Brisket Business
In which I eat a big sandwich and write about a tiny city feature
Um yes hello, it’s October aka somehow the busiest month in my life (also Spooky Lake Month for all who celebrate). It’s all good busy stuff but I also feel like I have a Charlie Brown stress scribble constantly floating above my head. If you’d like to join me on one of my many adventures this month - peep the link below to sign up for my Top to Bottom Manhattan Walking Tour on Oct 12! Yes I have been stressing about the weather and yes I have been trying out multiple Dr Scholl’s inserts to find the one for me.
This week’s post will be a bit Jew-ish, just like me! I took a journey up north (to The Bronx) to visit a Jewish deli because you know I love a brisket sandwich and egg cream and best believe I walked all of that off in Van Cortlandt Park afterwards (spoilers for future post…). And since it’s a big week for Jewish holidays, I thought I’d also write about an interesting little quirk in our city that most folks don’t know about.
Manhattan Eruv Neighborhood: Most of Manhattan
As I mentioned earlier, I consider myself Jew-ish - my family never followed any religious practices and anything I know I basically learned myself just by being curious and Googling. And I’ve always kind of thought that Judaism has a lot of loopholes. Like of course there are different ways to practice things and I’m not trying to diminish anyone’s traditions, but doesn’t having a Sabbath setting on appliances feel a bit like cheating? Don’t electric menorahs kind of defeat the purpose of the holiday?1 And kosher phones, c’mon! What’s going on with all of these shenanigans? One of the biggest “loopholes” exists right above our heads, though most folks don’t notice it - it’s the Manhattan Eruv!
Let’s backtrack for a minute though and talk about Shabbat and what that even is. Shabbat occurs every week from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday2 and it’s meant to be a day of rest for those who observe. Folks visit the synagogue, they eat special meals, and they’re prohibited from doing any form of melakhah3 for the duration. The list of prohibited activities includes stuff like tying/untying (slip on shoes FTW), building/extinguishing a fire (the modern day equivalent would be an oven), and transporting an object between public and private domains (aka carrying anything with you out of the house and onto the street). That last one is where the eruv really comes in handy, because can you imagine leaving your apartment without your keys or your phone or your MetroCard (RIP)?
An eruv is an enclosure (ours is made of fishing line) that symbolically extends the domestic zone into the public zone, allowing folks to observe the holiday with a bit more ease. The Manhattan Eruv officially set up shop in 19994 as a local eruv on the UWS, though now it encloses most of Manhattan.5 Every Thursday, a rabbi drives the entire perimeter of the eruv to make sure the line is intact and their website assures us that the line’s been fine since ‘99!6 Because this eruv surrounds most of Manhattan, folks are free to bring their keys with them as they walk to the synagogue, parents can push their children in strollers, and an observant Jew could theoretically dress as a clown and carry balloons.
What I think of as a loophole is actually something that’s totally Kosher according to Jewish law. A degree of flexibility is allowed when it comes to interpreting religious practices and rabbis have the authority (and responsibility) to connect their contemporary community with the traditions and precedents of the past. Nobody’s going nuts and breaking all of the rules in the eruv - it’s just meant to allow folks to adapt their practices to the modern environment so that they’re able to fully observe Shabbat and not worry about accidentally leaving their apartment a piece of challah in their pocket. Eruvin aren’t even new - they’ve been used since 1790 - and they can be found around cities all over the world. So the next time you’re walking around Manhattan, take a look up and see if you can spot the tiny wire tied above the street.
Liebman's Deli 552 W 235th St, Bronx, NY 10463 Neighborhood: Riverdale (not that one, but also maybe?) Open: Fri-Wed, 11am-9pm
Ok, I’m gonna say something that might be a bit controversial - a lot of Jewish food is not great.7 I just don’t crave the food of my people the same way I crave the Filipino food Lorenzo grew up with! I grew up eating my nan’s matzo ball soup and my mom’s brisket and I think I loved them less for the flavor and more for what the dishes meant to me and my family. Nan’s soup was oily AF and mom’s brisket was never as moist as I wanted it to be, but those dishes were often reserved for the holidays8 so they felt special. All of that is to say, I feel like the tradition and meaning behind of a lot of Jewish food speaks louder than the flavors, at least in my experience.9
As soon as I walked into Liebman’s, I felt like I was entering another time. And not because the inside was grungy and full of character (it was actually very modern and sleek) it was because of the people inside. Despite arriving at noon on a Sunday, the place was empty save for a few scattered tables of older folks - no influencers here. I grabbed a booth and eavesdropped on everyone. I love hearing older Jewish people talk10 because it reminds me of my nan and pa, who I miss every day. One woman at the table behind me praised the vegetable selection at supermarkets nowadays as they apparently didn’t have vegetables when she was younger.11 Another table was engaging in the age-old Jewish pastime of complaining - about the traffic, the prices of things, and of course the thinness of the meat on their sandwiches.
Liebman’s has all of the usual suspects on their menu - pastrami, frankfurters, latkes, knishes, and all manner of smoked fish. I was really happy to see that they had a sandwich combo section in which you could get a half and half sandwich with two meats; I opted for half brisket (w/ horseradish aioli) and half pastrami (w/ mustard) and of course my meal came with pickles and coleslaw. My egg cream arrived first, followed by my pickle/coleslaw plate shortly after. They make their egg creams with oat milk here, which my tummy appreciated, and it was very good - great fizziness, correct amount of chocolate U-Bet syrup, chef’s kiss. I also surprisingly enjoyed the coleslaw! I’m not a coleslaw girlie because I hate mayonnaise, but this one was actually quite light on the mayo and super crunchy. The pickle selection was Kosher dill and half-sour and I was surprised again that the half-sour was my fave as I’m usually down with dill.
But let’s talk about the sandwich - the measurement by which all Jewish delis are graded against. First off, this sandwich was adequately thicc (the photo doesn’t do it justice). My method of eating deli sandwiches like this is to open it up, take half the meat out, and reassemble it as a normal-sized sandwich that a human can actually bite. I then eat the meat and sides, and take my remaining sandwich home for round 2.12 The meat was also very thinly sliced! This is important because you want to be able to bite cleanly through the meat; too thick meat will result in your bite sloppily dragging haphazard layers of meat out of the sandwich and you will consequently look like a fool. The meat was a bit on the dry side and this is where my criticism/suggestion for innovation comes in: why don’t delis put a schmear of mustard on both the top and bottom bread? The sandwich needed just a bit more wet to help it go down easy. My move here when disassembling is to go in and add another layer of mustard myself and maybe this was always meant to be a sort of DIY situation, but I just feel like this is an area where we say wave goodbye to tradition and try something new. That said, their horseradish aioli was also very lacking in horseradish - it should make my nose burn.
After I ate as many layers of meat as I could handle, I asked for a black and white cookie and Cel-Ray13 to go. Both went in my backpack to be future-snacks and that Cel-Ray was a savior as I walked 8 miles in last weekend’s heat. I have a somewhat difficult relationship with black and white cookies14 - I like the vanilla thick like fondant, the chocolate fudgy, and there absolutely cannot be as much as a hint of lemon flavoring. I’m very sorry to report that this cookie failed on all levels - the icing was thin and mostly flavorless and the cookie was crumbly and lemony. The thing about black and whites is that you never know how they’ll be until you take a bite, so I look at every cookie as an opportunity to lead me to the best black and white the city has to offer (got recs? - let me know).
So should you make the trek to visit Liebman’s? Fuck yeah. It’s the last Jewish deli left in The Bronx and it carries on the traditions of my people, whether they’re good or bad, tasty or a bit dry. The Bronx used to have a pretty big population of Jews from Central and Eastern Europe15 - my pa’s family moved there when they left Russia and that’s where he grew up. So regardless of how lemony their black and white cookie is, Liebman’s is a place that you keep going to for that familiar taste, to pick up platters for the holidays, and to indulge in a comforting habit that reminds you of the good times.
Wishing all my Jewish homies a sweet new year 🖤
I’ll never stop singing the praises of The Met Cloisters and I’m excited to check out their upcoming exhibit Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages. It opens Oct 17 the objects on show explore the desires and fluid identities in the art of the Middle Ages. It’s included in museum admission, which can be as little as $1 for NY State residents.
Get jiggy with it at the Jigsaw Puzzle Club this Oct 4 and 17 at the Hudson Park Library. It’s totally free to drop in and try their wide variety of new and vintage puzzles. You can also participate in their puzzle exchange: bring a puzzle and take a puzzle home!
As your little friend, I have to promote Tiny Fest - a whole month of tiny-themed programming from Oct 4 - Nov 2. Tiny zines? Got it. Tiny bouquets? Yep. Tiny tarot readings? I don’t know if the tarot cards are tiny or if the reading itself is especially short but they have this too! All events take place at From Here to Sunday in Gowanus.
A very cool lecture called Central Park Uncovered: Scandals in America’s Backyard will be taking place on Oct 7. I love love love Central Park but oooh boy does it have a crazy history.
There are a bunch of Basquiat, Warhol, and Koons works on display in an UES Townhouse! Downtown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties will be on view thru Dec 13. The works represent the diverse and groundbreaking art created during, and in response to, the experimentation in the arts happening during the 1980s.
If you’re not cursed with a mycological allergy like me, consider attending this weekend’s Fungus Fest. The event takes place on Randall’s Island and celebrates all things fungi. Some highlights include mushroom yoga, a mushroom walk, and an exquisite corpse fungi game, whatever that is!
I’m so afraid that this is going to just be another influencer-heavy site, but I kind of really want to check out Autophoto - the new photobooth museum opening on Oct 11. They’ll have vintage photo booths, photography exhibits, and also tout a “Sure Thing Chapel, where couples can book a quick, Vegas-style ceremony and step into a vintage booth to capture their first kiss—printed the old-fashioned way.”
I’m currently posting this from my mom’s house on Long Island and I convinced my brother to drive me over to some of the farm stands on the north fork so I could get apple cider donuts. Eating donuts, picking pumpkins, and navigating corn mazes are quintessential fall activities and sometimes I miss living in the city because we don’t quite have these things.16 But if you are interested in picking up a pumpkin, spend the day on Gov Island and visit Pumpkin Point on Oct 25 and 26.
And finally…shoes.
Sure they’re much neater than getting candle wax everywhere, but it’s the principle!
When I visited Israel I noticed that all of their 7-11s and laundromats noted that they were open 24/6 instead of 24/7. We visited the shuk (outdoor market) in Jerusalem on a Friday morning and it was as packed as Smorgasburg on opening day, but on Saturday morning it was completely deserted:
Melakhah is usually translated as “work”, but an expanded definition includes “deliberate activity” or “skill and craftsmanship.” It’s the day of rest, so rest! Though it’s important to note that this prohibition can absolutely be broken in the event of any sort of medical or life-threatening event.
An earlier haphazard version existed, but it wasn’t well-maintained as no one claimed ownership of the line, so whenever it broke all of the rabbis sort of stood around like:
Ok that’s a tagline that I made up, but if any rabbi wants to use it just text me on your Kosher phone and we’ll make it happen.
If you love it, I’m happy for you. This is my opinion based on my experiences. Maybe my family is just full of bad cooks.
I’m very much culturally Jewish and not religious, so even though my family followed a lot of customs that were technically religion-based, they weren’t spiritual or anything to us - they were just habits that we didn’t really read into much.
I will actually munch the fuck out of a plain piece of matzo though, so maybe there is something in my DNA.
There’s just a certain accent and cadence to their words that is music to my ears. Ask me to do an impression of my mom kvetching.
I think she meant that they only had canned vegetables? Unclear, but I will take this woman at her word that vegetables didn’t exist in her youth.
In this case I managed to shove a leftover sandwich, a black and white cookie, and a cel-ray into my tiny backpack to eat while amongst nature.
For those who aren’t familiar, cel-ray is a celery flavored soda made by Dr Brown’s and it has a delightful celery salt flavor, which is slightly sweet and pickley and goes well with all food, but especially Jewish food. It’s not always easy to find so I always get it when it’s available.
Or maybe like Chappell, I just know what I want
You can read more in one of my fave substacks - The Neighborhoods
We do have the Queens County Farm Museum and I do very much recommend going there.
What I found most interesting is the parts of Manhattan that are NOT included. Does it have to be a certain percent Jewish or what?
I live in the eruv so everything that happens in my apartment is automatically kosher, right? 😅 also I meant to tell you, I’m warming up to Riverdale a lot, so I’m going to go back and visit this place on my next exploration