CookNSolo Are Fundraisers for Apartheid
Mike Solomonov and Steve Cook have raised so much money for “Israel” that they were given a lifetime achievement award.
On March 27, 2025, CookNSolo were given the Jewish National Fund’s Tree of Life Award, its “highest honor,” for their “steadfast commitment to Israel.” They were honored at a gala dinner at the Bellevue Hotel in Center City that was attended by 600 people and raised 2.7 million dollars for the JNF’s programs in “Israel.” At the awards ceremony, where attendees sang the Israeli national anthem and waved Israeli flags, Solomonov spoke about how “he and Cook decided after Oct. 7 that they were going to donate 100% of revenues from their restaurants to support Israel.” (source: Jewish Exponent). He said that it was important to show his family in “Israel,” including his nephew fighting as an IOF soldier in Gaza, that “we are one.”
The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is widely recognized as one of the most important organizations responsible for the historical dispossession of Palestinians. It is a quasi-governmental agency that, according to the Institute for Middle East Understanding, “has played a central role in the Zionist movement and subsequently the Israeli government’s dispossession of indigenous Palestinians... in order to establish and maintain a Jewish-majority state in Palestine.” (source: Institute for Middle East Understanding) Founded in 1901 at the 5th Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, the JNF historically advocated for the “transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) of Arabs from Palestine, with its director Joseph Weitz writing in 1940 that “Not one village must be left, not one [Bedouin] tribe.” In 1948, after the Israeli army and Zionist militias destroyed more than 400 Palestinian towns, displacing over 750,000 Palestinians, the JNF was responsible for planting forests to cover the evidence of pre-existing Palestinian society.
Today, the JNF controls 15% of the land in Israel “for the purpose of settling Jews.” In response to lawsuits alleging discrimination against Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, the JNF asserts that “The loyalty of the JNF is given to the Jewish people and only to them is the JNF obligated. The JNF, as the owner of the JNF land, does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state.” This is the logic of segregation and apartheid.
The JNF also works closely with the Israeli government and right-wing settler groups to force Palestinians out of their homes and off their land in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank and to acquire land to build settlements, in violation of international law. (Source for background on the JNF: https://imeu.org/resources/key-issues/fact-sheet-what-is-the-jewish-national-fund/456)
The JNF has developed close ties to Solomonov through its Galilee Culinary Institute and Go North program, which aim to increase Jewish settlement in northern “Israel.” Solomonov sits on the Board of Directors of the GCI and has focused much of his fundraising efforts on the north.
The JNF award dinner for CookNSolo was a “who’s who” of wealthy local Zionists. One of the event’s most prominent attendees was Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History President and CEO Dan Tadmor, who grew up in Israel and served in the IOF. Tadmor was responsible for the placement of a massive Israeli flag on the exterior of the Weitzman building printed with the words “The Weitzman Stands With Israel.”
The event was hosted by Steve Dabrow, president of JNF-USA’s Eastern PA board of directors and chairman of the JNF Galilee Culinary Institute. As mentioned above, the GCI is a school in northern “Israel” envisioned by the JNF as part of a strategic plan to develop a culinary and food tech economy in the Galilee region, all with the purpose of increasing Jewish settlement in the north of “Israel.” Dabrow also owns Chelten House Products, a food manufacturing and labeling company that partners with CookNSolo to manufacture and distribute Zahav hummus.
Marc Zumoff, the former play-by-play announcer for the Philadelphia 76ers, was also in attendance. In 2024, Zumoff retired to become chairman of Maccabi Games Media, responsible for bringing foreign media to “Israel” to cover the Maccabi Games sporting event. Of his new position, Zumoff says that “young Americans need to realize how important Israel’s existence is. Many with Maccabi USA have told me that Maccabi is birthright for athletes.”
Finally, the event also included Joan Nathan, one of the first American culinary writers to popularize the notion of “Israeli cuisine” in the U.S. Nathan lived in Jerusalem in the 1970s, working as foreign press attache for mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek. She wrote The Flavor of Jerusalem, along with other cookbooks on “Israeli” food.
In his acceptance speech, Cook also spoke about the restaurant group’s ideological commitment to promoting “Israeli” culture. He stated that when Zahav was founded in 2008, he and Solomonov debated whether to market the restaurant as explicitly Israeli: “At some point, the question was raised, well, how should we refer to the restaurant? Should it be Israeli, or was it more broadly going to be Middle Eastern, or even safer, Mediterranean? I think we talked for about five seconds before responding, Zahav is going to be an Israeli restaurant.”
A lifetime achievement award from the Jewish National Fund is no badge of honor! It’s proof of who Mike Solomonov and Steve Cook really are: lifelong supporters of and fundraisers for Zionism. CookNSolo don’t just profit off of Palestinian indigenous culture and foodways, they also directly raise funds to continue the genocidal Zionist colonization of Palestinian land and its people.