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With investors like Paul Rudd, a new bagel baker takes a bite of the West Village
(New York Jewish Week) — Like many people stuck at home during the pandemic, Adam Goldberg, who worked at a flood-mitigation systems company in Westport, Connecticut, decided to try his hand at baking. But unlike most amateur bakers, Goldberg turned his pastime into a thriving bagel-delivery service that built a loyal following and drew the attention of celebrity investors like actor Paul Rudd.
And now, PopUpBagels, which touts itself as a “‘not famous but known’ bagel and schmear subscription club,” announced this week that it will open a brick-and-mortar store in Manhattan at the corner of Bleecker and Thompson streets.
The Greenwich Village store, along with a forthcoming shop in Greenwich, Connecticut, will be PopUpBagels’ first foray into permanent storefronts. This transition comes on the heels of raising “more than a couple million” dollars in seed funding in November 2022, attracting celebrity investors like Rudd, actor Patrick Schwarzenegger and swimmer Michael Phelps. But bold-faced names aren’t the only thing that sets PopUpBagels apart: Unlike most bagel bakeries, PopUpBagels only sells bagels by the dozen, at $38 a pop (which includes two tubs of “artisan schmears” — unique flavors like Caramel Apple, Dill Pickle, Red Pepper and Black Sesame Miso).
“Think of us as your private bagel bakery,” Goldberg, 48, told the New York Jewish Week. “When you feel like you want bagels, you’ll be able to go on our website and order a dozen bagels for a specific pickup time and hot, fresh bagels will be waiting for you when you get there.”
PopUpBagels will not be selling individual bagels, sandwiches or any “old and colds,” which is how Goldberg refers to “anything that’s been sitting out for more than 45 minutes.”
For now — until both stores open in mid-March — PopUpBagels operates via pre-orders only. Customers reserve their orders at the beginning of the week through the bakery’s website, selecting a 15-minute time slot on weekend mornings for pickups at a variety of locations in the tri-state area, including Redding, Connecticut and Tenafly, New Jersey. (Overnight mail orders — 18 bagels for $60, plus schmears — are also available anywhere in the United States on Thursday nights.) City dwellers can pick up their advance-ordered bagels on Saturday mornings at Scampi, an Italian restaurant in Flatiron.
Goldberg said he and his team fill some 700 to 800 pre-sale orders each week, which are baked at two Connecticut bakery locations. The emphasis is on freshness and quality, Goldberg said, which is why the bagels are made-to-(pre)order.
Once the storefront opens, bagels will be baked on-site and available “five to six days a week,” he said. Walk-up orders of half-dozen or a dozen bagels will be available, he added.
“Our flavor is just a little bit different than every other bagel out there,” Goldberg said of his creations, which are about two-thirds the size of an average New York bagel. “We have this saying: ‘We’ve got a little chew in the crust without the lead in the belly.’ It’s refreshing.”
For the last two years, PopUpBagels has taken home the “Best Overall Bagel” award at Brooklyn Bagel Fest, judged by a panel of 20 industry experts. (The competition has only been in existence for three years.)
“PopUp creates some intention around your bagel routine; you have to put intention towards getting their simply perfect bagels when they have a drop,” said Jake Cohen, a chef and baker who has been a contest judge at Brooklyn BagelFest the last two years and voted PopUpBagels for Best Overall Bagel. “To me the magic of their bagels is that you’re only able to get them at peak freshness and then alongside their inventive schmears,” he added.
“The response has been amazing,” Goldberg said. “People are so excited. We’re hearing from customers and people who have been following us for a couple of years and saying, ‘I can’t wait.’”
“I love supporting any establishment honoring the sanctity of a perfect bagel,” Cohen said. “I can promise when they open it will be the main reason I schlep to the Village.”
“Watching people eat our bagels for the first time and seeing their smiles and their faces light up is just an amazing feeling for me,” Goldberg added. “I’m so excited to come to New York and have the opportunity for millions of people to get their hands on our bagels and to be able to see that awesome look for the first time from so many people.”
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The post With investors like Paul Rudd, a new bagel baker takes a bite of the West Village appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Says It Kills Senior Hamas Commander Raed Saed in Gaza
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a car in Gaza City, December 13, 2025.REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
The Israeli military said it killed senior Hamas commander Raed Saed, one of the architects of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, in a strike on a car in Gaza City on Saturday.
It was the highest-profile assassination of a senior Hamas figure since a Gaza ceasefire deal came into effect in October.
In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said Saed was targeted in response to an attack by Hamas in which an explosive device injured two soldiers earlier on Saturday.
The attack on the car in Gaza City killed five people and wounded at least 25 others, according to Gaza health authorities. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas or medics that Saed was among the dead.
HAMAS SAYS ATTACK VIOLATES CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT
An Israeli military official described Saed as a high-ranked Hamas member who helped establish and advance the group’s weapons production network.
“In recent months, he operated to reestablish Hamas’ capabilities and weapons manufacturing, a blatant violation of the ceasefire,” the official said.
Hamas sources have also described him as the second-in-command of the group’s armed wing, after Izz eldeen Al-Hadad.
Saed used to head Hamas’ Gaza City battalion, one of the group’s largest and best-equipped, those sources said.
Hamas, in a statement, condemned the attack as a violation of the ceasefire agreement but did not say whether Saed was hurt and stopped short of threatening retaliation.
The October 10 ceasefire has enabled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to Gaza City’s ruins. Israel has pulled troops back from city positions, and aid flows have increased.
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Hezbollah Chief: Disarmament Would Be ‘Death Sentence’ for Lebanon
Lebanon’s Hezbollah Chief Naim Qassem gives a televised speech from an unknown location, July 30, 2025, in this screen grab from video. Photo: Al Manar TV/REUTERS TV/via REUTERS
i24 News – Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Saturday that it was not the responsibility of the Shiite terror group “to prevent aggression,” but rather the Lebanese state’s, and it is the responsibility of Hezbollah to engage “when the state and army fail to do so.”
In a recorded televised statement, Qassem sarcastically posed the question whether it was not Hezbollah that should be demanding the Lebanese Army’s disarmament if the latter fails to stop “Israel’s ongoing aggression.”
On the issue of disarming Hezbollah, Qassem said that disarming it in the manner currently proposed is a death sentence for Lebanon.
“Even if the sky falls, we will not be disarmed, not even if the entire world unites against Lebanon. We will not allow this and it will not happen,” Qassem said.
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High schoolers’ ‘human swastika’ on football field shakes San Jose Jewish community
(JTA) — The photo spread swiftly after a student posted it on social media: Eight California high schoolers were lying on their school’s football field, their bodies arrayed in the shape of a swastika.
Alongside the picture was a quote from Adolf Hitler, threatening the “annihilation of the Jewish race.”
The incident at Branham High School in San Jose began on Dec. 3 and has roiled the local Jewish community in the days since, as the wrenching saga has ignited suspensions, recriminations and alarm from around the world.
The photograph and the response to it were first reported by J. Jewish News of Northern California.
“We don’t want to see hatred,” Cormac Nolan, a Jewish Branham senior, told the local Jewish newspaper. “We don’t want to see the idolization of one of the most evil men to ever walk the face of the Earth. We don’t want someone who spews out hatred like this on our campus.”
The school’s student newspaper reported that the students involved had been suspended, and that dozens of other students walked out to protest the incident.
The San Jose Police Department told J. that it is investigating the incident, and the school’s principal, Beth Silbergeld, who is Jewish, said the school was working with the Anti-Defamation League and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, a local antisemitism advocacy group, “to ensure that we receive appropriate support and guidance as we work to repair the harm that’s been done to our community.”
Silbergeld told J. that she felt pressure to learn from the incident.
“I’ve been in education for a long time and have seen, sadly, lots of incidences of oppression and hate toward many groups,” she said. “I think that we always have a responsibility as schools to do what’s right and to take action and learn from the experiences of other other schools and other incidents as a way to hopefully eliminate actions like what we’ve experienced.”
The incident is not the first time Branham High School has faced controversy over antisemitism on its campus. In April, the California Department of Education ruled that the school had discriminated against its Jewish students by presenting “biased” content about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a 12th-grade ethnic literature curriculum.
It is also not the first instance of a “human swastika” roiling a school community. In 2019, nine middle schoolers in Ojai, California, also arranged themselves in a “human swastika” and faced disciplinary measures from the school.
Exactly what possessed the Branham students to do what they did is not clear. But psychologists told the J. that the teen years are a peak moment for transgressive behaviors that may or may not reflect deep-seated biases.
“It’s a developmental time where you’re doing new things, you’re trying new things, you’re making mistakes, you’re trying to fit in, you’re trying to get laughs and likes,” Ellie Pelc, director of clinical services at the Bay Area’s Jewish Family and Children’s Services, told the newspaper. “And you often do so in some hurtful or harmful ways that you don’t always have the capacity to think through in advance.”
The photo was met by condemnation by California State Sens. Scott Wiener, who wrote that antisemitism was “pervasive & growing” in a post on Facebook, and Dave Cortese, who said he was “deeply disturbed” by the incident in a statement.
“What happened at Branham High School was not a joke, not a prank, and not self-expression — it was an act of hatred,” wrote San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan in a post on X. “The fact that this was planned and posted publicly makes it even more disturbing.”
By Tuesday, the uproar had sparked a response from district leaders. In a post on Facebook, Robert Bravo, the superintendent for the Campbell Union High School District, wrote that the district “will respond firmly, thoughtfully, and within the full scope allowed by Board Policy and California law.” (Displaying a Nazi swastika on the property of a school is illegal in California.)
He added that the school district considered the incident an instance of “hate violence” based on California state education code, which allows for suspension or expulsion in such cases.
“Our response cannot be limited to discipline alone,” continued Bravo. “We are committed to using this incident as an opportunity to deepen education around antisemitism, hate symbols and the historical atrocities associated with them.”
The antisemitic post comes two months after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill creating a statewide office assigned to combatting antisemitism in California public schools. The office, which is the first of its kind in the country, was met with praise from local Jewish advocacy groups while some critics warned it could chill academic freedoms.
Marc Levine, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in the Central Pacific region, called the incident “repulsive and unacceptable” in a statement on X. The incident was also condemned by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area, which wrote in a statement that it had been working with the school about “how to ensure an effective response.”
The Bay Area Jewish Coalition also issued a statement on Tuesday, writing that the antisemitic act had “shaken Jewish families across Northern California and beyond.”
“We hope that what happened at Branham serves as a wake-up call for California and for the rest of the country to take the antisemitism crisis seriously and reverse the trend through real, meaningful action and long-term change,” the statement continued.
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