New Breezy’s bakes for a cause

What happens when three enterprising local women bake up a cause? On Sept. 22, the former Ketzy’s kitchen supply store will reopen as Breezy’s at its new location with a challah cooking demonstration for Tziporah's Nest, a campaign to benefit sick individuals.


“It started off as people baking challah for her sister,” said proprietor Brielle “Breezy” Beckerman, describing her new friend Shira Kalish. “Her sister Tziporah has cancer and she started this in her honor.”


The connection between Kalish and Beckerman is Michali Weinstein, a Woodmere-based web designer, who created websites for Breezy’s and Tziporah’s Nest. “Breezy’s is launching a new store and it’s all about challah baking while Shira needed a place to bake. It’s a great shidduch in cross-promoting,” Weinstein said.


Weinstein used her web marketing to raise awareness and enable individuals to contribute to a cause, previously contributing her effort to the online campaign for Woodmere resident Ilan Tocker, where the public offered support and prayers during his successful, but difficult bout with a brain aneurism. “When a crisis happens, people want to do something and they need to coordinate.”


Kalish, a teacher at Torah Academy for Girls in Far Rockaway, began Tziporah’s Nest when her sister was diagnosed with leukemia in her seventh month of pregnancy. “In the zechus of her refuah, we gathered 40 bakers every week to make challah and we needed a way to make this more organized,” the Woodmere resident said.


Together with Weinstein, Kalish founded the free service for anyone wishing to help an ill individual through challah baking, tzedakah, tehilim groups, and arranging meals. Tziporah, a North Woodmere resident, received a bone marrow transplant from her brother Eric Fiedler and gave birth to a healthy boy 15 months ago. But Kalish did not want the cause to end with her sister. Horrified at the murder of Leiby Kletzky over the summer, Kalish publicized the Tziporah’s Nest site ahead of the official launch, so that the public could channel grief into chesed.


Breezy’s new location at 572 Central Avenue in Cedarhurst features a bright retail space with a cooking classroom in the back. While village regulations do not permit ovens in the store, the classroom can be used to mold the challah, while baking it elsewhere. With a growth in cooking shows and kosher food magazines, Beckerman expect her customer base to grow and is happy to channel its proceeds towards a cause. “Jewish women know how to cook, but they want to decorate it beautifully and make it look like they bought it. This place is cooking, entertaining and gifts.”