For comfort food, Kylie Unell, a philosophy student and comedy-show producer, heads to Izzy’s BBQ Smokehouse. The Crown Heights restaurant “is not distinctly Jewish, but it is kosher BBQ that rivals the Kansas City BBQ I grew up eating,” she says.
Meanwhile, Rachel Figurasmith, the executive director of Repair the World NYC, heads to Lee Lee’s Baked Goods in Harlem, a decades-old rugelach joint operated by Alvin Lee Smalls, an octogenarian Black man originally from South Carolina whose first encounter with the buttery Jewish pastry came while working as a chef in a hospital kitchen.
Kelly Whitehead, a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, makes frequent visits to the Brooklyn Museum, especially, she said, to see “The Dinner Party,” a room-sized art installation by the feminist Jewish artist Judy Chicago.
And while Rabbi Ben Goldberg lives near the synagogue in Westchester County where he works, he heads to B&H Dairy in the East Village whenever he can. “For me, this place is heaven on earth,” said Goldberg.
Those are just some of the places that this year’s New York Jewish Week “36 Under 36” suggested when we asked them about their favorite places to eat Jewish food in the city and to take out-of-town guests.
Use the map below the explore the full set of suggestions. Be sure to click on each pin on the map to see comments from the 36er who recommended it.