New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams joined Jewish Community Relations Council CEO Mark Treyger squeezed into a kosher bakery Tuesday morning to begin an annual hamentashen crawl.
Along with less than a dozen of their staff total, both men, who are Brooklyn residents, met with Upper West Side locals and tasted bites from three Jewish-owned businesses in recognition of the Purim holiday, which began Monday night. They were also joined by Shula Puder, representing City Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office.
The hamentashen crawl, Treyger said, is a positive moment of civic engagement for city leaders and Jewish community leaders to support Jewish businesses outside of moments of crisis. As war erupts between Iran and Israel, many Jewish families are on high alert. On the New York front, a rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7 has seen a number of Jewish businesses vandalized. Private security and police presence has also increased at synagogues and Jewish community spaces as they celebrated the holiday Monday night and into Tuesday.
“We also wanted to visit and uplift Jewish owned businesses that very often only get visited in moments of crisis, if they’re subjected to vandalism, antisemitic attacks,” Treyger told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I think building community is something that requires work every day. And so I’m very proud that we get to visit some delicious small businesses, try delicious treats that really tell the story about who we are as a people.”
Hamentashen, the triangular cookies, are traditionally eaten on Purim in celebration of the Jewish people’s triumph over a foiled plot to eradicate the Jewish people from ancient Persia. They are said to represent either the three-pointed hat or the ear of Haman, the main antagonist of the Book of Esther, which chronicles the Purim story.
All three businesses Treyger and Williams visited were kosher. The first stop was to the gluten-free and dairy-free spot By the Way Bakery, founded in 2011 by Helene Godin. Then they headed to Patis, a patisserie chain located around the corner where an enormous Dubai chocolate-style, pistachio cream puff pastry hamentash was the center of attention. The last stop was at Six60One, the one-year-old kosher grocery store, where traditional hamentashen with classic fillings were on the menu. Williams remarked that he only recalled having tried a raspberry hamentashen.
An oversized pistachio cream hamentashen pastry at Patis on the Upper West Side. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
“It’s a moment of tension, there’s a lot of pain going on,” Williams said, just moments before trying his first By the Way Bakery hamentash. “What a great time to lift up Jewish culture and the Jewish presence in the city. The city wouldn’t be what we are without the beautiful mosaic that we have.”
On Monday night as Purim began, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wished a bilingual Hebrew and Yiddish “Chag Purim Sameach and a freilichen Purim” on Twitter and posted a photo to his Instagram stories of himself sitting eating hamentashen during iftar, the evening festive meal during the month-long fast of Ramadan. New York City Comptroller Mark Levine attended Purim festivities at West Side Institutional Synagogue and Park Avenue Synagogue dressed as a New York City Department of Sanitation worker, along with New York State Assemblymember and congressional candidate Micah Lasher, who wore a Yankees jersey.
“Hot Purim take: Strawberry hamantaschen is hands-down the best kind… and — no one *actually* likes the prune ones,” Lasher tweeted.
Treyger compared the structure of a good hamentashen to a New Yorker.
“The dough has to be crumbly but still resilient,” he said. Then there’s the ample dough-to-filling ratio, which should be “bold, like New York.”
“And number three, we don’t fold under pressure,” he said. “When you bite into it, it cannot fall apart.”
A raspberry filling loyalist, Treyger was surprised by how much he liked the pistachio cream puff pastry hamentashen.
Following each visit, each business was presented with a certificate for its “dedicated service to community” by the Public Advocate’s office on the occasion of the hamentashen crawl.
The hamentashen crawl, an annual JCRC tradition, headed to Queens last year, where Treyger and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. went to three local spots — Queens Pita Bakery, Seasons grocery store, and Aron’s Kissena Farms — and delivered mishloach manot, or Purim food baskets, to the Queens Center for Gay Seniors. In the past, JCRC has also done a sufganiyot crawl for Hanukkah in Staten Island.
“Listen, I’ve had three of the best hamantashen in the city at these three spots,” Williams said. “They’re made a little differently, just like New York City, but they all taste great.”
Added Treyger, “And that means a lot coming from two Brooklyn boys to give compliments to amazing Manhattan businesses, which are really fantastic.”
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