Football fans travelling to this year’s World Cup are in for a treat, with some of North America’s most fabulous – and most Jewish – cities on the fixture list for our national teams.
The first half of these venues are definitely in the frame for England fans, while the second half look like good prospects too if the team progresses. The Beautiful Game offers some beautiful reasons to cross the Atlantic in midsummer.
NEW YORK
One England group game and the final will be played at the New Jersey stadium just a hop across the river from the Big Apple, the most Jewish city in the world outside Israel, with a community of nearly two million and 525 kosher restaurants.
Times Square, Rockefeller Centre and Central Park are a must, but those with American ancestors may wish to visit Ellis Island, where so many refugees from Russian pogroms were processed more than a century ago. Now a full-blown attraction, the island is undergoing a revamp, but visitors will still be able to search records while improvements are under way.
Scoping out the Lower East Side, where so many Jewish immigrants started their new American lives, is also a must; the Tenement Museum brings to life the daily routine of Jewish immigrants, and eating places such as Russ and Daughters that served them are still there. Uptown is the Jewish Museum and Jewish-owned Neue Galerie with its Klimts and other Viennese treasures, and the all-encompassing Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Magnolia Hotel's iconic Pegasus in Downtown DallasDan Ham Photography
DALLAS
The city best-remembered for television’s JR and Sue Ellen is hosting England’s opening match against Croatia and one semi-final. These days Dallas is about more than high-style swagger – it also has one of the fastest-growing Jewish communities in the US and now 80,000-strong.
On the cultural side, the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza is recommended, while the great city landmark is the sphere-topped Reunion Tower, known locally as “the Ball”, with an observation deck offering outstanding views.
Of particular Jewish interest are the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum and a Museum of Biblical Art, which houses both the National Centre for Jewish Art and a Museum of Holocaust Art. Deep Ellum is a cool quarter known for live music and street art, while the city’s official arts district has been voted one of the US’s top ten for two years in a row.
Dallas also has no fewer than 16 kosher restaurants.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in BostonGetty Images
BOSTON
The city with America’s fourth-largest Jewish population will host England’s second group match and one of Scotland’s.
Boston’s historic sites include Beacon Hill, subject of its own Jewish heritage walking tour, and the Vilna shul, built in 1919, which is now a Jewish cultural centre.
All New England’s Jewish history is celebrated at the Wyner Family Heritage Centre, while the New England Holocaust Memorial, initiated by a group of survivors, is on Boston’s Freedom Trail.
Art lovers should not miss the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, its collection assembled by a Gilded Age heiress, even finer than the Museum of Fine Art and Institute of Contemporary Art.
Kosher restaurants abound in and around Brookline, home to a large Jewish community and worth a trip to visit the glorious art deco Temple Ohabei Shalom. But you don’t have to travel outside the centre for kosher food – the Milk Street Café is in the heart of downtown, while Bakey, serving sandwiches, pastries and other creations by its two Israeli chefs, has five locations.
Boston is also gateway to the coastal attractions of Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Less well-known, though, is the closer-in vacationland known as North Of Boston, with Salem (of witch-trial notoriety) at its heart and delightful coastal villages including Ipswich and Rockport.
The Original Farmers Market L.A.Getty Images
LOS ANGELES
Wales or Northern Ireland will play in the US’s second most Jewish city if qualifying, and England may well play a quarter-final here.
The SoFi stadium, not far from LAX international airport, makes a strong case for staying on the west side of the city, although the cities-within-a-city of West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are more to be recommended than Inglewood, the slightly scruffy neighbourhood where the stadium is. The best delis are in these three neighbourhoods – Canter’s, Nate’n’Als and Fromin’s respectively – and there’s a deli too at the Original Farmer’s Market, one of LA’s most agreeable attractions. Here individuals can pick up a trayful of their favourite American or world cuisine and eat with their companions at one of the outdoor tables in the middle of this glorious art deco site on heimishe Fairfax Avenue.
Not to be missed while in town are the Academy Museum, a hike round the base of the Hollywood sign and a visit to the Broad, the Jewish-financed downtown art museum which has been named the city’s best. More Jewish-financed art will be on view this summer at the new David Geffen Galleries opening at LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Of special interest, LA’s survivor-led Holocaust Museum will reopen in June after an expansion which has doubled its footprint.
Many of LA’s 100 kosher restaurants are in the nearby Pico-Robertson district, more along aforementioned Fairfax Avenue, aka “gefilte gulch”. A little further east, don’t miss the beautiful Byzantine-domed Wilshire Boulevard Temple, to which the Warner Brothers lent their set-decorating artisans nearly a century ago.
The National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia[Missing Credit]
PHILADELPHIA
The city considered the home of American independence houses 350,000 Jews in one of the US’s oldest and largest communities. It’s an easy side trip for those who have come for the World Cup final in New York and a rewarding one for history buffs in particular.
As you’d expect from a city whose community dates back to before independence – it was a Jewish-owned ship which brought the Liberty Bell from England to the colonies in 1772 – there are strong cultural institutions, including the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History and the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art. Congregation Mikveh Israel, founded in 1740, and its cemetery where Nathan Levy, owner of that historic ship, is buried, are also on the list for Jewish visitors, while the city’s principal attractions remain Independence Hall, steps from the shul, which has deep ties to early Jewish settlers, and the Museum of the Revolution.
When it comes to dinner time, Laser Wolf is alive and well here – not as in the similarly named Fiddler on the Roof butcher but in the shape of a wildly popular Israeli restaurant. It’s co-founded by the city’s – and one of America’s – most famous Jewish chefs, Michael Solomonov. There’s no shortage of kosher restaurants, either.
Art Deco-style buildings lining Ocean Drive in Miami Beach[Missing Credit]
MIAMI
With so many New Yorkers decamping to Miami Beach in their retirement since before the Second World War, it’s no surprise how heimishe this city of half a million Jews feels, despite the strong Cuban influences of the past 60 years. Miami is hosting the play-off for third place, but England may also play a quarter-final here and Scotland will certainly take on Brazil in the city.
Of particular interest is the Jewish Museum of Florida, in the heart of South Beach with its glorious art deco hotels which have been Jewish favourites for decades. The museum itself is housed in two synagogues of the period and explores a Florida-Jewish heritage which dates back three centuries. There is also a Holocaust memorial in this neighbourhood and a Jewish Miami Beach walking tour.
Heimishe food – both kosher and non-kosher – abound, including Aviv, the latest offer from Michael Solomonov (see Philadelphia, above) and Abbalé Modern Mediterranean Kitchen – both these are in the heart of the action in South Beach.
In Surfside, find the kosher steakhouse Kosh, and Josh’s Deli, which dishes out latkes and matzo ball soup and cures its own salt beef. For a lox and bagel fix, head to Roasters ’N Toasters on Miami Beach’s 41st Street Corridor.
The Frida Kahlo Museum of Mexico CityGetty Images
MEXICO CITY
If England win their group, they will probably play the home team in their capital, which embraces a sizeable Jewish population. No wonder there’s plenty of kosher and Israeli food, including some offering a fusion with Mexican cuisine. Many of the best restaurants are in Condesa and Polanco.
Not to be missed in Mexico City are the Anthropological Museum, the Blue House in Coyoacán, and the fabulously decorated home of Frida Kahlo, who liked to claim a Jewish background, though doubt has since been cast on this.
Also recommended are the weekend craft market in the affluent suburb of San Angel and the son et lumière at the Aztec Pyramids a few miles from the city centre.
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