Where East Met West

Marcus’s Kosher Chinese and Traditional

London, UK

Nathan Witztum

T

here I was, sitting on one of the stools at the mock wooden counter, facing the large menu board with its imposing list of over 80 dishes, all numbered and organized like a table of contents in a university textbook. I grabbed my fork, twirled some Singapore noodles up from the Chinese-themed plate, and savored the texture of the rice noodles, chopped salami, bean sprouts, and spring onion that accompanied the explosion of spice in my mouth. Then the phone rang.

“Marcus’s. Whaddaya want?”

That was my Uncle Henry, who along with my father as eponymous co-owner, had opened Marcus’s Kosher Chinese and Traditional way back in 1988. They were not highly regarded for their phone-answering etiquette or sympathetic customer service, but had nevertheless become popular purveyors of tasty yet reasonably priced Chinese food in the North West London Jewish community. “Cheap and cheerful” was how my father would describe it.

Marcus’s was also one of the first kosher restaurants in London to introduce the concept of takeout (or takeaway as it’s known on that side of the pond). Oh, and if you could find your house inside the big circle on the map in the kitchen, you would get free delivery.

I continued enjoying my dinner as my uncle took down the order.

“One egg roll, one toasted sesame chicken, one steamed rice, one sweet and sour chicken, one beef curry, and one burger and chips.”

As he repeated the items from the caller, he jotted the following down on an order page: 1, 4, 11, 25, 43, 73. All the restaurant staff had the entire menu memorized, and as the note was passed back to the Hong Kong-born chef, he immediately grabbed his wok and got to work.

“Will that be all?” my uncle asked the customer. “Okay, it’s very busy tonight and we’re down a driver, so don’t expect the food to arrive for the next 45 minutes. And do me a favor, don’t call us asking where it is. It will get there as soon as possible. Alright? Thank you!”

And with that, another satisfied yet slightly irritated customer knew he was going to eat well that night.

ASthe chef began tossing the dish in the wok, the aromas of sesame oil, soy sauce, and Chinese five spice powder mingled with the faint whiff of tobacco wandering in through the open front door. If I peered between the lunchtime and early bird special signs on the glass window, I could see my father sitting outside on a green deck chair, cigarette in hand, chatting with a couple of soon-to-be customers.

Perhaps he was encouraging them to grow in their Yiddishkeit. (As a baal teshuvah himself, my father always looked for opportunities to inspire other people. He was also one of the few restaurant owners at the time that the London Beis Din trusted enough to have only a mashgiach yotzei venichnas, coming and going at random times, rather than a masghiach tamidi on site at all times.) Or perhaps he was telling them the one about Arti from Elephant and Castle and how artichokes were on sale at Safeway. I’ll never know.

As I neared the end of my Singapore noodles, Ezriel, the de-facto assistant manager, swung open the rice steamer. Without warning, the entire restaurant was engulfed in a cloud of steam that could have easily been confused with an early morning London fog. Although I felt temporarily blinded, the warmth was a welcome sensation. I had just come from my weeknight football (soccer) practice and was still in my shorts, but no matter how many times I protested, the chefs would not let me close the restaurant door to shield myself from the bone-chilling winter cold. They needed the breeze to cool down from the kitchen heat, apparently.

I polished off my plate, handed it to Uncle Henry, and wished him goodnight. As I walked out of the shop, I caught sight of the restaurant logo someone had created for my father years prior, which I had probably looked at hundreds of times before. It was a cartoon of a chassidish fellow pulling a Chinese man along in a small carriage, surrounded by the name of the restaurant and the phrase, “Where East Meets West.” The motto was a play on words about how a kosher Chinese restaurant had made it to London, but it occurred to me that Marcus’s had indeed been the site of many “meetings.”

Over the years, my father often tried to make shidduchim for his customers, finding success on a handful of occasions. Even if he couldn’t arrange their shidduchim, his restaurant was the site for many a sheva brachos. But lastly, and most importantly for me, it was where my parents had met about 15 years earlier. As family legend would have it, my mother was walking along Finchley Road on a chilly spring morning when she stepped in to get a Diet Coke. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Nathan Witztum works as an aerospace engineer and gives a daf yomi shiur in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he lives with his wife and children.

Haven on Avenue J

Natanya Fast Food & Pizza

Flatbush, NY

Yosef Zoimen

WE

were so little, yet felt so big.

We rushed out of yeshivah at noon every Friday, out the door while the bell was still ringing. On every other day of the week, Nikolai, the sweet, goateed Russian bus driver, would drive us home, navigating the eggs hurled at our yellow school bus at the end of October (he kept a bat on the bus, you didn’t mess with Nikolai) while avoiding getting stuck behind the Brooklyn garbage trucks and the double-parked cars. But not on Friday. Friday was special, and we smiled and waved at Nikolai but did not board his bus. Friday was pizza day.

Eager to get a great table, I’d briskly walk with my friends from Yeshivas Chaim Berlin, heading up the long East 14th street block and taking a sharp left turn onto Avenue J. We would see Eddie, the purveyor of Blue Ribbon, selling cut fruit for Shabbos with his left hand, while cashing checks with his right. We would pass the lone treif establishment in a sea of kosher bakeries, strollers, and flying peyos — the Di Fara pizza parlor. If we looked through the small window, we could spot its owner, Domenico DeMarco, stretching dough by hand. Then we passed the Avenue J Florist and the bodega we were not allowed to enter, and finally, we’d reach our destination: Natanya’s.

The smell of falafel balls greeted us, as we quickly hurled our knapsacks on the first open table, reserving it before the arrival of the big boys who didn’t run as fast. The glass counter where you placed your order was too high for our little heads, so we stepped back. “One $2.25 special please,” I would say as I counted out the two dollar bills and quarter.

Sergey, the friendly employee with the mushroom haircut, served our pizza: a large, filling, heavy slice glistening with bubbles of melted cheese. Mrs. Natanya (probably not her real name) was the one who made the actual pizza. She was perpetually in motion, spinning the pizza pan, checking the progress of the oven, ladling sauce over the dough.

Her husband, who we affectionately called Mr. Natanya, sat at the first table next to the counter talking to a customer. No matter what the weather, he always wore a grey fedora and triumphant grin. He was living the American dream: an immigrant building a family business alongside his wife and his son.

The $2.25 student special came with a well-oiled slice (which it took the acne-phobic teenagers three separate napkins to dab off), a handful of French fries, and a tall cup of soda. For $3.50 you got two slices instead, quite the deal. But ask anyone who visited Natanya Pizza in the ‘80s and ‘90s and they will tell you the best part of the deal was the free pickles on the side. To get the pickles, you had to visit the falafel counter manned by the Natanyas’ son Sammy, a large, intimidating fellow who spent much of his day at Short Stop, a miniature store next door that sold baseball cards and took much of my money growing up. I would meekly ask Sammy for “pickles, please,” and he’d take an impossibly thin paper plate and ladle out the tangiest spoonful of dill pickles I have ever experienced.

Did they brine the pickles in the store themselves or get them from a jar? I have no idea. I do know that friends of mine would put the pickles on the pizza, fold it, and eat it as a Koreich sandwich.

If there was no one at the falafel counter, we would have to skip the pickles, and that was a sad day.

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hile some say Flatbush is a judgmental place, Natanya Pizza was an island, your safe harbor on sovereign land, stealthily sitting in the middle of Flatbush, yet removed from it all. Within these doors, there was no judgment between patrons.

At one table sat a working dad treasuring a bit of time alone to read the paper. At the next table was a rumpled chap — likely homeless — who paid for his pizza with a collection of random quarters, his smells and his cart fighting the delicious aroma of the pizza. There was an older couple who met there for a lunch date every Friday, but never bought pizza. He ordered the potato knish and she had the salad.

After watching them curiously for weeks, I decided to order a knish too. My mouth has never been the same. The Natanyas used to remove the crusty pepper-flecked square from the glass case, blast it in the microwave, and serve it on the same little paper plate used for pickles. One bite burnt my palate for days, and was all the warning I needed never to venture beyond my comfort zone of pizza, fries, and the occasional falafel balls.

Some of my friends favored the pizza places farther up the street, but we loved Natanya. When Bubby came into town from Chicago and wanted to take all of the grandchildren out to eat, we all chose Natanaya. We went to Natanya at ten years old, and we still walked there in our hats and jackets at fifteen. I followed the tradition my brother Chaim had established before me, which our older cousin Dovid Tzvi had passed along, and made pizza at Natanya a weekly Friday ritual. For us that loved Natanya, it was home.

They had their challenges — dealing with the shenanigans of rowdy teenagers was not Mr. Natanaya’s forte. When the upstairs eating area became a Motzaei Shabbos hangout, Mr. Natanya hung a big sign in the front window reading “Upstairs — Boys Only,” reminiscent of Brother Bear’s clubhouse, much to Sister Bear’s chagrin.

The staircase leading to the upstairs eating area had a top step that was always broken and tripped up thousands of customers. If you dropped your pizza while tripping, they gave you a new one, just like the Uncle Moishy song.

Sadly, as sushi and fancy salad bars popped up and another pizza shop opened nearby with allegedly better sauce, Natanya had to close up shop.

For the 13 years since, pizza in Brooklyn just hasn’t been the same.

Earlier this year, I drove past the spot at 1506 Avenue J that used to house Natanya Pizza. Since its pizza days, the store has changed hands a number of times and is now a convenience store with Russian and English signage called “International Food.” To my absolute joy, sitting right outside was Mr. Natanya! Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t get in an across-the-avenue hello through the honking horns.

But maybe I didn’t need to. Likely now in his nineties, Mr. Natanaya just sat there and took in the Erev Shabbos crowds — leaning calmly on his walker outside his former store and still smiling graciously to all of his adoring fans.

Yosef Zoimen is an attorney in private practice in Cincinnati, Ohio and continues to be involved in the explosive growth of the city’s Torah community.

Gems for the Taking

Judaica Corner

Atlanta, GA

Alexandra Fleksher

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udaica Corner is nestled in the corner of a strip shopping center on Briarcliffe Road in the North Druid Hills suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, where I grew up. As the only proper Judaica store in Atlanta, it boasts all the usual fare: English and Hebrew sefarim, artwork, toys, gifts, mezuzahs, Kiddush cups, and challah boards. But to 12-year-old me, who had just joined the Orthodox community, Judaica Corner represented a whole new world.

The dimly lit, wood-paneled, museum-like Judaica shop in our old Conservative synagogue couldn’t compare to the spacious, bright, light-filled Judaica Corner in our new community. The synagogue gift shop felt more like a museum, with what seemed to be artifacts and collector’s items. Judaica Corner, with its overflowing bookshelves and useful items on display, marketed objects you would want to buy for your home and your children.

This was more than just a store. It contained all the items necessary for our new religious life.

There was another difference between the synagogue gift shop and Judaica Corner, and that was the community. People would occasionally come into the synagogue shop to buy a bar mitzvah present. The trickle of shoppers reflected the general lack of vibrancy in the Conservative synagogue; the gift shop, like much of Judaism, felt very much of the past. The huge, domed building with stained glass windows and dark corridors lined with antiquated paintings and photographs was alive only twice a week: Friday night and Saturday morning. The gift shop was open only during synagogue hours.

Judaica Corner was the opposite. It was a busy meeting place of the Orthodox community, and it bustled with customers of all ages: children pointing at the glass shelves filled with Jewish-themed knickknacks, yeshivah bochurim sliding out Gemaras from the thick wooden bookcases, young couples buying gifts for a shared simchah, and mothers and fathers buying items they needed for their homes. Because for a religious family, this store wasn’t a gift shop; it was a home goods store.

IN

those early years after we joined the Orthodox community, my parents and I frequented Judaica Corner often. The items in the store were the building blocks of the new life we were creating. I picked out a colorful mezuzah cover for my new room and helped my parents choose everything we needed for our Shabbos table — a Kiddush cup, challah cover and board (made of Jerusalem stone!), mayim acharonim, and of course a Havdalah set. I’d eye the beautiful artwork on the walls and wish I had younger siblings so we could buy them the plush Shabbos toy sets and Jewish picture books.

(Fast forward nine years, and as a kallah, I created a registry at Judaica Corner including artwork, classic sefarim sets, and Judaica items for my own new home.)

One thing I really wanted was a Jewish star necklace formed from various shades of purple triangle gems. Every time I walked into the store, I stared at the necklace with longing. Back then, I couldn’t verbalize my desire, but now I understand that it was more than just a pretty piece of jewelry. The Jewish star necklace symbolized my identity as a proud Jewish girl on a journey. It was beautiful, colorful, sparkly, iridescent — just like my newfound religious life.

Judaica Corner had one more gem within its walls, and that was Mrs. Grossblatt. Sometimes it’s the store employees who make a store, permeating its walls with their energy and personality. That was Mrs. Grossblatt. She helped customers with her gracious Southern charm and her warm and pearly smile — and she also happened to be my middle school English teacher at Torah Day School of Atlanta.

I pretty much worshipped Mrs. Grossblatt, so it made it all the more awkward when I’d see her at the register. She was the teacher who opened up the world of writing and literature to me, introducing me to Mr. Chips and The Secret Garden, and she showed me the beauty in creativity. I started writing 30-page short stories in a college-ruled notebook, and during her own time she’d read them and comment in the margins in her impeccable cursive.

Mrs. Grossblatt was my first editor. But she was really my first cheerleader, planting within me the confidence that I could write and that I had good ideas to share. And even as a sixth grader I knew that if Mrs. Grossblatt, who always cradled a book in her hand, had a love for literature and writing, she must also have a love for the Jewish books she sold in Judaica Corner. Yet while it took me another few years to gain an appreciation for those Jewish writings, I always knew Mrs. Grossblatt did.

In the 21 years since, I’ve journeyed far beyond Briarcliffe Road. But the literal and figurative gems within that colorful corner Judaica shop still shine past North Druid Hills, illuminating my life’s path.

Alexandra Fleksher is an educator, speaker, writer, cohost of Meaningful Minute’s Deep Meaningful Conversations podcast, and creative director of the Faces of Orthodoxy social media account.

Don’t Forget the Aufschnitt

Wasserman & Lemberger

Baltimore, MD

Eli W. Schlossberg

R

ing!

“Hello, Mrs. Schlossberg, this is Bernie Wasserman,” the proprietor of our local butcher store would say in his friendly, deliberate manner.

Every Wednesday night around 8 p.m., our rotary phone would ring. We had just one phone, centrally located in the hallway of our home so you could get to it from wherever you were.

As Mom would give Mr. Wasserman our order, I would pull at her dress, begging, “Please Mom, don’t forget the aufschnitt,” referring to my favorite culinary delicacy: a roll of deli made of an assortment of different types of beef.

Most weeks, we placed our meat order by phone on Wednesday nights, to be delivered late Thursday night for Shabbos. Some weeks though, I was in for a special treat — a shopping excursion to Whitelock Street, a five-minute drive from my house.

Among the cluster of Jewish-owned businesses there was a small kosher butcher: Wasserman & Lemberger.

W

asserman & Lemberger, which opened in 1950, was under the hashgachah of Rav Shimon Schwab, who was the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel at the time. (It has retained its hashgachah from the rav of Shearith Israel ever since.)

The smell would hit you right when you opened the door — and what a tantalizing, wonderful aroma of smoked meats it was! I’d sniff appreciatively as I walked in, and then I’d make a beeline for the large refrigerated glass meat cases. I’d stand in front of them on a dusting of wood shavings, placed there by the butchers to prevent the floor from getting slippery by absorbing the grease, fat, blood, and melting ice. What fun it was to slide around in that sawdust! I’d watch Mr. Wasserman and his partner Mr. Sol Lemberger, both busy men in white lab coats, conversing about the meats they were slicing, pausing only to greet customers as they entered the store.

Whenever I’d entered, the hardworking butchers knew exactly what I wanted. I’d press my nose against the cold glass to watch as, to my delight, one of them would slice me a thin piece of aufschnitt. It was smoked on premise in a smokehouse behind the store. Yes, it was fleishigs, but it was well worth it (and I wait only three hours after eating fleishigs, anyway).

When I’d finished, I would wipe my greasy hand on my pristine starched shirt or finely pressed shorts as my mother placed her meat order. Minutes later, the chicken, chopped meat, Shabbos honeymoon roast, a ‘wurst that had hung for weeks over the meat case to dry out, and some aufschnitt, of course, were all wrapped in paper and bagged in a paper bag. (We called that cut of meat the honeymoon roast because you absolutely could not ruin it; it always comes out delicious, even when overcooked.)

One more time I’d slide on those wood shavings — I really did love them! — right out the front door. There wasn’t a whole lot of parking space, but who drove? Mom still had not learned to drive, and back then you had only one car, which Dad took to work. Mom and I walked everywhere, so meat in hand, we would make our way home.

M

essrs. Wasserman and Lemberger managed to supply their clientele with their varied likes and preferences. My family celebrated Thanksgiving as a gesture of hakaras hatov to America, and our seudah featured the traditional turkey and trimmings. Every November, my mother would special-order a goose for the Shabbos following Thanksgiving, to emphasize the prominence of Shabbos — true, the American holiday merited a turkey, but our Day of Rest would get a goose. Wasserman and Lemberger always supplied both the turkey and the goose. It wasn’t easy to source geese, but the butcher shop never let my mother down.

Time passed, and Wasserman & Lemberger relocated to Park Heights Avenue, just below Rogers Avenue. Many years later, I was instructing my new wife in the fine art of placing our meat order by phone. I slowly and patiently went through the routine with her. She stumbled on “aufschnitt,” but I wanted to impress her with my authentic German heritage, so we practiced until she got it right.

Soon my proud bride was ready to make the call. She gave her order to Mr. Wasserman, who, as she said each item, would dictate it to his wife Hedy, who worked alongside him in the store.

“One pound lean chopped meat,” my wife said.

“One pound lean chopped meat!” Mr. Wasserman called out to Hedy.

“One quartered chicken,” my wife went on.

“One quartered chicken!” Mr. Wasserman repeated.

“One honeymoon roast.”

“One honeymoon roast!”

Deep breath.

“And a half-pound of auf-auf-aufschnitt,” she stated confidently.

“And a half-pound of cold cuts,” Mr. Wasserman said.

In that one swift moment, my credibility was shattered.

(I did approach Mr. Wasserman to register a complaint the next morning in shul. He just smiled.)

These days, if you want to make a meat order, you can use one of many cordless phones around the house. Paper wraps and bags gave way to plastic, checks were replaced by credit cards, and there are three parking spots in front of the store — which we drive to. One thing hasn’t changed, though — that aufschnitt is as tasty as it always was.

Eli W. Schlossberg is a Baltimore business executive and community askan. He is the author of The World of Orthodox Judaism (Jason Aronson 1995) and My Shtetl Baltimore (Targum Press 2017).

Pizza with a Dash of Eternity

Irving’s Kosher Pizza and Knishery

Canarsie, NY

Rabbi Ron Yitzchok Eisenman

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rowing up in Canarsie in the 1970s, summer meant basketball games at Bildersee Park.

I would arrive at the park by 10 a.m., basketball in hand, and practice dribbling, dunking, and throwing foul shots on my own for an hour. At about eleven o’clock, the other fellows gathered: Vinnie and his brother Anthony from the local Catholic School; Tyron and Darren, who attended the now-defunct South Shore High School; and my friend Allan from yeshivah.

For two hours during the steamy Brooklyn summers, two yeshivah boys, two Italian boys from Catholic School, and two young blacks from the local high school would engage in an extreme physical competition of successive three-on-three games of 21. We would switch and mix the teams. Finally, at about 1 p.m., when the temperature soared over 90 degrees and our bodies were drenched with sweat, we would exchange high-fives and call it a day.

Allan and I would say goodbye to our four comrades as they headed to the local Burger King. Then we would walk from East 81st Street to Flatlands Avenue, a distance of less than 500 feet. During those 500 feet, Allan and I would stop talking about basketball. We would begin mentally preparing to enter the veritable Kodesh Hakodoshim of every kid in Canarsie.

Its official name was Irving’s Kosher Pizza and Knishery. But to the Jews of Canarsie, it was simply Irving’s.

T

he first thing that hit you upon entering Irving’s was the aroma of hot pizza and onion pletzels. Then you’d see Irving himself, a Jewish man in his fifties in a sweat-soaked T-shirt and white apron, laboring over Italian pizza.

As we entered Irving’s, we were no longer American kids playing basketball with the neighborhood boys. We became part of a landsmanshaft of Holocaust survivors, and Irving was our rebbe.

This rebbe of ours had a muscular body with powerful arms that could knead hundreds of pounds of dough without the help of any foreign workers. There was no Spanish here — only Yiddish — because every pizza, knish, and pletzel was hand-kneaded, rolled, and baked by the man whose same hands had been worked to the bone in Auschwitz.

Irving Finkelstein, born in 1925 in Poland, had had his Jewish education cut short by the Holocaust. He was a man who, despite the hatred and torture he experienced, loved all people. He particularly loved us kids, and he was happiest when he gave us treats in shul every Shabbos.

Allan and I used to settle in, order our pizzas, and marvel as we watched Irving in perpetual motion: rolling out a pizza, manning the register, or popping a pletzel in the oven. This was his raison d’être: pouring his blood, sweat, and hard labor into the perpetuation of the Jewish people. He loved giving tzedakah, particularly so he could donate an ambulance to Magen David Adom in Israel.

If you came in with a dollar, you could get a slice of pizza for 35 cents, a knish for a quarter, and a small fountain coke for 15 cents. With the remaining 25 cents, you had a dessert of onion pletzel, and life was perfect.

Irving prepared the pletzel with a thin crust topped with heaps of fried onions. He baked it in the oven until the rim was perfectly toasted — but the middle, lavished with onions, remained soft and mushy. The fusion of chewy crust, pillowy center, and caramelized onions was as close to Gan Eden as we Canarsie kids could imagine. Best of all, Irving himself would leave his spot behind the counter and personally serve us the steaming delicacy. And he approached, hot pletzel in hand and wide signature smile on his face, we would, on cue, rise.

We knew, without being told, that if not for this unassuming, hard-working Jew and those like him, we would have been eating across the street with Vinny, Tony, Tyron, and Darren. The white apron and streaks of flour couldn’t disguise the resilience of Irving and his fellow survivors, who watched their worlds crumble, then started again in a new country and took work — any work — never expecting any favors or shortcuts.

While we sensed that there was something monumental, almost holy, about this very plain pizza store and its muscular proprietor, we were never able to voice it. The most we could say was a quick, “thanks, Irving” when we finished eating and headed out, clutching cups of soda with rapidly-melting ice cubes inside.

The man behind the counter would raise his huge arm and wave. “Tanks for kumming and stay vell,” he called as he kept his eyes on the dough.

There was a world that needed rebuilding, tzedakah to be raised, and pizza to be baked.

When Vinny, Tony, Tyron, and Darren exited Burger King, they were satiated from food. When we left Irving’s, we were saturated with the scent of Gan Eden.

Rabbi Ron Yitzchok Eisenman is the rav of Congregation Ahavas Israel in Passaic, New Jersey, and a columnist in this magazine.

Perfect Fit

Reiner’s

Toronto, Ontario

Shmuel Botnick

F

ellow Torontonians, help me out here. When I think back to my childhood, I see Kalman’s kishke, Herme’s cheese Danishes, and the six hours in between them. Was there anything else?

It was a good life we had, simpler times.

One of my favorite childhood memories is shopping at Reiner’s. It wasn’t the only basement clothing store in town, but it was the closest to my home — a two-minute walk or, preferably, a thirty-second drive.

On a personal level, I think there was actually some depth to my attraction to Reiner’s. My family had only recently moved to the neighborhood from Thornhill, about 20 minutes north of central Toronto and a whole lot more out-of-towny. We grew up hearing about this faraway place called “New York,” which had really good pizza and fancy clothing sold out of stores owned by — get this — frum people.

When we moved south, Reiner’s catered directly to that interest: a heimish family, selling clothing for the frum crowd, in a store with a heimish atmosphere. It was, as far as we were concerned, every bit as good as New York.

I can still see the cars lined up outside their home, Cadillacs and old brown minivans (ours) alike. I remember walking down that narrow flight of stairs, greeted, at the end, by that wonderful scene of boxes and shelves, literally floor to ceiling, jammed with kids clothing — vests, suits, skirts, dresses, stretchies, and pajamas — and way too many people.

Reiner’s was a basement and made no pretense to be otherwise. There were no wood-look vinyl tiles, no logos plastered across the wall, no Lucite anything, just a basement that could have been full of old Carlebach records and ancient picture albums but was crammed with children’s clothing instead.

Mrs. Reiner was an expert at both crowd control and store management and somehow was able to direct everyone to the rack that held their precise size and preference. If you didn’t have the guts to shlep your kids with you, you were welcome to go home with a stack of options — “Tell them to try it on and bring back the rest.” Policies and procedures weren’t much of a thing there.

The Reiner’s experience countered the stereotype that women who go shopping spend most of their time schmoozing and catching up with old friends. Only women shopped there, but there was little socializing; as informal a setting as it was, the experience was quick and businesslike.

Mrs. Reiner had a special army of employees, and I don’t know about minimum wage but they were definitely minimum age — Reiner children, however many there were, were always there to lend their mother a helping hand. They were young but boy, did they know clothing.

It moved fast:

“Here, take the next size up — this one shrinks.”

“This runs true to size and is the quality you’re looking for.”

“Oh, we have none left but it should be coming in next Monday.”

All this from a 12-year-old, if not younger.

And, if I remember correctly, there was a cash register that made that “Ding!” sound when you punched in the numbers — also expertly handled by said 12-year-old.

Remember that heavenly smell? What was it? Challah? Kokosh cake? Both I bet. And rumor had it that that was also a joint effort of Mom and kids; they would manage the kitchen while she would manage the store.

The premises were small but there must have been some sort of space-shifting magic at work. Lack of excess space notwithstanding, it had everything you needed, and the people somehow managed to fit as well.

I can still see myself standing in our succah, or sitting at the Pesach Seder, wearing a brand new vest or brand new tie. And when someone would ask, I’d proudly announce, “I got it at Reiner’s.”

I was older when Reiner’s moved to a storefront; by that time, I was probably chasing down knockoff Guccis, looking sharp but feeling fake.

It’s been a long time, and Reiner’s is no longer, but by some miracle, I think I still have a tie or two left over from those days. One day, I may give them to my kids, and when they ask, I might proudly announce, for the first time in decades, “I got them at Reiner’s.”

Shmuel Botnick is a former Torontonian and a contributing editor for this magazine.

Pastrami on Rye

Gottlieb’s Restaurant

Williamsburg, NY

Tzip Rosenfeld

I

grew up in Far Rockaway in the late 60s, which was a very small community at the time. No kosher grocery store, no restaurants, so the excitement of going out to a “real restaurant” was huge.

My father is a survivor and my mother left Europe before the war. Our family was considered “heimish, European, balabatish,” meaning we had a large amount of Hungarian blood, and therefore we had “class.”

Our table had certain rules. We never brought tap water to the table. Our weekday table, which was always set with dishes, featured either orange juice or wine. On Shabbos, we had Coke and seltzer in glass spray bottles. My mother would never so much as consider covering her tablecloth with plastic, and every Shabbos she set the table with beautiful china and real silver cutlery. Company or no company, it made no difference — Shabbos was Shabbos.

So you might understand how surprising I found it that my parents’ favorite eatery was a small deli in Williamsburg called “Gottlieb’s,” where there was not a tablecloth in sight, and tables were cleaned with a worn shmatteh.

T

o get to Gottlieb’s, my mother would drive us from Far Rockaway into “the city,” and we’d pick up my father at his office. We would take the Williamsburg Bridge, which was so narrow I had this fear we would be in the water before we made it across. (To this day, I do not like crossing bridges.)

But the anticipation! The joy I felt when we went to Gottlieb’s made the trip across the bridge totally worthwhile. I would start to conjure up the delicious smells of that deli, salivating over the thought of those sandwiches, while crossing the bridge.

Even now, decades later, every visit to Roebling Street and every sighting of Gottlieb’s (it still stands in the same spot) brings back joyous memories.

The place seemed to embrace you as you entered, and it held your attention until you left. Plus, my father always hoped he would meet someone from the “alter heim” there.

After we parked the car (which even then was a challenge), I would start thinking about what to order. I’m not sure why I did that — after perusing the menu, we would all order the same exact thing, every time.

The portions at Gottlieb’s were so large that only my father was able to finish his. But even though my parents knew that we three girls could probably share a single order, they allowed us to order individually.

Just as our orders were always the same, so was the waiter — a nice man with a knitted yarmulke, the only non-chassid in the store, who always greeted us with a big smile.

All three of us would order a hot pastrami sandwich, very lean, on rye. I was the only one who ordered seedless bread — unless you were emphatic and asked specifically for “no seeds,” you’d get rye bread with caraway seeds, and the last thing I wanted was the taste of caraway ruining my sandwich.

And what a sandwich it was: fresh rye bread enveloping a stack of juicy pastrami. The sandwich was hopelessly big, and I don’t think I ever managed to eat even half.

Then we ordered French fries (well-done, of course), which to this day are only made with the freshest of potatoes, never frozen, never shaped in some factory, but like a butterfly — magically transformed from raw potato to delicious French fry by the old man magician in the back of the tiny kitchen. I can still taste their crispiness.

My mother always ordered a small dish of chrein and a can of celery soda. The rest of us were more conservative and had black cherry soda, heimish brand of course.

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side from the delicious food, Gottlieb’s was distinguished by its “regulars.” I remember the single man who got served at his regular table no matter how crowded the store was. He surely felt like a VIP as he strolled there directly, bypassing all the people waiting to be seated. We figured he was a lonely fellow with no family and no means, because no bill was every given to him at the end of his meal. Other tables were filled with lots of men with big bellies whose wives probably were unaware of the “snack” they indulged in before they got home from work.

If we were lucky enough, the trip to Williamsburg would happen on a Thursday night, when Shabbos was brewing in full force. As soon as we neared the story we would smell the delicious cholent — dark, and full of meat and kishke — which was a big seller, mostly to men who came in on their own.

At Gottlieb’s, the food always came quickly, yet we were never rushed out. Coming from a “small town,” we would soak up the ambience of this little place with its homey, spicy European flavor. My father, a warm and friendly man, would walk around and strike up conversations in Yiddish with all the different personalities who graced this very special restaurant.

Invariably, someone would roll a huge outdoor garbage pail right past our table while we were eating. We kids would all smile at the sight. You see, both my parents were real mefunakim, yet somehow at Gottlieb’s, this affront to their Hungarian standards never bothered them. Gottlieb’s could get away with it.

So we’re up to dessert, right? There was either compote or compote. My mother’s compote was a masterpiece that is yet to be replicated, so instead we would go to the kosher grocery next door. While my father would shop for groceries — he always wanted to give some business to a fellow survivor — my mother would help us choose a favorite cookie from the selection sold fresh by the pound. No one was hungry after the pastrami we couldn’t finish, but that little cookie hit the spot!

Tzip Rosenfeld is an entrepreneur and doting grandmother who splits her time between New York and Toronto. This is her first Mishpacha submission.

Candy for Young and Old

Triangle Stationery, Forest Hills, NY

Sandy Eller

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here are two realities when you grow up as the child of a Holocaust survivor.

The first is that you probably don’t have a lot of relatives. The second is that the relatives you do have often take on roles that go far beyond their normal descriptions.

My father was born in Będzin, a town so close to Germany that the Nazis arrived just two days after storming the Polish border in September, 1939. Only the three youngest children in the family survived — my father and the brother and sister immediately above him — and after coming to America, my father lived with his sister for ten years. They were practically inseparable, and to us, she was the paternal grandmother we never had. The fact that she lived ten minutes away and had a store that sold candy was a win-win situation for me and my two siblings.

The store was located on the corner of Selfridge and Juno Streets in Forest Hills, Queens, set back from Yellowstone Boulevard by a tiny wedge-shaped island. The store’s official name was Triangle Stationery, although we never knew that it even had a name — to us it was simply “the store,” and even though we were there frequently, we never tired of visiting because it was heaven on earth.

Walking into the store, we would always be greeted by the smiling faces of my aunt, whose name was Geulah but was known to us simply as Gloria, and her husband, Uncle Charlie, both of whom doted on us kids. We could do no wrong in their eyes, which made us love them even more. They, in return, loved us with the fierceness only Holocaust survivors can summon.

My perception of the store was probably different from that of the many adults who came there to grab lunch or to buy boxed stationery, cigarettes, magazines, or a cup of coffee. The racks of candy at the front of the store were perfectly level with my four- or five-year-old eyes, which was exactly where I wanted them to be, and Gloria was never shy about offering us goodies, winning our undying devotion with bars of Planters peanut brittle or colorful chocolate bars.

A little further in was a counter with barstools, and there was nothing we loved more than hopping up and having Gloria make egg creams for us. We would rip most of the paper off our straws, shooting the remainder as far as we could across the counter, never once contemplating that we were probably leaving garbage on the floor. Once we got about halfway through our glasses the fun would really begin, the three of us blowing bubbles into our egg creams, making it look as if our drinks had magically replenished themselves, although obviously they hadn’t.

There were big racks filled with greeting cards and comics and a wood-paneled telephone booth all the way in the back, but to us the store was always all about the candy, the little tchotchkes and the egg creams that we enjoyed as the grown-ups continued their seemingly endless conversations, discussing mysterious topics like current events and family politics that were always off-limits for us kids.

Of course, youngsters aren’t exactly known for their patience, and there is a limit to how long a pack of gum can keep a five-year-old entertained, even if it comes in a burlap sack and is shaped like tiny gold nuggets. My mother felt obligated to explain that it was rude to ask if we could leave the minute I finished my treat, so I devised what I thought was a great way to get the same point across, albeit a little more politely. On our next visit to the store, I turned to my mother when I decided that the time had come for us to say our goodbyes and asked, “How do you spell home?” Never one to waste a teachable moment, my mother made me answer my own question, and thinking intently, I replied “h-o-m-e-o-u-s-e.” It was a pretty respectable try for a preschooler who knew that home and house were pretty much synonymous, even if it wouldn’t have been a winning answer at the spelling bee.

I still remember the day my mother informed us that visiting Gloria and Uncle Charlie did not mean that we had to be rewarded in any way — not with candy, toys or any other treats. To me that was complete and total heresy — wasn’t the whole fun of the store the fact that people who loved us showered us with goodies?

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my young eyes, the store was the center of Forest Hills, a place where grown-ups came to schmooze about anything and everything. Years later I found out that even from an adult perspective, I was right — people coming to the store didn’t just get newspapers, school supplies, and toiletries. My aunt and uncle dispensed marital advice and watched the occasional kid when their parents had an errand to run. Located just a few blocks away from the Young Israel and the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva when it was still on Kessel Street, the store drew more than a few senior rabbanim — maybe they came for newspapers, but more often than not they ended up sharing divrei Torah with my uncle.

Of course, it seemed to us kids like the conversations were almost always in Yiddish, so we tuned them out. We just knew the store as a place where Gloria and Uncle Charlie were in their element, although in retrospect it had to have been a tough business with long hours, and I remember them running out after Havdalah to unpack the sections of the Sunday paper before the next morning’s opening.

It wasn’t only members of the tribe who couldn’t resist the store’s magnetic pull. George was a customer who came in like clockwork at 3 p.m. every day for a fountain Coke and a toasted Drake’s pound cake. Years later, when he passed away, my cousin paid homage to the man who had patronized his parent’s business faithfully for so long by going to George’s wake and leaving a Coke and a Drake’s pound cake on top of his casket.

I found out that I was expecting three months after Gloria passed away, and there was never a doubt in my mind that the baby was going to be a girl. We waited one extra day in order to be able to name our new daughter Nechama Geula for Gloria on her first yahrtzeit. Somehow, it seemed like an appropriate way to thank the aunt and grandmother who always showered us with love, both inside the store and out.

Uncle Charlie and Gloria’s store is a Laundromat today, but I have no doubt that it is remembered fondly by anyone who lived in Forest Hills back in the day. It was a place where people came in for a newspaper or a coffee and walked out of with something more, the smiles on their faces proof of the store’s magic, leaving visitors uplifted by their interactions with two people whose incredible love of humanity knew no bounds.

Sandy Eller is a freelance writer who lives in Spring Valley, New York.

Shopping in Silence

Mankoff’s, Gateshead, UK

As told to Rivka Streicher by Chani Stern

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he Gateshead of decades ago revolved around a single rav and single-minded focus on Torah learning. It was famous for Lehmann’s seforim shop; the kosher butcher (which didn’t actually offer a shopping experience — it was delivery only), Levin’s Paperware, housed in a box room/bedroom (remember Mrs. Levin counting out those paper snack bags in her native Danish?), and our one and only kosher grocery, Stenhouse (ah, the rum balls, the sugar mice).

The Rav didn’t encourage competition and the small kehillah lived complacently with its few businesses. However, 1978 saw the advent of a luxury shop — an out-of-hours “store” completely novel to us Gatesheaders, who never knew a shop could be open past 5 p.m.

It opened thanks to Mr. Eliezer Mankoff z”l, a respected rebbi in the boys’ school and our shul’s baal korei, and tblch”t, his patient, soft-spoken wife, Mrs. Chana Mankoff, the beloved school secretary. Unassuming people of absolute integrity, the Mankoffs “modernized” Gateshead by providing access to very limited groceries at slightly discounted prices in a previously unheard of window of time.

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he memories are as vivid as yesterday. I recall walking around the corner and there it was, bang in the center of a row of 15 homes, at Number 8 Ashgrove Terrace. “Just open the door and walk in,” people said. I remember the shiver of indecision before walking up the path and trying the door. Was it the right house? Was I even allowed to shop at this time of night?

The smell of Mrs. Mankoff’s cooking blended with that of cardboard packaging. The plastic protector over the hallway carpet crunched underfoot. And there it was, the second room on the left, a mere four by three meters, with three walls of stacked shelving, brightly lit and immaculately clean.

About half of the store was devoted to nosh (at least that’s the way I remember it). They had those foot-long sour belts that rolled up. I’d go in with a friend — I was too timid to just push open the door to someone else’s house on my own — and we’d pick out our sour belts, and I’d see something sensible like pasta and wonder why anyone would bother with pasta at this hour.

The quiet. I remember the quiet, because who spoke, who socialized in the presence of Mr. Mankoff? Sitting sandwiched between his small table and shelf unit, white bearded and bespectacled, he was always learning from some sefer. Words would be petty in his presence.

Except, of course when we needed help. “Sorry, where is the sugar?”

“Over there…” he’d say, with rolled r’s, the reply taciturn, mumbled into a Chumash with no indication of any direction.

Oh, well. I found what I needed eventually, and then came to his small desk to pay. There was no cash register; instead Mr. Mankoff mentally calculated the bill in seconds, having the change ready so swiftly my young brain couldn’t follow.

I remember venturing inside one Shushan Purim and asking for a chocolate bar.

“It’s one day too late for chocolate,” he said, and I backed away.

Mrs. Mankoff smuggled me a small smile as if to convince me of the obvious. Clearly his bark was worse than his bite.

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ven when there was a crowd, jostling and elbowing for baking ingredients, for toothpaste, or for nosh, there was always a hushed air in Mankoff’s. The whole visit felt forbidden for us youngsters. There was no hanging around, no schmoozing. The protocol was to spend two minutes and be out; after all, this was someone’s living room.

And the absolute integrity. One Simchas Torah, a harried chassan Kol Hane’arim realized he didn’t have pekelach for the kids. Mankoff’s to the rescue, with Mr. Mankoff providing the necessary goodies. Since it was Yom Tov, he made no calculations; he simply set aside a double of each item so he could later calculate the bill.

Pesach at the shop was a whole new level of awe; imagine all those Pesach goods housed in someone’s dining room. Boy, did I feel grand, as if I had been granted permission to enter some hallowed inner sanctum. Each chair and every inch of table space held a box of the Pesach basics. There was a sign that read “No chometz, no buggies, no talking.”

That silence, that hush — it’s what I remember most from the 21 years of that little store’s existence. A tiny island of goods, like forbidden treasure, and a community of quiet shoppers slipping away with their purchases.

Chani Stern is the pen name of a writer who grew up in Gateshead, UK, and lives there with her family.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 931)