Israeli Gelato Makes New York Debut

Image by COURTESY OF SCREME
Israel may be a pious land, but its cuisine is full of luscious guilty pleasures, some of which are traversing the Atlantic to corrupt New Yorkers.
Screme, the soon-to-be American name for Aldo, Israel’s largest gelato company, will open its first store in North America at the end of June, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The area has recently become a veritable New York version of Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda Street, hosting a number of Israel’s most popular food spots, including Aroma Espresso Bar (Israel’s Starbucks) and a handful of hummus restaurants. Plans for a branch of the Israeli vegetarian restaurant Soomsoom are also in the works. Screme’s uptown location will be the first of 10 to open in the New York area by the end of this year.
The company, which has 5,000 gelato recipes in its repertoire, will introduce a selection of new flavors to New York customers and also will offer some Israeli favorites. These, however, may be disguised by new names geared to the American audience. The incredibly popular limonana (lemon and mint sorbet), for example, will be called mojito States-side. The company also will serve its signature Belgian waffles and other sweet treats.
The gelato will be made fresh daily and throughout the day at each of the stores. “Good ice cream is like bread,” Yona Levi, CEO of Aldo/Screme, told The Shmooze. “It needs to be made and served fresh.”
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 gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 2
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 3
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish קאָנצערט לכּבֿוד דעם ייִדישן שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלערConcert honoring Yiddish writer and editor Boris Sandler
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Fast Forward Trump’s new pick for surgeon general blames the Nazis for pesticides on our food
-
Fast Forward Jewish feud over Trump escalates with open letter in The New York Times
-
Fast Forward First American pope, Leo XIV, studied under a leader in Jewish-Catholic relations
-
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.