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War over a pita: Israeli restaurant in NYC faces backlash over arayes burger
Arutz Sheva ^ | 17/9/26

Posted on 09/17/2026 9:57:41 AM PDT by Eleutheria5

An Israeli-owned restaurant in New York City has found itself at the center of an online controversy after adding arayes to its menu, prompting accusations from pro-Palestinian activists that it was appropriating Arab and Palestinian cuisine.

Shifka, a Mediterranean pita restaurant located at 324 Bowery in Manhattan, recently added an “Arayes Burger" to its menu, consisting of beef, caramelized onions and tahini-yogurt.

According to a report by Al Araby TV, a video published by the restaurant promoting the dish sparked criticism on social media, with users accusing the Israeli-owned establishment of “stealing" another Arab dish.

Al Araby presented the controversy under the headline, “‘Stealing another dish’: Israeli restaurant in New York adds arayes to its menu, sparking outrage," placing the dispute within the broader debate over the origins and national identity of foods eaten throughout the Middle East.

Shifka, however, does not identify the arayes burger as an Israeli dish on its menu. The restaurant describes its cuisine more broadly as Mediterranean street food.

.....

(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...


TOPICS: Food; Humor; Society; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: appropriation; arayesburger; gmafb; stealingcuisine
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To: Brian Griffin

Now Ottolenghi might be marked for death by Hamas for collaborating with a Zionist Occupier restaurant, even lending his name to it.


21 posted on 09/17/2026 11:40:57 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 (Everything and anything is a weapon, especially your mind.)
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To: Brian Griffin

The original prohibition was against cooking a kid in the milk of its mother. So if it is beef, not goat meat, maybe it’s OK.


22 posted on 09/17/2026 12:06:32 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Verginius Rufus

Nope. Rabbinical cautionary decrees even against chicken and milk mixtures. BTW, unless you ate goat meat at least once as a child, you will not be able to digest it, due to an enzyme deficiency.


23 posted on 09/17/2026 12:35:27 PM PDT by Eleutheria5 (Everything and anything is a weapon, especially your mind.)
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To: posterchild

How do the Italians feel about pizza, kanoli, calzones and spaghetti being so thoroughly coopted in America. Mama mia.


24 posted on 09/17/2026 12:40:42 PM PDT by Eleutheria5 (Everything and anything is a weapon, especially your mind.)
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To: Eleutheria5

.


25 posted on 09/17/2026 1:11:41 PM PDT by redinIllinois (Pro-life, accountant, gun-totin' Grandma - multi .issue vor in)
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To: I want the USA back

Sounds like something mrs jimfree and I would throw together if the right items were in the refer. Tahini yogurt? Not sure about that, with dairy yogurt we’ve probably done this already.


26 posted on 09/17/2026 1:39:25 PM PDT by jimfree (My 23 y/o granddaughter has more quality exec experience than most Dem pres candidates.)
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To: maro
I find the whole idea of cultural appropriation baffling...

Recently, I was in Japan for a family trip. At one of the temples in Tokyo, you can rent kimonos, and we saw tourists walking around in them. I made a joke about cultural appropriation.

My daughter-in-law, who is experienced in the culture, and can speak passable Japanese, said "the Japanese are not stupid", and they like it when people appreciate their culture.

27 posted on 09/17/2026 1:47:51 PM PDT by Rinnwald
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To: Eleutheria5

When Nixon was President, they were going to have an Orthodox Jew for a dinner at the White House, so they tried consulting the Bible to find out what the rules were for kosher food. I think it was a rabbi who told them they needed to consult a more recent source.


28 posted on 09/17/2026 1:56:51 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Rinnwald

The Free-Free Palestine crowd are very stupid, and are getting mad at restaurants for cooking stuff, and ordering Palestinians to also get mad. Are Belgians mad at Americans for eating “french fries” and not calling them “Belgian fries”? That’s where it comes from. Joyce Kilmer wrote about it while soldiering on thru the Belgian boonies in WW I.

Try it. You’ll like it.


29 posted on 09/17/2026 2:30:29 PM PDT by Eleutheria5 (Everything and anything is a weapon, especially your mind.)
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To: maro

“...eating all sorts of cuisine with a good conscience was the hallmark of a liberal...”

I’m still waiting for the socialists to admit they eat crow on many occasions.

wy69


30 posted on 09/17/2026 7:46:43 PM PDT by whitney69
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To: Eleutheria5
In Greece decades ago they outlawed calling Turkish coffee by that name--it had to be called Greek coffee (elleniko). I don't know if it still enforced--probably they wouldn't throw a tourist in jail who was unaware of the law.
31 posted on 09/18/2026 6:27:01 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Verginius Rufus

I believe what’s known variously as Qahwa (Arabic; cannot figure out my laptop’s Arabic keyboard; my phone is easier, but is missing too many fine points of the language), קפה שחור (modern Hebrew), Turkish coffee (English), or in Greek as ελληνικο, and in Turkish as Türk Kahvesi, is merely the way that coffee was first prepared before people got fancy about it. Kudos to the Arabs, who simply call it “Qahwa,” which means “coffee”. I can’t imagine Arabs getting all upset about arayes burghers in an Israeli restaurant. Blood libels, sure. They do that at times. But “cultural appropriation”? “الاستيلاء الثقافي
aliastila’ althaqafiu”? Nah.


32 posted on 09/18/2026 6:43:53 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 (Everything and anything is a weapon, especially your mind.)
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To: Brian Griffin

I recall something in the scriptures about not cooking the calf in its mother’s milk as defining that part ol Kosher.


33 posted on 09/18/2026 10:27:15 AM PDT by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Finish the damned WALL! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH! )
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To: Eleutheria5

What the actual F@=#

Are you insane.

That claim is completely false. The human body does not need childhood “exposure” to goat meat to digest it, and there is no specific “goat meat enzyme” that you can be deficient in.

Here is how the biology actually works:

Universal Meat Enzymes: Your body digests meat using general proteolytic (protein-breaking) enzymes like pepsin in your stomach and trypsin or chymotrypsin from your pancreas. These enzymes break down chemical bonds in proteins regardless of whether they come from a goat, a cow, a chicken, or even plants like soybeans. [3, 4, 5]


34 posted on 09/23/2026 8:28:06 PM PDT by GenXPolymath
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To: GenXPolymath

I have this from a man who was very involved in the food industry, and he told me that a west indies themed hotel and restaurant that served goat meat met with a bad fate when nearly all of the guests became ill, and they checked the sanitation of the kitchen, the slaughterhouse, the hotel itself, and found nothing wrong. There are many enzymes, some of them peculiar to certain foods. A general protein-digesting enzyme does not make milk digestable to the lactic intolerant,f or example. At any rate, the hotel was a failure, and there was no remedy for the mature gastrointestinal systems that had never before ingested goat meat. West Indians and Arabs would not have this problem. I don’t know if goat milk could suffice to supply the missing enzyme. I’m very fond of it, and in Israel it’s just a little more expensive than cow milk. But I have no goat meat to test that hypothesis out on. I’ve eaten buffalo meat, venison, goose and duck, but never goat meat. It’s simply not on the market. Maybe this is why.


35 posted on 09/24/2026 10:14:04 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 (Politicians do not tell people the truth. They tell people what they want to hear--Thomas Sowell)
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