Chris Campbell loves Jewish food. Known in some online circles as the “babka king,” he’s also quite fond of other Ashkenazi Jewish staples like rugelach, latkes and knishes.
These foods, of course, are undoubtedly delicious. But what makes Campbell’s passion unique is that he isn’t Jewish — and he hadn’t even heard of most of these foods until earlier this year.
And now, Campbell — best known by his online moniker, Chris CaresNone — is exploring the vast world of Jewish delicacies one dish at a time, in captivating, heartwarming videos that he shares with his 400,000 TikTok and 160,000 Instagram followers.
“My favorite is babka for sure, that’s not even close, but I like a lot of stuff,” Campbell said in a recent phone interview, recounting his favorite Jewish dishes. “Pastrami, Reuben sandwiches, I give Jewish people credit for that — delicious. I had some schnitzel, I had a laffa wrap at a Sephardic spot that was really good, I had Israeli salad that was good — look, first of all I’m a foodie. If it tastes good, I like it.”
Recently, Campbell — who also shares content about other cuisines, including Mexican, Greek and “white people” food (apple pie, for example) — expanded his Jewish food palate even further. In September, the suburban Chicago-based influencer embarked on a kosher food tour of Brooklyn with Orthodox content creator Yaakov Langer, who runs the Living L’chaim podcast and video network and was one of our 36 to Watch last year. What was originally supposed to be a 10-minute video ended up as a 25-minute distillation of the pair’s daylong culinary journey through Williamsburg and Borough Park.
“I saw [Campbell] on TikTok,” Langer said, “just as an observer, and I’m like, ‘This guy’s awesome.’” Langer reached out this past June and pitched him an idea for a video, titled “Non-Jew Tries the Best Jewish Foods for the First Time.” It was posted on YouTube earlier this month and has been viewed about 150,000 times.
What makes this video unique is its length: Campbell’s videos, like other foodie content on social media, are often about 90 seconds. “But in longer form, I personally haven’t seen it,” Langer said. “I knew it’d be a fun video — he’s a fun guy doing a fun experiment.”
Langer takes Campbell on an 11-dish journey across the borough, with stops at Oneg Bakery in South Williamsburg for babka (a must for the babka king, of course), Gottlieb’s Restaurant in Williamsburg for potato kugel and Lieberman Luncheonette in Borough Park for grilled cheese, among other spots. Along the way, the two fressers chat with Orthodox passersby, compare New York to Chicago and even practice some Yiddish words.
“I’d been making all this Jewish content, getting all this love from the Jewish culture, and people kept calling me a mensch,” Campbell tells Langer in the video as they walk off some kishka. “And I didn’t know what it meant, right, I’m like — what did I do wrong?”
Campbell, who’s been making cross-cultural food videos for about a year, started his Jewish food journey this past June when he received — and fell in love with — a babka in his mailbox sent by JT Pinna, owner of Half Moon Rondout Cafe in Kingston, New York .
“It was all pretty with the layers, and it smelled crazy,” Campbell said, recalling his first babka experience. “It was moist, it was good, you bite into it — oh man, I’m going crazy! I was literally having, like, an episode on camera.”
For many of his Jewish fans, though, their first exposure to Campbell’s exuberant personality was his post last summer that showed his first time eating — as well as saying — rugelach.
“I genuinely thought I was respecting the word by trying to say it right,” Campbell said, laughing. “I was like — RUGELASH! Because I saw the C-H — I didn’t know it’s like a chh.”
Campbell cares deeply about respecting the cultures that create the foods he tries — he said one of his goals as a content creator is to help bridge cultural divides. “I’m trying to break those walls, so to speak, or those boundaries,” Campbell said.
And while he exudes palpable warmth as he breaks down the flavors, Campbell begins nearly all his videos with the same signature greeting: “Hey Jewish people!” he yells, looking angrily into the camera. (Shouts of “Hey Mexican people!” or “Hey white people!” are also common on his feed.)
Given the prevalence of online antisemitism, a Jewish viewer may find themselves wincing at first glance. But less than a millisecond later, the worry disappears as he reveals his gripe: “Y’all been gatekeeping all the good food?!,” he yells, before launching into a glowing review of a Jewish dish, restaurant or bakery.
Campbell said he’s become aware of Jewish viewers’ apparent relief at him embracing their food. “I didn’t realize that by just not being a jerk, [I] kind of sparked the awareness of Jewish culture,” he said. “Like, ‘OK, finally someone’s showing us a little love.’”
Langer agrees. “I think the overall picture online is that when Jews are mentioned, it’s usually some form of antisemitism or, like, [about] more serious things going on in the world now, unfortunately,” he said. “So I do think people are craving a fun adventure.”
Campbell credits an upsetting medical diagnosis with inspiring him to share his love of food and culture with others. In 2020, Campbell was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Thankfully there are treatments for CLL, and he said his doctors assured him he would have a “nice, long, happy life” — but for three days, he thought his life was over.
Now, said Campbell, “I feel like I’m living my life on a freeroll, you know, like I got a second chance.”
This past year, as his online following has taken off, Campbell has been making the best of that second chance in an effort toward bringing cultures together. Last fall, he partnered with Babka Bailout to launch a new peach cobbler flavored babka, combining staples of both Black and Jewish cultures. (Proceeds from the flavor went toward supporting CLL research.)
He’s also posted videos with other Jewish influencers, including Hasidic TikTokker Miriam Ezagui, who has nearly 2 million followers. Ezagui, a labor and delivery nurse who was one of our 36 to Watch in 2023, recently took Campell to kosher supermarket Pomegranate in Midwood for his first taste of cholent, the dense Shabbat stew.
“I see why y’all were telling me to try it,” Campell says after his first bite. “They wanted us to get more of this — this is enough, this is hearty.”
Campbell’s biggest takeaway from his many months of trying and sharing different cultures’ cuisines? “It’s all the same. It’s all the same!” he said. “It’s different, like, with seasonings, but at the end of the day you got a meat, you have a sauce, you have a veggie and you have an apparatus. We’re doing the same shit, and I think people forget that.”
Then again, not every dish can be a winner. Campbell will happily fawn over just about every Jewish food, except for one: gefilte fish. “Man, y’all can gatekeep that,” he said.
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