From NY Newsday
Long Island’s East End has only one place that’s kosher, a combination bakery-restaurant called Beach Bakery & Grand Café in Westhampton Beach.
So when the business went up for sale last year, the Jewish community was understandably nervous that a new owner would stop serving kosher food, especially the baked goods — those fried jelly croissants, custard doughnuts, the crumb cake.
Their worry was for nothing.
The man who bought the cafe, restaurateur Rashid Sulehri, is committed to keeping the meals kosher — and halal, which follows the dietary standards of his faith, Islam, and dovetails with Jewish law.
Chavie Kahn has been coming to the cafe during the summertime for two decades. She is excited about what changes Sulehri might make.
“It is a new beginning,” she said. “It is critically important we have a kosher place.”
Sulehri came to the United States from Pakistan in 1995, when he was barely in his 20s. He attended Rockland Community College and earned a master’s degree in finance from Oklahoma City University.
Today, at 45, he owns not only the Westhampton eatery but also the Montauk Bake Shoppe and Villa Italian Specialties in East Hampton.
“It’s a dream come true,” Sulehri said of the Beach Bakery. “Sons of Abraham can sit under one roof and they get a chance to see how much in common they have instead of staying away from each other and just thinking how different they are from each other.”
For Rabbi Marc Schneier, who leads The Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton Beach, Sulehri’s pledge to keep the eatery kosher exemplifies “interfaith cooperation and coexistence.”
“It took a devout member of the Muslim faith to come in and to maintain the kosher standards of the bakery for the Jewish community,” Schneier said.
