No more chumus: A eulogy.

L'Chaim!

Typically one rarely uses kind words to describe a landlord, but Heather and I have often been told that we were lucky exceptions to the typical standard. Mr. Rubin, though a grouchy blind man who never mastered English sentence structure (for example: “Hello Dave? The sink downstairs, it leaks. You do this for me. I pay you for this.”), was one of the most kind, fair, and involved landlords one could ever hope for. Due to our great relationship with him and Mrs. Rubin, he never had to worry about his building. When we ended up moving out, he had to turn the building over to his kids.

Mr. Rubin had operated a Kosher butchery in the building for 30 years. When he retired 15 years ago, the shop was turned over to Berkah, who operated it until last week. I had been watching the finals days of the shop play out as I went by each morning. On the last day, I saw Berkah and crew hauling stuff outside, so I decided to stop and say hi. I learned that the building had been sold and that the 45 year old business was no more. The new landlord had raised the rent to where Berkah (as well as our replacements) had to move out. Apparently much of the Kosher consumers community has been in tears over the loss.

Additional sad news that Mr. Rubin had died came from Berkah. Mr. Rubin had been one of the great survivors of WWII. It's just too unfortunate that the legacy of his profession couldn't live on in his absence. I have a hunch that if Mr. Rubin could have had his way, he would have sold the building to someone who could have kept the rent low.

While on the subject of store closings... We discovered a week or two ago that Morgan's Mexican and Lebanese Deli has also closed. So the search for local Mexican and Middle Eastern markets in our neighborhood that carry tasty chumus and/or spiced corn chips is finally on.