October 21, 2002
Old Jewish New York fading away.
The
New York Times reports that the old Jewish centers in the city are
fading into history.
Last month, Ratner's Delicatessen on Delancey Street sold its last onion roll and closed after 97 years. Two years ago, the owners of Schapiro's Kosher Winery on Rivington Street rolled their barrels out of the basement and called it quits, selling the building for $2.3 million. Two weeks ago, H&M Skullcap moved from its home on Hester Street, where it had been for half a century, to 13th Avenue in Borough Park, Brooklyn, a thriving Jewish business thoroughfare. "The Chinese don't want to buy yarmulkes," said Mendel Fefer, a salesman. Some of the remaining small synagogues have so few members that they must import teenagers from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to help make the minyan of 10 required for daily prayers.
Maybe the Chinese don't wear yarmulkes, but I'll bet they manufacture them, probably right next to the factories where they make the berets American special forces wear.
