OP-ED: I loved this kosher cookie brand until I saw the owner’s antisemitic rants

Sue-Ann Levy writes "Needless to say, I won’t be buying any more ShaSha cookies, as much as I enjoyed them. I suspect many Jews who keep kosher, or don’t, won’t be buying them either."

Source: ShsSha Co.

By Sue-Ann Levy

For years I bought ginger snaps and other cookies from ShaSha Co. — an artisanal bakery based in Toronto.

I found them tasty, nutritious and particularly loved the seasonal cinnamon bun and pumpkin spice-flavoured snaps.

Owner Shasha Navazesh has been in his family business for 27 years and sells his organic cookies, bread crumbs, bread and now dog treats to such major food stores as Costco, Loblaws, Lady York, Farm Boy, Pusatieri’s and Whole Foods.

In fact in this YouTube video – done when his company reached 20 years in the business – he includes footage with the vice president of Pusatieri’s, which signed on from the beginning.

He also has a kosher certification from Montreal Kosher, which is operated by the Jewish Community Council of Montreal. Sources say he recently moved from KSA Pareve, a L.A.-based kosher certification agency.

As he explains on his own website, MK makes sure food products and facilities meet strict kosher dietary laws according to Orthodox Jewish standards.

“It is widely recognized both in Canada and internationally, and is trusted by manufacturers, consumers, and retailers for its rigorous inspection processes, rabbinic oversight, and commitment to transparency in food production,” he says of the certification..

But it seems Navazesh has not been “rigorously inspected” or has a commitment to transparency when it comes to his views on Jews and Israel.

In fact, his rabid conspiracy theories about Jews and the Jewish state are hidden in plain sight on both his Facebook page and his Linkedin profile.

They are sandwiched between other wild posts about spirituality and the meaning of life as well as eating healthy food.

He regularly targets Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. president Donald Trump and Trump’s only Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in YouTube videos and FB posts.

These posts seem to have ramped up in recent months since Trump won the presidency and made it clear he supported Israel and as the Hamas-Israeli conflict rages on.

The YouTube videos perpetuate conspiracy theories about greed and are more than once illustrated with shots of Kushner and Trump holding dollar bills.

According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, one of the key elements of antisemitism is “making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

Some of his outrageous posts claim that Israel is engaged in a power grab with money given to it by Trump.

In a particularly offensive video posted in May called Shield Power: How U.S. Backing Enables Israel’s Strategic Immunity, ShaSha makes claims that Israel is not only engaged in a power grab but is a “de facto rogue state aided by U.S. policy.”

He includes comments like “occupation” and “apartheid” to describe the Jewish state and says it is an “inhuman, barbaric regime.”

He says the money given to Israel by the U.S. funds the “tools of occupation” and is protected at the United Nations—the same UN that passed seven resolutions against Israel but no nations with far greater human rights abuses (like Syria and China) in the past two years.

Navazesh adds that since the Abraham Accords, Israel has “expanded its footprint” across the Middle East, into Africa and beyond.

This one also attacks the “ultra-rich”, showing Trump, Netanyahu and Kushner in more than one frame with dollar bills.

Exposing the Greatest Global Financial Scam! shasha 2025

He signs off many of his YouTube videos with ShaSha 2025, leaving no mistake where he stands. They are preachy and often dark.

As the Israel-Gaza conflict has carried on, Navazesh has not hesitated to post blood libels about the Jewish state.

Last month, on Aug. 6, he repeated the false claims that the IDF shot starving Gazans. There is no introspection about Hamas’s role in preventing Gazans from accessing humanitarian aid.

He repeatedly uses the catchphrase “Never Again”, which the Jewish community has used since the Holocaust horrors and certainly since Oct. 7 to fight back against Hamas.

“What happened near Zikim is a massacre. Civilians waiting for aid were shot and killed. This is not self-defence. This is terror. When a state turns its weapons on the starving and the helpless, history remembers. These horrors echo the darkest chapters of the 20th century. We said, “Never Again.” That must mean never again for anyone. #Gaza #Zikim #HumanRights #NeverAgain,” he wrote.

In this post from May, he repeats the genocide narrative. He even implies that Oct. 7 served as an excuse to attack Gaza:

In this preachy YouTube video from late June – with Greta Thunberg’s picture on the front – he repeats his conspiracy theories about greed.

Most of his FB posts are repeated on his professional LinkedIn profile.

I tried to reach Navazesh several times by e-mail and by phone over the past few days. He did not respond. He does not provide a direct e-mail address on his website, and there is no receptionist at his Etobicoke manufacturing plant.

Needless to say, I won’t be buying any more ShaSha cookies, as much as I enjoyed them. I suspect many Jews who keep kosher, or don’t, won’t be buying them either.

I would also suggest that perhaps if Navazesh feels so strongly that the Jewish state is wrong and Jewish people are greedy that he should give up his Kosher designation. After all, profiting from those he routinely attacks is the very definition of hypocrisy.