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With her ‘Totally Kosher’ cookbook, Chanie Apfelbaum aims for a wider audience
(New York Jewish Week) — Chanie Apfelbaum’s newest cookbook, “Totally Kosher,” is filled with many inventive, flavor-packed recipes, like “Miso Matzo Ball Soup,” “Berbere Brisket” and “Pad Chai,” a shrimp-free version of the Thai staple.
But while the book is designed for kosher-keeping observant Jews like herself, Apfelbaum — who boasts 101,000 followers on Instagram and runs the popular Jewish lifestyle blog “Busy in Brooklyn” — had a larger audience in mind. Her first book, “Millennial Kosher,” published in 2018, is now in its sixth printing and is available in just about every Judaica store across the country. With her second effort, however, “I wanted to reach a larger demographic,” Apfelbaum, 42, told the New York Jewish Week. “I wanted to reach people that don’t necessarily know what kosher is.”
That’s how Apfelbaum ended up publishing “Totally Kosher” with Clarkson Potter, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group and publisher of cookbooks by culinary megastars like Ina Garten and Alison Roman. When Raquel Pelzel, the editorial director of cookbooks at Clarkson Potter approached Apfelbaum in 2019 about writing a cookbook — pitched as a “celebration of kosher,” as Apfelbaum recalls it — she immediately said yes.
“I was so excited,” Apfelbaum said.
“We hadn’t published a kosher cookbook in a really long time and, with Instagram and social media, there is obviously a massive kosher community,” Pelzel told the New York Jewish Week. “To not publish a kosher cookbook seemed like a huge omission and a hole on our list.”
“When I scout for authors, I look for someone whose recipes look delicious, original and creative and who has a really strong voice and is clear who their audience is,” Pelzel added. “Chanie certainly has all that.”
Apfelbaum’s decision to go with a mainstream publisher mean the book would appear in “regular” bookstores — and not just Judaica stores — but the change meant some new challenges. One hurdle was the publisher’s decision to feature a large, color photo of Apfelbaum on the book’s rear cover — a decision that could be considered controversial in the haredi Orthodox world where many publishers refrain from showing photos of women in the interest of sexual “modesty.” (Apfelbaum’s photo does not appear anywhere in “Millennial Kosher,” published by Artscroll/Shaar Press, which serves the haredi market. A spokesperson for ArtScroll said that, to date, they have not featured any photographs of women in their cookbooks, but “we are not against putting pictures of women in our books.”)
“If my photo is on the back of the book, maybe the Judaica stores really won’t take it,” Apfelbaum recalled thinking when she was sent a mockup of the cover. “I called friends in the publishing industry. I called Judaica shops and asked if my photo is on the back cover, are you going to carry the book?” The answers, Apfelbaum said, were mixed.
And yet, she didn’t back down or ask for a change in the cover. “I was like — you know what? I’m doing this for my daughters, I’m doing this for the women out there,” she said. “There is nothing wrong with having a photo of a Jewish woman on the back of the book. I’m just doing it, and I stand behind it.”
Fortunately, validation came quickly. “When I walk down the street in my neighborhood [of Crown Heights], I pass Hamafitz Judaica and they have two books in the window — one of the front cover of my book, depicting my Pad Chai, and one of the back.”
Apfelbaum’s mother, Devorah Halberstam, a prominent member of Crown Heights’ Chabad community, couldn’t be prouder. Her first-born son, Ari Halberstam, was killed in 1994 when a Lebanese-born man shot at a van filled with Chabad Lubavitch students, killing Ari and wounding three others. In the aftermath, Halberstam fought tirelessly to have his murder formally classified as a terrorist attack, which eventually happened in 2005. She was also a founder of the Jewish Children’s Museum, which was dedicated to the memory of her son.
Of all people, Halberstam understands the power of a photo. “At Ari’s yahrtzeit [anniversary of his death], I tweet things out,” she told the New York Jewish Week, noting that her son died 29 years ago. “I got 85,000 responses because I put his picture up there. Pictures make you stop. They make you pause.”
Photos, she added, “personalize everything. A story is not a story without pictures. It makes it real. It comes to life.”
Apfelbaum agrees, feeling that her decision to include photos of herself, her boys in their tzitzit (ritual prayer fringes) and her children around a table, is “a huge step in the Orthodox world.”
“I’m doing this because I think this is something that has to change,” she said. “Jewish women should be celebrated just like men.”
As a child, Apfelbaum said, she was a rule-follower who was drawn to the creative world. “I got very into artistic projects for school,” she said. “I loved drawing and craftsy, artsy things.”
Apfelbaum’s culinary journey began in 2002 when she was 22 and newly married. Apfelbaum’s mother had been the chef in the Halberstam home, and Apfelbaum was raised on what she calls “brown food” — matzah ball soup, gefilte fish, potato kugel. She came to her marriage skilled as a web designer but not knowing how to boil an egg. Her Syrian/Argentian/Jewish mother-in-law introduced her to ingredients like rosewater and dishes like empanadas, piquing Apfelbaum’s interest.
“When I started cooking, I was always very artistic and looking for ways to put color in my food and plate it nicely,” said Apfelbaum. “I would make my mom’s recipes. But when I started hosting friends and putting out a spread, with menus and plated meals, I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is beautiful. Such a beautiful way to express my artistic side.’”
When Apfelbaum left her web design job after the birth of her third child in 2010, she poured her creative juices into her nascent cooking and photography skills, and her family encouraged her to start her own blog. In 2011, she launched “Busy in Brooklyn” — at the time she was raising three children under 5, running a home and teaching Hebrew while taking knitting and crochet classes.
Her first post, in January of that year, was for sauteed chicken cutlets topped with canned dark sweet cherries. Later that year, she gave her first cooking class for the teachers at her children’s school.
In 2013, she enrolled in a program at the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts (now closed). “I started to seek out different cultural dishes and put my kosher Jewish spin on it,” she said. She also took a photography class.
The following year, her recipe for “Drunken Hasselback Salami” — a whole salami sliced, coated in a sauce of jam, brandy and mustard, then baked until crispy — went viral. Later that year, she was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for her creative spins on the traditional Ashkenazi Hanukkah treat, latkes. In 2015, she made the first of many out-of-town food demonstrations, traveling to Montreal to prepare harissa chicken sliders with preserved lemon carrot slaw and a marble halvah mousse.
These recipes, among others, made it into “Millennial Kosher.” And although Apfelbaum swore that she would never write another cookbook because of all the work involved, that call in 2019 from Clarkson Potter made her rethink her decision. Apfelbaum’s global recipes — such as “Nachos Bassar,” nachos with hummus, Israeli salad and pickles — and how she “bounces off of trends that are happening in social media, in restaurants,” as Pelzel describes her, are what drew the mainstream publisher to Apfelbaum
“From the first time I met Chanie, I understood why she was the obvious choice to make kosher cool,” Apfelbaum’s mentor and fellow cookbook author Adeena Sussman told the New York Jewish Week via text. “She’s wildly passionate about her food and her Judaism, and makes no apologies for either.”
“Add to that her natural warmth, sense of humor and willingness to share the ups and downs of life with her followers, and you’ve truly got a recipe for success,” Sussman added.
And there have been plenty of ups and downs: After signing her book contract in 2019, Apfelbaum became a single mom due to divorce. She was also hospitalized with COVID-19 (as was one of her kids) and lost her sense of smell and taste, at a time when nobody knew that this was a side effect of the virus.
Fortunately, Apfelbaum has since regained her sense of taste and smell, and she remains very busy in Brooklyn — and elsewhere. In July, she is leading a food tour in Italy where her group will make gelato, hunt for truffles and taste olive oil. She hopes to continue culinary travel in the future. She has just come out with a line of her own spices called TK (as in “Totally Kosher”) Spices; her first two products are the Yemenite spice mix, hawaijj — one for savory foods and one for coffee, which has a sweet profile. With “Totally Kosher” now in its third printing, she is looking to (finally) hire an assistant and find work space outside of her home.
“There were many times I said I don’t have the emotional bandwidth and strength to do this book — I wanted to give up,” Apfelbaum said. “My friends believed in me and pushed me and made it happen. When I look at this book, I see so much more than recipes. It was really a journey for me.”
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AIPAC attacked a Democrat for funding ICE. Now it’s backing one who voted the same way.
AIPAC’s super PAC is spending big to boost Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary — over a record that includes the same ICE funding vote the group used to attack a different Democrat earlier this year.
Stevens is one of three leading candidates in the primary, running against progressive insurgent Abdul El-Sayed, who called the Israeli government “evil” like Hamas, and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. A new 30-second ad from AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, praises Stevens for confronting Trump’s immigration policies — citing legislation she introduced to create an independent prosecutor for ICE misconduct, and her calls for then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign.
The ad is part of a multimillion-dollar campaign to boost Stevens, a longtime AIPAC ally, whom the group helped elect in 2018 and reelect in 2022.
But the message is hard to square with AIPAC’s own record elsewhere. Earlier this year, the group spent more than $2 million attacking former Rep. Tom Malinowski in a New Jersey special election for voting to fund ICE as part of a bipartisan border bill. “We can’t trust Tom Malinowski to stand up to President Donald Trump,” that ad said. Stevens voted for the same funding bill. Last June, she also voted for a House resolution thanking ICE agents “for protecting the homeland.”
An AIPAC spokesperson and a UDP representative did not immediately respond to explain why the vote to fund ICE was presented as a liability in Malinowski’s race but not in Stevens’ case.
AIPAC has spent years cultivating ties to Trump-aligned Republicans, many of whom strongly support aggressive immigration enforcement.
The Israel-boosting organization’s brand has become increasingly controversial among mainstream Democrats in recent years. Congressional candidates, including some Jewish Democrats, have promised not to take contributions from AIPAC. Last month, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used the word “monsters” to describe AIPAC at a rally for progressive candidates he backed, all of whom won their primaries.
In the Michigan race, shaping up as one of the starkest tests of the Democratic coalition and how the party navigates policy towards Israel in Congress, United Democracy Project has already spent $10.7 million backing Stevens, making the Michigan contest one of its largest Senate investments this election cycle. AIPAC also raised several million dollars for Stevens by directing its donors to online portals that funnel money directly to the candidate’s campaign, effectively erasing its fingerprints in public data.
McMorrow has the endorsement of J Street, the liberal Zionist advocacy group that supports a two-state solution. The Jewish Democratic Council of America issued a rare dual endorsement of Stevens and McMorrow.
El-Sayed, the progressive frontrunner, is increasingly trying to transform AIPAC’s investment in the race into a centerpiece of his campaign message. Backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, El-Sayed has released videos accusing AIPAC of attempting to buy Democratic elections and police debate over Israel. In recent months, he has also reached out to Jewish voters while seeking to channel the energy of the 2024 Uncommitted movement, which protested the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza. The state is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States. Jewish voters make up just 1.4% of the electorate in the state.
Arno Rosenfeld and Hannah Feuer contributed to this article
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Adam Sandler officiates Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce wedding, fueling theories about singer’s Israel stance
(JTA) — A Jewish comedian who played one of cinema’s most notable Israeli characters took center stage — literally — at Taylor Swift’s wedding at Madison Square Garden on Friday.
Adam Sandler officiated the ceremony between Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, a spokesperson for Swift confirmed to media after the wedding.
The event included a wide range of Jewish attendees, including the Haim sisters, who recently attended a Knicks game with Swift; the writer and actor Lena Dunham; Joshua Kushner, the businessman whose brother Jared is a top Middle East advisor to President Donald Trump; and Kelce’s former teammate Mitchell Schwartz.
Sandler’s presence in particular fueled criticism from anti-Israel voices, who argued it was significant that someone who has described himself as “very pro-Israel” officiated the wedding. Sandler has discussed his friendship with Swift and Kelce publicly, saying that it developed through his daughters, who are Swift fans.
Swift has largely avoided wading into polarizing political issues, and her outlook on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a source of confusion for many fans, who have struggled to interpret her silence on the topic at a time when many celebrities have publicly voiced support for Gaza. Her decision not to publicly criticize Israel is seen as having bolstered her popularity among Israelis. At the same time, some pro-Palestinian fans have decried her silence and protested at her concerts, while others have speculated that she is privately pro-Palestinian but has avoided speaking out for fear of alienating fans.
“For all the Swifties defending Taylor Swift regarding her silence on Palestine she had Adam Sandler … a well-known Zionist, officiate her wedding so I think we know where she stands now,” tweeted an account called Land Palestine that had nearly 2 million followers on Instagram before being suspended last year.
“They’re all Zionists, clearly, and no doubt about it,” tweeted the Oxford University student Kate Crawford, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice on X who identifies as partly Jewish.
Some pro-Israel voices joined in the speculation. “I wonder if she is publicly aligning herself with certain people for a soft launch of her views. If she were to say some pro-Israel or pro-Jewish things, I think it could go a long way amongst the younger generation,” wrote one user on Reddit’s “Jewish” forum, in a post that was deleted but yielded nearly 200 comments parsing Swift’s possible Israel attitudes. (Among the evidence offered for possible pro-Israel leanings: She and Kelce recently dined at a buzzy Israeli restaurant. But other commenters noted that Gigi Hadid, a Palestinian-American celebrity who has spread anti-Israel rhetoric, was also at the wedding.)
The chatter about the wedding and Israel swelled so much that the parody account Buzz Crave riffed off of it with a viral post proclaiming: “Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have left the U.S. for Israel to start their honeymoon.”
Like Swift, Sandler is not among the celebrities to engage in activism on Israel or Gaza. In fact, Sandler — whose early hits included “The Hanukkah Song” — is not known to have visited Israel, after disclosing in a 2022 interview that he had never traveled to the country of one of his signature characters. He played Zohan Dvir, an Israeli soldier who prefers partying to war, in the 2008 comedy “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.”
Sandler made the “very pro-Israel” comment in 2015 while criticizing artists who boycott Israel during an appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show. He has said little publicly about Israel since the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that began the war in Gaza, when he said his “heart is shattered” and signed onto an entertainment industry letter calling on then-President Joe Biden to help return the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.
For some, the reaction to Sandler’s officiation added to a growing sense that no Jewish figure can escape being targeted by anti-Zionist activism. “You can stay silent. You can avoid politics. You can try not to get involved,” the pro-Israel influencer Ran Alkalay posted on Instagram. “For antisemites, none of that matters.”
For other Jewish voices commenting on the wedding, the guest list was immaterial. On Facebook, Rabbi David Glickman of Kansas City noted that Swift and Kelce had doled out $26 million in charitable gifts ahead of their nuptials.
“Jewish tradition says that a bride and groom have the ear of God on their wedding day — so the couple will say silent prayers for folks in need. I’m grateful your prayers weren’t only silent,” Glickman wrote. “You gave an example for all of us that personal celebration is made greater through tzedakah and generosity. Your charitable gifts are more impressive than a wedding at MSG — I hope it will get the same publicity.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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In the pickles and babka of Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, a glimpse of a lost New York
It was an early Sunday morning when my grandmother and I arrived at Sander’s Bakery in South Williamsburg for a “Pickles and Babka” food and culture walk through Williamsburg and the Lower East Side.
Since 2024, Sammy, our leader, has been showing off his favorite kosher food spots on @kosher.hopping, an Instagram account, which now boasts more than 17,000 followers and features a variety of mouthwatering dishes — including kosher sushi, kosher smashburgers and historic businesses like the ones we would be visiting.
It was Sammy’s last stop in Williamsburg of the season: Business owners were already closing up shop for the summer and heading upstate.
As our group gathered — city natives along with visitors from Westchester and Long Island — Sammy described South Williamsburg as a glimpse of what the Lower East Side used to be. Unlike the Lower East Side, which has experienced gentrification in recent decades, this neighborhood has retained its distinctly Jewish identity since immigrants first crossed over the Williamsburg Bridge.
When my grandmother and I entered Sander’s, opened by a Holocaust survivor in 1959, the smell of yeast and chocolate was so tantalizing that we couldn’t help but purchase a Danish and cherry turnover before the tour even began. We then tried slices of chocolate and cinnamon babkas, which were rich and nutty.
As our group walked towards Flaum’s, an appetizing store reminiscent of Russ & Daughters, but kosher — buses lined the streets, each bound for a different yeshiva. There was a grocery store at each corner, shops with beautiful silverware and strings hung up to designate the eruv. At the shop, we sampled small cheese danishes and sugar cookies with custard. The cookies were my favorite “bite” of the tour; they were sweet with great texture, and the custard provided a necessary moistness.
When we walked to the subway to head to the Lower East Side, the neighborhood took a decidedly different turn. All at once, the local businesses and Yiddish signs were gone and replaced with fast food chains. As we climbed up the steps and the train pulled into the station, we returned to the city’s usual chaos, leaving Williamsburg behind.
Upon exiting the subway, we made a pit stop at Essex Street Market. Its origins stem from Jewish open air markets that were once crowded with pushcarts. Under Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, these sellers were forced to move inside. The original indoor market, located across the street from its present-day location, retained its Jewish character, but the market doesn’t currently house any kosher vendors.
As we continued on to our remaining stops, I felt aware of what was lost. Entering The Pickle Guys, located on the corner of Grand Street and Essex Street, a deliciously briny smell filled the air from the dozens of barrels at the center of the shop. We tried pickled corn and carrots and — my favorite — mango, which had a delightfully spicy aftertaste.
We could feel the presence of what was formerly “Pickle Alley”: the neighboring road that featured more than 80 vendors. Now, The Pickle Guys is the last pickle shop left in the Lower East Side. Even the pickles, made with plastic barrels, are not what they once were; Sammy told us that the New York Department of Health banned wooden barrels in the 1970s, and even now vendors swear that they don’t taste the same.
We ended our walk at Moishe’s Bakery, the last kosher bakery on the Lower East Side. Many Jews still live near the bakery; the community mikveh is in the building across the street. Until it closed this year, East Side Glatt, the neighborhood’s last kosher butcher, was located right next door to Moishe’s.
Though The Pickle Guys had been packed, Moishe’s felt intimate and at the center of a community, like the shops we visited in Williamsburg. We tried chocolate and poppy seed versions of Kokosh cake, loaves similar to babka that stem from Hungarian origins. We also picked up some of my dad’s favorite rainbow cookies to bring home with us.
After the tour, I made my way to Eldridge Street Synagogue’s “Egg Rolls, Egg Creams, and Empanadas” festival. On the way, I walked past the old Forward Building, which once bustled with whirring printing presses and Yiddish-speaking reporters. A large graffiti “JET” had been painted on the side of the building.
When I first came back to the city this year, my best friend texted me to ask whether I thought New York was changing. She felt that it had been modernizing; sometimes, she said, she looked around and couldn’t find the “old New York.” As I toured South Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, I felt as though I was looking into a bygone era, seeing remnants of what had mostly been lost. I would have given anything to return to the Lower East Side crowded with pushcarts and Yiddish music to be heard.
Still, as I listened to the singing trio of the Mamales crooning “Yidel Mitn Fiedel,” while the smell of empanadas filled the air and festivalgoers played Mah Jongg, the culture of the Lower East Side felt bustling and alive. The Lower East Side isn’t the neighborhood it had once been, but its legacy remains — in the people making babka and those who choose to share their story.
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