Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Foodie Tours of Tel Aviv and All the Week’s Dish

A spread at Shaya in New Orleans.

Chef-Driven Tour of Israel

Tel Aviv-born chef , has shaken up New Orleans dining, is leading a private tour of Tel Aviv for a lucky group of foodies and fans.

From June 25–July 6, Shaya will share his favorite eateries — from haute cuisine to hummus joints — along with wineries, distilleries, and a few secret spots.

In Israel’s food capital, “there are so many great restaurants opening, and the food game continues to get stronger,” Shaya told the Forward.

Don’t try booking, though; the inaugural tour’s sold out. Shaya says he’s planning more. Stay tuned.

Hello, Columbus

Izzy and Mo are real. And now, so is Izzy and Mo’s — finally. After months of construction delays, the nouveau deli opened last week in Columbus, Ohio’s hip Peach District. Chef-owner Magdiale Wolmark, who owns a biodynamic restaurant next door, named his new place after his Polish father (Izzy) and Israeli mother (Mo), according to Columbus Crave.

Look for “foods of the Jewish Diaspora, using local, grass-fed and organic ingredients” — think bagels, blintzes and babka, along with matzo-ball soup, cured fish and pastrami. Wolmark’s also introducing the Shiksa, a cheeky variation on a Blondie.

Call It the Jewish Burger Pilgrimage.

For young Orthodox Jews, trips to Israel are providing their first taste of forbidden foods: McDonald’s hamburgers, which are kosher in the Holy Land. “People come back and say, ‘You have to go to the Wailing Wall and you have to go to the beach and you have to see Masada, and you have to eat at McDonald’s,’” one teen tells Grub Street, which reported on the phenomenon this week. “It’s almost, like, imperative law. It’s practically biblical.”

Michael Kaminer is a contributing editor at the Forward.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.