governments formally established full diplomatic relations.
Lotem, who was serving as a non-resident economic ambassador to Africa at the time of his appointment, will now shift to work as a non-resident ambassador to Somaliland. He previously served as Israel’s ambassador to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Seychelles, a position he concluded in August.
Israel recognized Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state in December, a move Somalia rejected and termed a “deliberate attack” on its sovereignty.
Over the years, Somalia has rallied international actors against any country recognizing Somaliland.
The former British protectorate hopes that recognition by Israel will encourage other nations to follow suit, increasing its diplomatic heft and access to international markets.
Israel‘s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday that the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem would be another significant step in strengthening relations with Somaliland. Once opened, the Somaliland embassy would be the eighth embassy in Jerusalem, he said.
Most countries maintain their embassies in Israel in Tel Aviv, although the United States moved its embassy to Jerusalem during President Donald Trump’s first administration. Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and a small number of other countries have also established embassies there.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital. However, Palestinians seek East Jerusalem, where the holiest sites in Judaism are located, as the capital of a future state.
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Lebanese People Broadly Support Hezbollah’s Disarmament, Peace With Israel, New Poll Finds
Rescuers work at the site of an Israeli strike that took place yesterday, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, May 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Azakir
In a notable shift in Lebanese public sentiment, a new opinion survey finds growing support for disarming Hezbollah and increased openness to a peace agreement with Israel, even as deep sectarian divisions persist and as the regional landscape remains volatile and uncertain.
According to the poll conducted by the research firm Information International and published on Monday by Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed, a significant share of respondents supports direct negotiations between Lebanese and Israeli officials and a potential peace agreement with the Jewish state, while expressing strong opposition to the continued influence of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Among the survey’s key findings, respondents were almost evenly split on responsibility for the current conflict, with 33.8 percent attributing blame to Hezbollah and 32.9 percent to Israel.
The newly released survey also found strong overall backing for disarming Hezbollah (58 percent in favor and 34 percent opposed), with support concentrated among Maronite, Orthodox, and Druze respondents, while opposition remained overwhelmingly high among Shiite participants.
By sectarian breakdown, support for curbing Hezbollah’s armed capabilities reached 89 percent among Orthodox Christians, 87 percent among Maronites, 77 percent among Druze, and 70 percent among Sunnis, whereas about 88 percent of Shiite respondents opposed the measure.
Most notably, the survey indicated relatively strong backing for a peace agreement with Israel among non-Shiite communities, with Druze respondents recording the highest support at 84 percent, followed by 77 percent of Maronites and 72 percent of Orthodox Christians, while 92 percent of Shiites opposed such an agreement. A striking 52 percent of Sunnis said they supported a peace deal.
With direct talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials resuming last week, the poll also showed varying levels of support for negotiations, including 78 percent among Maronites, 74 percent among Orthodox respondents, and 72 percent among Druze, compared with 93 percent opposition among Shiite participants.
Despite most Lebanese expressing support for negotiations and a potential peace deal to end the war, normalization with Israel remains unpopular, with only about 30 percent in favor and roughly 59 percent opposed.
By sectarian lines, support for normalization stood at 58 percent among Maronites, 49 percent among Orthodox Christians, and 79 percent among Druze, while opposition reached 94 percent among Shiites and 74 percent among Sunnis.
Last week, Israeli and Lebanese officials held a third round of talks in Washington aimed at advancing the negotiations, even as Hezbollah continued to reject disarmament and oppose any potential peace deal.
Inside Lebanon, fears are mounting that Hezbollah could trigger a new wave of political violence and destabilization as pressure intensifies to dismantle the Iran-backed terrorist group’s military grip.
Lebanese officials have reiterated that the decision to establish a state monopoly over weapons is final, though its implementation remains contingent on securing a broader security arrangement with Israel under US guarantees.
The Iranian proxy has accused Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam of betraying the “resistance” and collaborating with Israel amid ongoing direct bilateral negotiations, branding them “traitors” aligned with foreign interests.
The terrorist group has repeatedly defied international calls to disarm, even threatening protests and civil unrest if the government tries to enforce control over its weapons.
According to a new report from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), an Israel-based research institute, Hezbollah could once again resort to political assassinations in an effort to block moves perceived as existential threats to the organization and restore its power.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the terrorist group opened fire in support of Iran two days after the start of the joint US-Israeli military campaign against the Iranian regime.
Since then, Israeli forces have established a “buffer zone” extending into southern Lebanese territory, which officials say is meant to shield northern residents from Hezbollah attacks amid thousands of rockets and drones fired throughout the war.
Even though a US-backed ceasefire has sharply reduced violence, negotiations and prospects for lasting peace remain fragile, with Israeli forces still launching strikes while positioned in southern Lebanon to maintain its buffer zone and dismantle Hezbollah military infrastructure.