05/03/2026
Alexander Alland (1900): A bagel peddler is seen in the Lower East Side, where 70 Jewish bakeries produced bagels.
"The bagel's hole is there to allow street sellers to string many onto a pole," notes The Jewish Deli (2023).
New York Bagels were first made by late 19th-century Jewish bakers from Poland, where bagels were first documented in 1610, with laws in Krakow standardizing them.
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"One theory is that it started with German pretzels brought to Poland in the fourteenth century," notes The Jewish Deli (2023).
"Once there, the pretzel evolved into braided and baked circles of dough seasoned with salt or poppy seeds and called obwarzanek."
"These resembled bagels, but they were eaten mainly by the wealthy. They were definitely not cheap street food."
Pretzel vendors were photographed by 1896 in NYC.
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"Another theory is that in the seventeenth century, a Viennese baker wanted to honor the King of Poland for defending Austria against the invading Turks," states The Jewish Deli (2023).
"He baked a roll with a hole in the centre that was supposed to be shaped like the king's stirrup. He called it a bügel."
Legend also has it that the croissant was shaped like a crescent to commemorate the same victory over the Ottomans in the Battle of Vienna (1683).
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"There is yet a third theory that the bagel originated as far back as the thirteenth century in Puglia, Italy, where they ate bread in the shape of a thick circle with a giant hole called taralli," states The Jewish Deli (2023).
"Puglia had a large Jewish population, and they might have brought the taralli with them when they immigrated to America."
In 610 AD, legend has it that an Italian monk rewarded theology students for their hard work by making bread shaped like hands in prayer.
He called it Pretiola (Latin for "little reward")-- from which the word Pretzel came.
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"Wherever the bagel originated, it became a distinctly Jewish food in Poland," The Jewish Deli (2023) noted.
"Jews had previously been forbidden from baking bread, but a law was passed that allowed them to make bread if it was boiled, and so they took to making bagels."
Ashkenazi Jews were forbidden in Eastern European guilds, barring them from professions like baking.
Jewish bagels spread into Polish-ruled Ukraine, where bublyk were made bigger with a larger hole. Montreal Bagels were inspired by bublyk.
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A bagel and a schmear are not Eastern European in origin. Cream Cheese was not Jewish in origin.
"The word schmear is German for `spread,' but it has been adopted into Yiddish vernacular," states The Jewish Deli (2023).
"It originally referred to cheese but now covers a variety of spreads for a bagel or bialy or even a piece of rye toast."
Yiddish emerged in the Rhine Valley in the 10th Century. It is mostly a Germanic language (up to 80%), with a blend of Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as Slavic and Romance.
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English cream cheeses emerged in 1583.
French Neufchâtel dates back to the 6th century, with the "triple crèmes" emerging in the 19th century.
"But cream cheese as we know it today is not only American in origin--it's gentile," states The Jewish Deli (2023).
"When the British colonized North America, they brought with them a taste for soft, sweet cheeses."
Americans took over British cheese-making after signing the Declaration of Independence (1776) in Philadelphia.
"Soft cheese spread was especially popular in their dairy-loving city of Philadelphia," noted The Jewish Deli (2023).
"It was mostly an expensive artisanal product."
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In 1872, New Yorker William Lawrence in Chester (NY) wanted to recreate French Neufchâtel to exploit American demand for European cheese imports.
"It was marketed as Philadelphia Cream Cheese, because the city of Philadelphia was associated with the high-quality cheeses," states The Jewish Deli (2023).
Lawrence sold Philadelphia Cream Cheese to Jewish Appetizing stores in NYC for their wealthier customers.
New York Jews then adopted cream cheese, adding it to a bagel and lox to balance the salty lox.
By the 1930s, a bagel and a schmear became popular at 1,500 Appetizing stores in Manhattan.
"It quickly became the spread of choice for bagels and bialys," states The Jewish Deli (2023).
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Bagels were not well-known outside Jewish communities until the 1960s.
A 1958 bagel machine was invented to enable mass production. Bagel freezing was also introduced in 1960.
The New York Bagel was mainstream by the 1970s. They doubled in size with a smaller hole in the 1980s.
Some claim New York Bagels have a distinct flavor because of the local water. Bakeries in L.A. even import NYC water to make them.
