One Tough Cookie: Kosher Baker Unfazed By Truck-Robbing Bandits

Image by Patrick Chin
After a stressful 24 hours dealing with bank robbing truck bandits and the FBI, Zak Stern could use a peaceful Shabbat as much as anyone.
On the morning of July 6, one of Stern’s six delivery trucks was stolen while the driver was inside delivering freshly-baked bread to a customer. The truck was later used in a local bank robbery and recovered by the FBI later that day. The FBI still has the truck in its possession due to an ongoing investigation, and Stern doesn’t expect its return anytime soon, but assured the Forward that “we’re cool.”
While “it sucked” that the truck was stolen en-route and full of bread, Stern added that because all six of his trucks are identical, many of his drivers kept getting pulled over by the authorities before the stolen truck was found. Rising to the occasion, the company rented an additional truck and was able to make all scheduled deliveries.
Stern told the Forward that while he doesn’t have a favorite bread pun, he did appreciate one local television news anchor’s assessment of the situation as “definitely not kosher.”
The FBI told the Forward that the bank robber and truck thief (or possibly robbers/thieves) are still at large — so challah if you see them.
Laura E. Adkins is the Forward’s contributing network editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @Laura_E_Adkins
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 3
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Chicago man charged with hate crime for attack of two Jewish DePaul students
-
Fast Forward In the ashes of the governor’s mansion, clues to a mystery about Josh Shapiro’s Passover Seder
-
Fast Forward Itamar Ben-Gvir is coming to America, with stops at Yale and in New York City already set
-
Fast Forward Texas Jews split as lawmakers sign off on $1B private school voucher program
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.