Grapevine: The Angels

• Published date: 20 April 2024
• Author: GREER FAY CASHMAN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

As of this month, Angel's Bakery no longer operates in Jerusalem but has moved its key operations to Netivot and Lod

Yediot Yerushalayim made the bakery's departure its cover story last Friday, partially because the Angel family has been part and parcel of Jerusalem for at least 10 generations. Aside from the bakery, its members have been active in numerous Jerusalem-based organizations and institutions.

Kuti Fundaminsky, who also comes from a veteran Jerusalem family, which moved to the city from Hebron following the 1929 riots, interviewed Yaron Angel, a third-generation manager of the family-run business on the day that he turned off the ovens for the last time.

The obvious question put to him by Fundaminsky was whether the municipal council had made any effort to prevent Angel's Bakery from leaving the capital. To his surprise, the answer was "No." Yaron Angel had also been surprised, considering the deep roots that both his family and their business enterprise have in the city.

Not that Angel's Bakery is going to suffer much in its new locations. It is still reputed to be the largest commercial bakery in Israel, with Berman's coming a close second. In addition, Angel's has a large export market in Europe.

But it is sad that a company that operated for so many years in Jerusalem and introduced sliced bread and new bread-making technologies to Israel should leave.

Although Angel's has the strictest kashrut certification – that of the Eda Haredit – it lost a large share of the market when boycotted by the ultra-Orthodox after its chairman, former public security minister Omer Bar Lev, participated in a Brothers in Arms demonstration in Bnei Bark outside the home of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, the head of Ponevezh Yeshiva and spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah political party.

Edelstein died a few days later, and his followers chose to believe that the demonstrators had hastened his death, even though he was 100 years old.

Two years ago, Yaron Angel, realizing that there was no room for expansion in Jerusalem, sold his shares in the company – including two hectares of land – to a group of entrepreneurs who wanted to build residential complexes on the site. The flour mill across the road was also sold for the same purpose and was demolished a few months later.

For the time being, Berman's Bakery is the largest in Jerusalem, but it's possible that it, too, may move elsewhere.

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