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I’m a Jewish historian; my grandparents ran a deli. Maybe we’re in the same business.
(JTA) — Like so many other American Jews from the New York area, I have been eagerly awaiting “I’ll Have What She’s Having,” the new exhibit on the American Jewish deli now on view at the New-York Historical Society. After all, the deli was our family business.
I grew up on Long Island during the baby boom era, when large groups of Jews moved to the suburbs. New synagogues opened in almost every town, and Jewish bakeries, shops and schools proliferated around them.
My family had its pick of half a dozen kosher delis within 20 minutes of our home. We tried them all but came to especially enjoy Brodie’s Kosher Delicatessen, in the Mitchel Manor Shopping Plaza in East Meadow. Like Brodie’s, most of these delis were modest storefronts, with little ambience and a straightforward menu of traditional Eastern European Jewish food and deli meats. Nothing fancy, but it was kosher and delicious and enjoyed by the whole family.
Eating in any of these delis carried special meaning for us because the experience served as a connection to our extended family, who had a long and rich history in the delicatessen world.
After immigrating from Eastern Europe, my grandfather and his brother established themselves in the food business, eventually starting a kosher catering company. In order to continue supporting their growing families, my great-uncle Abe kept the catering business, and in 1929 my grandfather Morris opened Rubin’s Delicatessen. Located in Brookline, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, its first location boasted only five tables.
The deli truly was a family business. My grandmother kept the books, my grandfather’s sister Bessie ran the kitchen and my grandfather worked at the deli counter. Bessie made all the home-cooked food, including an unforgettable hearty vegetable soup, meat knishes, russel (fleishig, or meat-based, beet soup), pot roast, roast chicken, eingemacht (a kind of beet candy preserves), taiglach (a dough and honey sweet dessert for Rosh Hashanah), jelly roll and mandlen (soup nuts). During busy times, such as before Passover and Rosh Hashanah, my grandmother and other great aunts came in and worked together to bake 4-pound sponge cakes.
The clientele of Rubin’s was something of a “Who’s Who” of Boston Jewry. As in Jewish delis around the country, businesspeople conducted informal meetings there, rabbis stopped in for lunch during their busy days and customers stopped by to pick up essential provisions or to enjoy a quick bite.
As the years passed and my grandparents got older, discussions about the future of Rubin’s began. Instead of taking over the family business, my father and his brothers pursued career paths outside of the deli, becoming religious leaders and Jewish professionals. My grandparents were proud that their children had pursued white-collar professions. And, in many ways, those children carried on a family business: The spiritual sustenance they provided as rabbis and social workers was an extension of the physical sustenance the deli provided through chicken soup and pastrami sandwiches.
This sense of providing intellectual, emotional and religious nourishment to the Jewish people has continued in various forms through several generations of my family, including my own choices as a Jewish historian, educator and institution builder.
Rabbi Moshe Schwartz, the author’s son, in front of a sign for the deli founded by his great-grandfather in Brookline, Mass., which by the time it closed in 2016 was located down the street from its original location. (Courtesy of Shuly Rubin Schwartz)
When it finally came time for my grandfather to hang up his apron in June 1974, he had one stipulation when selling the business to his great-nephew: “the Seller has for many years conducted the aforesaid business as a kosher delicatessen and restaurant under the supervision of the Vaad of the Associated Synagogues and wishes to maintain the kosher status of said business so long as the business is conducted under the name of ‘Rubin’ on said premises or on any other premises to which it may be moved.”
After all those years, his final wish was to keep the “kosher” in his “kosher deli.”
Rubin’s changed hands a few more times but eventually closed its doors in the summer of 2016, a milestone noted in Boston Magazine.
For many of us, my family especially, the kosher deli experience wasn’t just about the food (although the food of course was delicious and satisfying). Visiting and eating at a Jewish deli became a safe space, a deep link to previous generations, a fun way to comply with Jewish dietary laws, and a place to feel both Jewish and American. Deli meals didn’t simply provide nourishment, they provided comfort — true comfort food — and a way to connect to some of our Jewish traditions.
“’I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli” tells the story of how Jewish immigrants like my grandparents helped create a new type of American restaurant and an important piece of American food culture. Reflecting on the many stories I heard about the business growing up, the too-numerous-to-count meals I ate when visiting my grandparents, and the memories of family, Jewish culture and delicious food, I know my visit to the New-York Historical Society will be both emotional and stimulating.
And I think I know what I’ll have for lunch after my visit.
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Mamdani wins 33% of the Jewish vote in NYC, compared to 63% for Cuomo, exit poll shows
Zohran Mamdani won over 33% of Jewish voters as he was elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday, according to exit polling.
The poll found that 63% of Jewish voters cast their ballots for Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who ran as an independent after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary. Cuomo polled second throughout the general election and was the subject of a campaign by Jewish advocates to consolidate votes against Mamdani, a longtime critic of Israel whose positions elicited allegations of antisemitism.
Only 3% of Jews voted for the third major candidate, Republican Curtis Sliwa, according to the poll, conducted on behalf of multiple news organizations by the polling firm SSRS.
The pro-Cuomo push appeared to yield results in precincts with many Orthodox Jews in particular. Cuomo neared 80% of the vote in such precincts, along with winning large populations of more liberal Jews in Manhattan and the Bronx, according to The New York Times. But the Upper West Side, seen as a bastion for Jewish liberals, went for Mamdani, albeit at slightly less than the citywide rate.
There was evidence that much of Cuomo’s support came from Republicans: 69% of his voters said they believed Donald Trump was doing a good job as president.
Though concerns about affordability reigned among New Yorkers at the polls, Israel also loomed over their votes. The SSRS poll found that 67% of New Yorkers said the candidates’ positions on Israel factored into their vote, with 38% calling those positions a major factor. The election coincided with a broad drop-off in support for Israel among U.S. voters, as demonstrated repeatedly in polling over the last year.
Over 2 million New Yorkers voted, more than double the number who voted in the 2021 mayoral election. Dominating among younger voters, voters of color and voters with college degrees, Mamdani became the first candidate to win over 1 million votes in a New York City mayor’s race since John V. Lindsay in 1969.
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Mamdani quoted Eugene Debs in his victory speech — there’s a long Jewish history there
“The sun may have set over our city this evening,” Zohran Mamdani said from a stage at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater late Tuesday night. “But as Eugene Debs once said, ‘I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.’”
This was the first sentence of the new mayor-elect’s victory speech, which gave pride of place to a candidate who ran — and lost five times — for president between 1900 and 1920 under the banner of the Socialist Party of America. And each one of those times, the Forverts backed him.
Debs was core to the early history of this paper, which was a staunchly socialist rag with strong union ties; Debs helped to found the American Railway Union and was a major socialist leader, elevating the ideology’s profile, for a time, to the relative mainstream in the U.S. Founding editor Ab Cahan, himself an avowed socialist, used the Forverts to elevate the leftist ideology amongst American Jews, urging readers to vote the socialist line every single time Debs ran. The now-defunct Yiddish radio station run by the Forverts, WEVD, took its call letters from the candidate’s name.
Debs was arrested after leading a railroad strike in 1895; though he had not gone to jail as a socialist believer, he came out devoted to the political ideology. And, soon thereafter, he founded the Social Democratic Party, which split from the preexisting Socialist Labor Party; democratic socialism, the philosophy with which Mamdani identifies, grew out of Debs’ party.
The Forward’s founding editor, Ab Cahan, immigrated to the U.S. in 1882 from Russia. And though he had fled a communist country, he still had harsh critiques of American capitalism; barely a month after arriving, he attended a socialist meeting, and spoke at another only a month after that. Though meetings were often in Russian, Cahan advocated for using Yiddish within the socialist movement so that Jews of all education levels could participate. After Debs founded his new party, Cahan signed on and began to advocate for democratic socialism among American Jews.
In 1897, he founded the Forverts and shepherded a small, upstart paper into a titan that, for decades, was not only the largest Yiddish-language newspaper in the country, but also the socialist paper with the widest reach. Debs was core to that vision — and the Forverts was core to Debs’ success, and that of other Socialist Party candidates, using not only its pages but also its funds to support labor leaders and candidates. Meyer London, a socialist labor lawyer, won a seat in Congress in 1914; he appeared on a balcony of the newspaper’s building to thank his supporters.
And though Debs lost regularly, The Forverts celebrated his results — at their highest, about 6% of the popular vote — as a sign of socialism’s growing profile in the U.S..
“The 3 million citizens who have given their votes for the socialist candidate who sits behind iron bars because he fought courageously for his ideas and for the right of his ideas to be freely expressed — that powerful voice will echo in the ears of the capitalist reaction that so arrogantly raged across the country over these last years,” read one column.
Thanks in large part to Cahan’s support, Debs, though not Jewish, has remained beloved to Jewish liberals. Bernie Sanders even made a movie about the socialist leader in 1979. Now Sanders himself is the most famous democratic socialist in America, the heir to both Cahan and Debs. And their party seems to be making a comeback; Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was buoyed to her seat by the Democratic Socialists of America. And Mamdani, quoting Debs with Sanders by his side, is hoping to share that mantle.
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The Jewish vote for NYC mayor went to Cuomo, but the Israel vote went to Mamdani, exit polls show
Zohran Mamdani clinched the New York City mayoral race in a decisive victory last night, but Jewish voters favored former Gov. Andrew Cuomo by a nearly two-to-one margin.
A CNN exit poll showed 63% of Jews voted for Cuomo, 33% for Mamdani, and 3% for Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
Those numbers suggest Cuomo performed better among Jewish voters than New York City voters as a whole, 41% of whom voted for Cuomo and 50% for Mamdani. Jewish voters make up an estimated 10% of the city’s electorate.
Mamdani won decisively in Brooklyn and in younger precincts across western Queens and parts of Manhattan. Cuomo carried Orthodox and senior-populated neighborhoods in Borough Park and Riverdale.
The Orthodox-populated Borough Park saw record turnout, as did New York City overall, with more than 2 million voters casting ballots.
An outspoken critic of Israel, Mamdani’s stance on the conflict in Gaza resonated with a majority of voters, according to public opinion polls taken after his primary win. Nearly half of Mamdani voters, 49%, on Tuesday said his position was a factor in their support, according to a CNN exit poll. For Cuomo supporters, only 44% said his position on Israel was a factor in their vote.
Cuomo had banked on strong turnout from Jewish voters to boost his momentum in the general election, a bet that ultimately didn’t secure the win. In July, Cuomo said a key factor in his primary loss was Mamdani’s support from young, Jewish and pro-Palestinian voters. “I would wager that in the primary, more than 50% of the Jewish people voted for Mamdani,” Cuomo said at the time.
Mamdani’s positions on Israel have roiled Jews across the country, and he’s often had to defend himself against allegations of antisemitism for: refusing to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada;” reiterating support for Palestinians in his statement on the Gaza ceasefire; vowing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York; and saying he doesn’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Yet Mamdani simultaneously built a coalition of Jews who support him. That included a surprise last-minute endorsement from a faction of the Satmar Hasidic community, though Cuomo had the backing of most Orthodox groups that helped swing the 2021 mayoral race for Eric Adams.
Jacob Kornbluh contributed reporting and writing.
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