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Food coverage is supported by a generous donation from Susan and Moses Libitzky.

Ramni Levy’s longtime business, King Knish, wasn’t doing so well even before the pandemic. But when Covid-19 came along, obviously that made things much worse.

Even so, being the only dedicated knish producer in San Francisco, he just couldn’t let King Knish disappear.

Starting in 2012, Levy sold his wares at farmers markets and at pop-ups, and had many small tech companies as clients. But as a result of the pandemic, many of those tech companies shut down or merged with others.

“I enjoy every aspect of what I do,” Levy said of his knish enterprise. “It’s not about the money. It’s about trying to offer something many don’t even know what it is.”

The son of a rabbi, Levy moved to San Francisco in 1998 and had a restaurant called Bistro 1650 in the Richmond District before he moved into catering.

Shortly after he launched King Knish, a J. article mentioned that he offered varieties such as broccoli and cheddar, and wasabi and potato with crystallized ginger. They had been staples and popular items in his catering business.

Originally from Eastern Europe, the knish always includes some kind of filling — most often potato, but other standards are kasha and mushroom — surrounded by dough and either baked or fried.

Every culture has their stuffed item.

Before the pandemic, Levy regularly made 12 kinds, as well as special-order knishes and knishes with brand logos on them. His catering gigs included his homemade rosemary-honey mustard, five-spice ketchup and chunky bourbon applesauce, (which he also sold by the jar), and an international cheese plate or latkes, if requested.

When prospective customers ask, “Are yours like Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery or Mrs. Stahl’s” in New York, his answer is: “If they were like someone else’s, they wouldn’t be mine.”

Levy, who has participated in the L’Chaim Food & Wine Festival in Napa for the last two years, is looking to reignite his business, and he received a small grant from San Francisco to help him do so.

To get things going again, he has a streamlined menu and is offering pickup and delivery with 72 hours notice. For catering, he needs two weeks.

The menu includes his most popular knish varieties, such as pastrami potato and grilled onion. He doesn’t have kosher certification, but said all ingredients he uses are organic and kosher.

When asked why he sticks with an item that isn’t an easy sell, Levy said, “I’m still the only dedicated knish producer in the Bay Area. Every culture has their stuffed item, whether it’s lumpia or empanadas.

“I’m filling an area that’s underrepresented.”

Filling?! No pun intended? Or was it?

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Holy Sushi, the Palo Alto–based kosher sushi company that shut down when the Oshman Family JCC brought in a new caterer, has found a new home. It’s now operating out of a boba tea shop called TeAmo, on El Camino Real, very close to the Orthodox synagogue Emek Beracha.

Holy Sushi owner (and J. board member) Rabbi Joey Felsen spoke with TeAmo owner Stuart Bai about a partnership, even though Bai knew very little about what it would take to become kosher. When Felsen explained what was required, he was willing, so Felsen has been helping him source ingredients (unflavored tapioca pearls, the main ingredient in boba, are kosher and don’t need certification, while the flavorings do).

“I told him that this would become the kosher place in town other than Izzy’s, and he agreed,” Felsen said.

While TeAmo isn’t kosher just yet, it’s in process, and Holy Sushi is already open Sunday through Friday. Both are at 4131 El Camino Real, Palo Alto.

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Larkspur will be the new location for a Boichik Bagels, in Emily Winston’s expanding bagel empire, the San Francisco Chronicle reported last month. The new outpost, which will be the first in Marin County, will be on Magnolia Avenue and is slated to open in November.

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Also slated to open this month is her store in Santa Clara, bringing the total number of Boichik stores to five.

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Aliza Grayevsky Somekh, chef-owner behind Bishulim SF, hosted an Oct. 19 gathering at Oakland’s Israeli-Californian fast-casual restaurant Pomella to put together care packages for Israeli families and write letters to soldiers.

Over 100 people of all ages came throughout the afternoon and early evening, Somekh reported, with hundreds of letters coming in from Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland and Congregation B’nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek.

“People really stepped up and gave with their whole heart,” Somekh said. “They were happy to come and do this with their kids, to do anything, really, and to just be together.”

She said the event made her feel less helpless, being so far away from her native country where everyone is volunteering in some way. “I was glad I could be of help and connect these two sides of the world in some way,” she said.

Somekh’s partner in the event was Pomella chef-owner Mica Talmor, who will be cooking with a puppet in Oakland’s Magic Kitchen at Fairyland on Nov. 11 as part of a new cooking series aiming to educate children about healthy eating. She will be hosted by Fairyland’s new puppet mascot, Quercus.

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Other local chefs and Jewish food companies have gotten involved in Middle East relief efforts. Mad Dandy is a Sausalito-based beverage company founded by four Jews as a lower-caffeine alternative to coffee. They are currently donating half of their profits to two nonprofits: American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA) and Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF).