Ben’s Best Deli, Historic NY Deli To Close – Owner Open To An Acquisition ASAP!

Jay Parker, the longtime owner of Ben’s Best Delicatessen at 96-40 Queens Blvd, Rego Park, which has been serving generations since 1945, plans to close on June 30^th. After the news surfaced, Michael Perlman, Chair of Rego-Forest Preservation Council, submitted a preservation proposal to Jay Parker, who is receptive. He responded, “I had every desire to continue the business through other hands. If you find an interested party, we can reconstitute the business. My staff would love to continue working here.”

   Perlman stated, “Time is of the essence to find an individual who will take over this historic business, which is known citywide and even nationally. Ben’s Best offers soulful kosher deli food in a classic ambiance, and has attracted celebrities and landed spots in movies and on TV. This is one of the last mom & pop style delis citywide. An unofficial landmark can be yours!”    

   Ben’s Best opened in 1945 by Benjamin Parker and was purchased by his son Jay Parker in 1984. “There was an approximate 1,500 kosher delis in the 5 boroughs in 1938, but today there’s about 12 remaining,” said Parker.   

   In an average week, Parker would serve an estimated 900 pounds of pastrami, nearly the same for corned beef, and around 250 pounds of white meat turkey. Ben’s scored a Zagat excellent rating of 4.3, while there are not many Zagat-rated delis. Ben’s Best caters private and corporate events, has a national air freight business, and has enticed the palates of numerous notables including Israeli President Shimon Peres, actor and comedian Jerry Lewis, Senator Jacob Javits, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Mayor Ed Koch, and Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

  Ben’s Best’s history and family style ambiance has been a creative draw, transforming it into a production set. “The Comedian,” a Sony Pictures Classics film starring Robert De Niro, Danny DeVito, and Leslie Mann, had a wide release in theaters on February 3, 2017, and Ben’s Best was featured in four scenes, with Parker cast as counterman. 

    Ben’s Best was featured in the book “Legendary Locals of Forest Hills and Rego Park” by Michael Perlman and on The Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” in “From Crepes to Kreplach” (season 11, episode 9). The deli also appeared in “Deli Man,” a documentary which chronicles the background and future of cross-country deli owners.

     The classic ambiance features an appetizing counter, portraits of notables and plaques, and a 65-seat wood-paneled dining room with historic Rego Park scenes and a painting of Benjamin Parker. A map reads “You’ve been in our home. Where is yours?” and allows patrons to pin their residence. Designed by famed artist Harry Glaubach is a classic wooden work, which provides an illusion of Ben’s on the Lower East Side and memorializes the Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello, and The Three Stooges. The famed logo on the façade sign and menu depicts a man on a bicycle riding by a deli window.

 ***For those who are interested in purchasing Ben’s Best Delicatessen in Rego Park, or providing leads, contact preservationist Michael Perlman, who has also brokered Manhattan diner deals and helped spare Forest Hills Stadium and Cinemart Cinemas: unlockthevault@hotmail.com   

Annual Author's Cafe of the Central Queens Y, Sunday, November 5

Prof. Jeremy Dauber has written a cultural history of Jewish humor, tracing the origins back to the Bible and Talmudic rabbi jokes.

Come out for a fun and thoughtful afternoon. You will enjoy a look at the funny side of some very serious business and the serious side of funny business! You'll come away surprised at how much there is to think about...

Last chance for advance ticket price: Friday, November 3.
 

Jeremy Dauber
 

JEWISH COMEDY

A Serious History

 

Sunday, November 5, 2 p.m.

At the Forest Hills Jewish Center
106-06 Queens Boulevard
 

 

This year our author’s cafe lightens up, with a thoughtful look at a fun topic, Jewish humor. In his new book, Prof. Jeremy Dauber traces the origins of Jewish comedy and its development from the Bible to the age of Twitter.

Dauber organizes the Jewish comic imagination over continents and centuries into what he calls the seven strands of Jewish comedy―including the satirical, the witty, and the vulgar. He traces the ways Jewish comedy has mirrored, and sometimes even shaped, the course of Jewish history.

Persecution, cultural assimilation, religious revival, diaspora, Zionism―all of these, and more, were grist for the Jewish comic mill.  Dauber explores comic masterpieces, from the Book of Esther and Talmudic rabbi jokes to Borscht Belt skits and Seinfeld, and the work of such masters as Sholem Aleichem, Franz Kafka, the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, and Jon Stewart.

Jeremy Dauber is Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture at Columbia University.

Kosher dessert & coffee.

$18 minimum donation in advance/$23 at the door. Your generous donation to support the programs you enjoy is greatly appreciated!

Group & student discounts available.

Register online at www.cqy.org/tix or call (718) 268-5011 ext. 151.

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Cultural Arts & Jewish Heritage Programs
Central Queens Y

67-09 108th Street, Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 268-5011 ext. 151 or pkurtz@cqy.org
www.cqy.org

November 6 Panel Discussion: Israel and American Jews

Professor Dov Waxman 

The 20th Author’s Cafe of the Central Queens Y in Forest Hills will feature a panel discussion on one of the most controversial issues within the American Jewish community.  For over a generation, solidarity with Israel was one of the bonds that brought American Jews together across their differences.  Now, in a fundamental shift in recent years, American Jews are sharply divided on the topic of support for Israel.  

On Sunday, November 6 panelists Professors Dov Waxman and Steven M. Cohen will discuss the complex reasons for this shift.  

The panel discussion, Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel, will be held at 2 p.m. at the Forest Hills Jewish Center, at 106-06 Queens Boulevard, Forest Hills.  Advance tickets are $16 and can be purchased online at www.cqy.org/tickets or at (718) 268-5011, ext. 151 or pkurtz@cqy.org.  Group & student discounts are available.

In some communities, Prof. Waxman writes in his new book, the debate about support for Israel has become so heated, that a moratorium on these discussions has been put in place.  Professors Dov Waxman and Steven M. Cohen will discuss the underlying reasons for this divide, including important changes in the makeup of the American Jewish community itself and increasing disagreement over Israel’s policies, among other factors.  Professors Waxman and Cohen will discuss the impact this fractious debate is having on Jewish communities and organizations and what this means for the future of the American Jewish community.  

Author of several books on Israel, Prof. Waxman teaches Israel studies at Northeastern University. Prof. Steven M. Cohen is Research Professor of Jewish Social Policy at HUC-JIR and has participated in leading demographic studies of how the American Jewish community is being reshaped today.  The 20th Annual Author’s Cafe, which includes kosher dessert and coffeee, is a benefit for the Cultural Arts & Jewish Heritage Programs

This program is the headline event in the Fall Speaker Series of the Central Queens Y.  More information is available online at www.cqy.org or at  (718) 268-5011 ext. 151, or pkurtz@cqy.org. 

Happy Passover !

Happy Chanukah!

Better late than never, for those of you who don't follow me on Twitter!

Concert & Comedian at Rego Park Jewish Center

Happy Rosh Hashanah

Happy Passover

Matzoh courtesy of La Boulangerie

Rethinking Passover Event at the Central Queens Y, Forest Hills

Happy New Year

Rosh Hashanah begins tonight and continues through sundown Friday. Shanah Tovah!

Happy Passover

Talk on Muslim/Jewish Relations at Forest Hills Jewish Center

In the wake of September 11, two of the most prominent Muslim and Jewish leaders in NYC forged an unlikely friendship. As the city reeled from the events of the day, many people reacted with anger and bitterness. Rabbi Marc Schneier and Imam Shamsi Ali instead made the courageous decision that they would bring their communities together to work for peace. 

On Sunday, December 15 at 2:00 p.m.., Rabbi Schneier and Imam Ali will discuss their new book, which grew out of their conversations, Sons of Abraham, at the Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens. 

In their new book, Rabbi Schneier and Imam Ali confront the differences between Muslims and Jews with great honesty, while also looking for the values that unite us.  They challenge both Jews and Muslims to step outside their comfort zones to find common ground. 

Tickets to this event, which also includes kosher desserts, are available through the Central Queens Y, at (718) 268-5011, ext. 151 or online at www.cqy.org/tickets.  Advance tickets are $15, with tickets at the door at $21. 

Rabbi Marc Schneier was born in NYC into a community wary of outsiders.  Son of a distinguished rabbinical dynasty, his passion for Israel made him suspicious of Muslims. Imam Shamsi Ali grew up in a small farming village in Indonesia and attended Muslim schools in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, where he was taught that Jews intended to destroy Islam and its practitioners. Despite such extraordinary differences, these two men become close friends, as well as passionate advocates for mutual understanding between the world’s most bitterly opposed religions. Rabbi Schneier and Imam Ali confront such difficult questions as the legitimacy of both Israel and a Palestinian state, the idea of the chosen people, the meaning of jihad and shari’a. Rabbi Schneier and Imam Ali do not agree on everything, but when they disagree, the manner in which they do so sets an example for this necessary dialogue. 

More information about this event is available at 718 268-5011, ext. 151, or online at www.cqy.org or at  (718) 268-5011 ext. 151, or pkurtz@cqy.org. 
                          

Happy Chanukah!

Author to Discuss Polish Jewish Reconciliation

An estimated eighty percent of American Jews are of Polish descent.  Poland was once  home to the largest Jewish population in Europe.  Yet today, most American Jews think of Poland solely through the lens of the horrific realities of the Holocaust.  On Monday, Nov. 18, at 1:30 p.m., author Louise Steinman will talk at the Central Queens YM & YWHA in Forest Hills, on her new book on a new movement toward Polish Jewish reconciliation, reclaiming the centuries of Jewish life in Poland.  The Central Queens Y is located at 67-09 108 Street in Forest Hills.  Louise Steinman’s talk is open to the public, with a $7 donation suggested.

During the Holocaust, three million Jews, nearly the entire Jewish population of Poland, were killed.  However, while German-occupied Poland was the site of the largest extermination camps, with some Poles participating in the destruction of the Jewish communities, Poland was also the epicenter of European Jewish life for centuries.

Author Louise Steinman set out to examine today’s burgeoning Polish-Jewish reconciliation movement through the lens of her own family's history, joining the ranks of Jews of Polish descent who are confronting both the atrocities and the heroism of Polish Holocaust rescuers, and reclaiming the centuries of Polish Jewish history, as well as with their own families’ stories.  At the same, Poland is seeing a resurgence of interest in Jewish life, including Jewish cultural festivals and the increasing popularity of klezmer music, as a younger generation of Polish non-Jews try to restore some sense of the culture that was lost in the Holocaust.

Louise Steinman codirects the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at the University of Souther California and is the author of a previous, award winning memoir. 

More information about this event or about the Fall Author Series is available at 718 268-5011, ext. 151, or online at www.cqy.org or at  (718) 268-5011 ext. 151, or pkurtz@cqy.org. 

The Myth & Reality Of Prewar Jewish Life In Europe

YIVO, the premiere cultural organization of Yiddish culture in New York, continues its yearlong series of programs in Forest Hills, with a talk by Prof. David Fishman at the Central Queens YM & YWHA.  On Monday, November 11, Prof. Fishman will speak at 1:30 p.m. on the “Myth and Reality of the Jewish Shtetl.  Prof. David Fishman will discuss the cultural life and realities of Jewish life in the small towns of Eastern Europe before World War II.  David Fishman is Professor of Modern Jewish History at The Jewish Theological Seminary and he serves as director of Project Judaica, a Jewish-studies program in Moscow.  The Central Queens Y is located at 67-09 108 Street in Forest Hills.  Prof. Fishman's talk is open to the public, with a $7 donation suggested.

In 1912 nearly half of the Jews in Eastern European lived in small towns. While Jewish life in these small towns is often remembered with nostalgia today, contemporary Yiddish playwright, S. An-ski called these shtetlekh, "the Jewish dark continent". Prof. Fishman's talk will look more closely at the reality of the life and culture of shtetl Jews, including political movements such as Zionism and the Jewish labor movement, the Bund, their literature and theater.  He will also discuss Jewish relations with Russians, Poles, and other Christians, as well as the cultural life of the shtetl.  The talk will feature some slides and recorded music.

This program is one in an ongoing series of programs co-sponsored by YIVO’S Yidishe kultur-serye at the Central Queens YM & YWHA. 

More information about this event is available at 718 268-5011, ext. 151, or online at www.cqy.org or at  (718) 268-5011 ext. 151, or pkurtz@cqy.org. 

Journalist to Speak on Culture Clash Within Israeli Society

This spring and summer,  Israel has seen dramatic confrontations among Jews, between the ultra-Orthodox haredi population and others, over issues such as the exemption from military service for this religious community and over women’s rights.   On Monday, October 28, veteran foreign correspondent Lawrence Malkin will discuss his new book, The War Within, at 1:30 p.m. at the Central Queens YM & YWHA.  

Co-authors Yuval Elizur & Lawrence Malkin have taken a hard look at the growing conflict between Israel’s secular to modern Orthodox citizens, on the one hand  -  and its growing community of ultra-Orthodox, on the other.   With roughly ten percent of Israel’s population, the high birth rate of the ultra-Orthodox has increased their numbers so that they now form a separate society within Israel, whose leaders can make and unmake governments.   

The Central Queens Y is located at 67-09 108 Street in Forest Hills.  Sherri Fink’s talk is open to the public, with a $7 donation suggested.

Last spring mass protests by Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community drew thousands of men opposed to eliminating the long-standing exemption of the ultra-Orthodox from military service.  In recent years, a growing movement within Israel has protested the segregation of  - and other restrictions on - women within the ultra-Orthodox community.  Elizur and Malkin looked at these controversial issues and others such as welfare dependency, and private education among this rapidly growing segment of the religious population.   

Lawrence Malkin is an award-winning journalist, formerly foreign correspondent for Time magazine and The Associated Press.   Co-author Yuval Elizur is a sixth generation Israeli, former deputy editor for Israel’s largest daily newspaper, Ma’ariv, and Jerusalem correspondent for The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. 

More information about this event is available at 718 268-5011, ext. 151, or online at www.cqy.org or at  (718) 268-5011 ext. 151, or pkurtz@cqy.org.

Happy Rosh Hashanah

Wishing everyone a very happy and sweet New Year

Happy Passover

I just would like to wish a Happy Passover to all of my Jewish readers (and other fans of Moses and matzoh). Enjoy your seders tonight!

The annual White House seder.

Religious Pieces Stolen from Local Synagogue

Congregation Ahavath Shalom Synagogue in Forest Hills loses relics in burglary

Such a dreadful act, to steal objects of such spiritual significance to worshippers. I do hope they recover these pieces soon and find the culprits.

Thieves stole pieces like these from the synagogue on 113th St.

Happy Chanukah!