Ron Ben-Israel

Born in 1957, Ben-Israel grew up in Tel Aviv and attended Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts.[2] He showed an early interest in both baking and dance, and grew up watching his Viennese mother prepare desserts.[2][3] He described himself as the son of Holocaust survivors and spoke of the emotional weight of listening to his parents’ experiences.[3]

A friend introduced Ben-Israel to ballet while he was serving in the Israel Defense Forces in the late 1970s.[3] He began his dance career in 1978 and, after completing his mandatory military service, joined Bat-Dor; his dance work also included the Batsheva company.[2][3] He subsequently studied dance techniques in Europe, Canada and the United States, arriving in New York in the mid-1980s.[3] His professional modern-dance career lasted 15 years and included work with companies around the world.[1]

Ben-Israel began baking full time at age 36, in 1993, after a professional life in dance.[3][4] Arthritis contributed to his retirement from dancing.[2] Before making the transition, he supported himself by designing store-window displays and working in bakeries while applying for grants to continue his dance studies.[3] As grants became less available, the need to earn a living, his observations of bakery work and his confidence in his own judgment drew him toward baking professionally.[3] He recalled offering bakers suggestions about how they could improve their work.[3]

After moving to the United States, Ben-Israel was dissatisfied with cakes made using vegetable shortening and powdered sugar.[4] Drawing on his travels in Europe and Canada, he developed an approach that also incorporated flavors he associated with Israeli baking, including passion fruit and halva.[4] He said his early reputation grew partly because customers were surprised that his cakes tasted good as well as looking elaborate.[4]

His designs departed from wedding cakes decorated with plastic columns and figurines, using flowers and drawing inspiration from New York architecture.[4] Ben-Israel connected this willingness to explore and adapt to his Israeli upbringing, which exposed him to influences from Europe and the Middle East.[4] He regarded that background as helping him break with established conventions.[4]

Martha Stewart noticed one of his cakes in a Fifth Avenue jewelry-store window, and in 1995 he designed a cake for the first issue of Martha Stewart Living Weddings.[3] In 1996, cakes displayed in the Fifth Avenue windows of the jewelry store Mikimoto brought him national attention, followed by commissions from De Beers, Bloomingdale’s and Bergdorf Goodman.[3] His work subsequently appeared in Martha Stewart Living, People, New York Magazine and Vogue, and his cakes were served at establishments including the Waldorf-Astoria, Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton.[3]

In 1999, he opened Ron Ben-Israel Cakes in New York’s SoHo neighborhood with one oven and one mixer.[3] After the September 11, 2001 attacks, departures from downtown New York and falling rents enabled him to expand the operation.[3] By 2016, the business employed eight full-time workers and three rotating interns, and his Manhattan studio had become a sought-after destination for designer wedding cakes.[3]

Ben-Israel designed a cake for the Plaza Hotel’s centennial in 2007, a commission that raised his profile in Israel.[3] The hotel had been purchased earlier in the decade by the Israeli conglomerate Elad Properties.[3] He said he tried to return to Israel at least once a year.[3]

From 2011 to 2013, Ben-Israel hosted and judged the Food Network competition series Sweet Genius.[4] Four pastry chefs competed over three rounds for a $10,000 prize and the title, with challenges that often required ingredients not usually associated with desserts.[4] By a 2012 profile, the program had begun its second season.[4] He also appeared as a guest on Cake Wars for three seasons and became a judge on that program after Sweet Genius ended.[4]

Ben-Israel declined an offer to judge Bake-Off Israel because its six-week filming schedule would have kept him away from his bakery for too long.[4] He nevertheless expressed interest in participating in another television program in Israel.[4]

Alongside his bakery and television work, he taught at the International Culinary Center in New York and conducted workshops at his studio and around the world.[4] He continued to value hands-on cake making, describing it as meditative work involving continual discovery.[4] He also credited his army service with helping him develop patience and a willingness to keep practicing.[4]

Elaborate wedding cakes and intricate sugar flowers became distinguishing features of Ben-Israel’s work, while television brought his pastry expertise to a broader public.[1][4] His teaching extended beyond his own bakery through culinary-school instruction and workshops in multiple countries.[4]

Israeli and Jewish identity remained important to his understanding of that work.[3][4] He rejected suggestions that he change his name, explaining: “Israel is on every cake that I present. My background is inseparable from my work.”[4] He also described pride in being Israeli and Jewish, and connected the creative satisfaction of baking to his experience as the child of Holocaust survivors.[3] Reflecting on that connection, he said: “My parents were artists, so my salvation was to make pretty things — and ultimately delicious things at the same time.”[3]

Although raised in a secular Israeli environment, Ben-Israel obtained kosher certification for his shop as a practical business decision connected with hotel catering rather than an ideological commitment.[3] He selected OK Laboratories, a Brooklyn-based, Chabad-affiliated kashrut organization, which certified the shop’s pareve cakes.[3] He said his contact with Chabad rabbis subsequently helped kindle an interest in Jewish practice.[3]

His personal baking interests also included challah, which he described as one of his favorite things to make.[3] His version uses olive oil, semolina flour and honey, is braided in six strands and takes a full day to prepare.[3]