Cheese and Kindness

A Dash of Color in a Black and White World

d like to remember the scene in color. But I cant. Its as if that whole scene was painted in black and white: the dirty gray of the cracked sidewalks; the coal gray of the asphalt; and the black-and-white signs over the gray steel gates of the storefronts, some in English, some in Yiddish and, a few blocks over, some in Chinese. Even the colored yarmulkes in H&M Skullcap were gray. Back in the late sixties and early seventies, in a world aiming to present itself in living color, the Lower East Side was presented in dying black-and-white. I remember the streets: Grand Street, Delancey Street, Hester and Orchard, Allen and Essex, and Rivington. I remember some of the landmarks as well: Streits Matzos, Schapiros Wine and Kossars Bialys. Of course there was H&M Skullcap and Biegeleisen Books.. I was not sure why my father took me down there so often. He definitely had a few stops, as he would call them, to see some of his supporters. Most of the people he visited were either affiliated with Toras Chaim of East New York, or perhaps they knew him from the old country. But as far as I can remember, even as a little kid, the Lower East Side did not have the lure of the real Manhattan just a few miles northwest of the little enclave. But it had its charm. My father either could not afford a helper, or he felt that it was better if he came himself to the donor, and shlepped the boxes for the yeshivahs annual bazaar. And there was no better place in the world to get bazaar junk than the Lower East Side. Maybe my father went himself because he would not settle for regular junk. He got

the best shmattes, the best toys and the best gadgets. And indeed, there was nothing that was below his dignity if it meant that it could make money for yet another Jewish child to go to yeshivah. Sometimes my mother and a few of the PTA ladies would help out in a station wagon, with one of the husbands driving. They would traverse the Jewish warehouses and factories. I rarely shlepped with my mother. The women did not know the lay of the land like my father did, and were often confused in the elevators of the large offices/warehouses they visited, unsure of which floor they were supposed to stop on. Whos on first? Whats on second? and I-Dont-Know-Whos on third. Going with my mother and the PTA ladies,

I felt that I was in the middle of a comedy routine. But not with my father. He knew every nook and cranny of that Old Lower East Side, from Orchard to Essex, from Grand to Delancey. He knew how to get from Woodmere to the East Side and back in 20 minutes, making every light, expertly driving down Bushwick Avenue and onto Atlantic. Hed plow through the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant areas, and what were once the glorious neighborhoods of East New York and Brownsville, with no fear at all. He was oblivious to any of the racial tensions of the 1960s. I was always scared that on the way home he would jump out of the car somewhere on Bushwick Avenue and ask a bodega owner for a

76 A M i M a g a z i n e / / M AY 2 9 , 2 0 1 3 / / 2 0 s i va n 5 7 7 3

Photo Ruchama Clapman Bistritzky and EK Graphics

Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky

bazaar package. Of course we did not always go to the Lower East Side to shnorr things. We also went there to buy things. Well, sort of. I mean, who really bought anything on the Lower East Side? And my father always knew somebody anyway. So how much did he really pay? I dont remember too many purchases of clothes and the like on the Lower East Side. Though I do remember my father buying me a weekday hat for my bar mitzvaha black felt fedora for daveningfrom a pushcart. I think spending 25 dollars on a fancy hat for my Shabbos bar mitzvah in Bencraft, on the Williamsburg side of the bridge, was way over our budget. And so, over the bridge to the East Side we went, to buy the weekday hat. So he drove over the bridge and found a pushcart that had some shmatte hat. My father would be sold and then try to convince me as well: The most gevaldiker hat they make! (And for just five dollars!) And we got a pair of shoes as well: Corfam shoes, for seven dollars. When we bought the shoes, I thought they were black. But when we came home, I realized the truth: They were purple. They must have turned purple when we got to Woodmere. Remember, there was no color on the Lower East Side. Even purple shoes looked black on Delancey Street. My mother nearly fainted when she saw the shoes that my father brought home. Of course he was his old cool self: No problem! he exclaimed, explaining that he never intended to have me wear purple shoes. Vos macht zi ahzah groiseh gerider? (Why are you making such a fuss?) The

shoemaker will paint them black. And he did, sort of. Black paint does not stick well to Corfam, the plastic imitation leather invented by DuPont in 1964 and declared dead a year after my bar mitzvah in 1971. Of course, there were the ubiquitous electronics stores, where my father, like his son, would marvel at the latest tchotchke. And then hed buy one and never know how to use it. But it was worth it. Hed buy one and then get a second donated to you guessed itthe yeshivah bazaar. I will

business visit to the Lower East Side: Sol Moscot Opticians. Ida Wax, a good friend of my mothers and the mother of my classmate, Stuie (or Sruli, as his parents called him) worked at Sol Moscot on the corner of Delancey and Orchard. Thats where we got our glasses. Ida made sure we got a good buy. And even if we were not shopping for eyeglasses we always managed to make a rest stop there, and get a bite, a danish or piece of cake. I still remember trudging up the flight of steps,

My mother nearly fainted when she saw the shoes that my father brought home.
never forget how he came home once with a giant radio receiver. We still have it. It was massive. It had about 190 stations and five bands from all over the world. And he believed the fellow who told him that you could listen to Tzitivyan (the Lithuanian village where my grandfather was rav) on it. The man sold it to him without any stereo speakers. It was a real metziah, my father said.A real bargain, all because it has a bunch of scratches here. My mother was upset. There was a prominent Grundig logo on the receiver and the scratches obliterated something that back in the early sixties (and for many, even today) would have clearly negated the sale: Made in Germany. My father did not know Grundig from Finkelstein, but had he realized what the vendor had scratched off, he surely would not have bought it. But there was one store that was usually the focal point of any non-yeshivah each plastered with a slogan on its underside, to catch your attention. I had pretty good vision, but I always wanted to fake it, just to be able to go to Ida on the Lower East Side and get a pair of eyeglasses. I was a bit jealous of my younger brother, whose vision was worse. He got eyeglasses. I didnt. Looking back at some of our olden-day pictures, I thank the Ribono Shel Olam for my unbespectacled fate. But always, and I mean always, there was a special treat. It did not make a difference if we were going to the Lower East Side for the bazaar or whether we were going for eyeglasses with my little brother Zvi. It did not even matter if we were going for purple shoes. We could not go to the Lower East Side without stopping at one particular store on Essex Street. And it was not a visit to Guss Pickles. Pickles were good. But nothing, and I mean nothing, was better than a visit
77

2 0 s i va n 5 7 7 3 / / M AY 2 9 , 2 0 1 3 / / A M i M a g a z i n e

to Leibel Bistritzkys cheese store. And no one was as colorful a figure as Mr. Bistritzky himself. A giant of a man, tall and broad, he epitomized the imagery of an old-time rosh hakahal. The white but stained apron and oily hands in no way diminished the majestic presence that he so modestly exuded. Indeed if there was any color, back on the Lower East Side, it was Reb Leibel. And his store was a prism of color as well. For us it was meiein olam haba. My brother and I did not like candy. We loved cheese. Woodmere had a paucity of kosher cheeses available (as well as a paucity of kosher appetizing stores) and surely a dearth of chalav Yisrael brands. And so, for us two, sufferers of fructose intolerance, a trip to Bistritzkys was better than a trip to the candy store. It was Heaven. There were a billion brands of cheeses and then there was the lox and the sable and all these salty items that we loved. And then there was the chevrah. I was just a kid, but the wide variety of people who squeezed their way into the narrow shop on Essex Street was only rivaled by the wider variety of wares inside. Minchah was held in the tiny corner in the back, and I vaguely remember a place to wash and eat. And thats where we ate. And thats where my father shmoozed. Really shmoozed. I did not know how he knew Leibel so well, but after a long and exhausting day asking for both dollars and shmattes, my father found solace and a warm friend in Leibel Bistritzkys store on Essex Street. It may have been a tiny store, but to me it was huge. WEVDs Art Raymond used to call it a phone booth, where so much went on and so many people fit in. My father never told me why Reb Leibel always greeted him with a million-dollar smile and a bear hug that left him smelling like a brick of cheddar marinated in schmaltz herring. He never told us why

Reb Leibel Bistritzky

The thugs turned around and, as if they saw the prophet Elijah on the day of reckoning, bolted as fast as they could toward Chinatown, Reb Leibel still in hot pursuit.
Mr. Bistritzky shtupped all types of cheesy goodies on me and my brother Zvi. All the other kids got candy. But he knew that we would rather have cheese. But secrets as such, like the smell of pickle juice, are hard to contain. And one day I found out the storyactually, two stories. In the late 1950s, Leibel Bistritzky would deliver chickens and chalav Yisrael milk from his farm in Vineland, New Jersey, to Philadelphia. Often he would end his workday very late at night. He was exhausted and sleepy, and a ride back on the pitch-black country roads of Pennsylvania could spell misfortune under such circumstances. One night, as fate would have it, Reb Leibel made his last stop at the Philadelphia Yeshiva. It was late at night, but a few of the bachurim were still burning the midnight oil. Reb Leibel, bone-tired and in no condition to drive back that night, met a young man who was learning in the yeshivah, a chasidisher fellow named Dovid. Dovid was not a regular student of the yeshivah. He was an older bachur who had been sent by Rav Aharon Kotler to help start the Philadelphia Yeshiva in its inaugural years.

78 A M i M a g a z i n e / / M AY 2 9 , 2 0 1 3 / / 2 0 s i va n 5 7 7 3

Photo Sarah Bistritzky

Dovid served as an unofficial mashgiach in the yeshivah, as well as a baal tefilah for the Yamim Noraim. Reb Leibel met him and asked if he knew of an extra bed, where he could lie down for a while. Dovid told him that there was a boy who was away for Shabbos and his bed would be empty all night, and that he was certain that Reb Leibel could use his bed. It was not until the next morning that someone told Reb Leibel that Dovid had actually given him his own bed. Indeed, while Reb Leibel slept until Shacharis, that young man, my uncle, now known as Rav Dovid Spiegel, the Ostrov-Kalushiner Rebbe in Cedarhurst, stayed up all night. But the story does not end there. It ends about 25 years later and a half a block up from Bistritzkys cheese store on the Lower East Side. It was getting dark sometime in early fall, not long before Sukkos. Essex Street was no longer the bustling avenue it once was, and the Lower East Side had lost most of its ancient charm. But it still had a few esrogim sellers. Thats why the old, distinguished Yid had come by subway from the Bronxto buy an esrog. But the day was done and he was headed home. The man was walking on Essex Street, somewhere between Broome and Grand, when suddenly he glanced behind him. Two Latino thugs seemed to be following him. The old man picked up his pace. So did the teens. The old man tried as hard as he could to run from them. The two, clearly up to no good, started closing in. One kid pulled out a switchblade. The elderly Yid passed Bistritzkys. He was panting. The kids were close behind. From his store, then on 37 Essex, Reb Leibel noticed something strange: An elderly Yid with a long white beard and a hadrasponim was running on toward Guss Pickles. He knew there was something more. Another look and he saw what was coming. He realized the impending

brutality and acted. Wielding a 10-inch cheese cleaver, raised way above his six-foot frame, he stormed out of the store in hot pursuit of the would-be muggers. The thugs turned around and, as if they saw the prophet Elijah on the day of reckoning, bolted as fast as they could toward Chinatown, with Reb Leibel still in hot pursuit. A few seconds later, Reb Leibel embraced the old Yid with the long white beard and invited him into the store for a gleizel tea. The Yid, a distinguished rebbe, was overcome with gratitude. And then Reb Leibel asked him his name: Pinchus Eliyahu Spiegel. That Yid was my zeide, zichrono livrachah. Reb Leibel realized that this was the Ostrov-Kalushiner Rebbe from the Bronx. He thought for a moment and asked, Rebbe, did you have a son named R Dovid who learned in Philadelphia Yeshiva in 1956? My grandfather, never much for words, nodded. The smile on Reb Leibels face could not have been broader. All my life I waited to pay back his chesed. Baruch Hashem that I was zocheh! I had always heard that the best cheeses are made in a circle. I guess the greatest chesed goes around and around as well. Tehi zichro baruch. Rabbi Kamenetzky thanks the Bistritzky family for helping him with these colorful memories. They ask to please send any stories and memories to Bistritzkyfamily@gmail.com

New Luxury Estate of Yerushalayim

1.2 acres of luxury housing secluded in 5 acres of greenery!

The

Seeing is Believing Come visit us on site.

Call: +1-718-732-3609

Merom Yerushalayim
Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky is the rosh yeshivah of Yeshivah Toras Chaim at South Shore, a weekly columnist in Yated Neeman, and the author of the Parsha Parable series. He can share your story through the Streets of Life, and can be reached at editorial@amimagazine.org.

Schneller

www.meromyerushalayim.com Sun Chen Exclusive Realtors sales@ sun-chen.co.il USA: +1-718-732-3609 | 074-7333733

fronet.co.il