Marcy Schreiber spots her sister-in-law standing at the counter of the East Side Kosher Deli in Glendale, where turquoise plastic bags brim with food that smells exactly like the souk marketplace of Jerusalem – cumin and cardamom – and where Orthodox Jewish men wear black velvet yarmulkes, long beards and zizits, white fringes that softly sway against their black pants as they walk.
“Did you get Shaul’s e-mail that I forwarded to you?” she says.
“Maybe,” says Harriet Fass. “I haven’t checked my e-mail very much this week, or last.”
Schreiber has a fistful of e-mails from family and friends living in the most dangerous areas of northern Israel.
She shares them with her network of friends, many of whom frequent the East Side Kosher Deli at Leetsdale Drive and South Elm Street, a favorite gathering spot for Denver’s Jewish community, much like those ancient caravansaries where rare goods were traded along with insider information.
With nearly 3,000 kosher items, this former Russian nightclub is a magnet for Orthodox Jews: a slice of Eastern Europe in the Rocky Mountains. The owners, Marcy and Michael Schreiber, follow traditions of the Bobov Hasidic lineage, which dates back to 19th-century Galicia in southern Poland and is now centered in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Some say the East Side Kosher Deli – not far from the East Denver Orthodox Synagogue – is a cross between Brooklyn and Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem.
The Schreibers opened this one-stop kosher center – grocery, bakery, butcher, deli, restaurant – on Labor Day in 1996. Instead of focusing on the upcoming 10th anniversary of this community institution, they’re intent upon prayers for Israel, where many of their loved ones live.
“A lot of the Denver (Jewish) community moved to Israel,” says Michael.
“We are terrified for them,” says Marcy. “I appreciate their constant e-mails, which give me an idea of what’s going on. You don’t get that kind of detailed, block-by-block information from CNN.”
Moshe and Yaffa Smolensky, whom they’ve known for about 20 years, are treasured friends who moved from Denver to Safed – the same city that is home to Marcy’s cousin, Chaya Brocha Leiter and her husband, Shaul.
“It’s the second-holiest city after Jerusalem,” says Marcy. “The seat of Kabbalah, and the kabbalistic masters.”
In the 16th century, Safed dominated the world’s kabbalistic scene, according to Daniel Matt in “The Essential Kabbalah.”
Marcy’s relatives moved from Denver to Safed more than 25 years ago, starting an organization called Ascent, now a thriving center of Jewish mysticism.
This week, as Katyusha explode around them, they continue to offer such classes as “Kabbalah: Deeds of Kindness with Added Mystical Intentions.”
Each time an e-mail arrives from Safed, Marcy is relieved by the continued communication, and also unnerved.
“My heart sinks line by line,” she says.
On July 20 she opened an e-mail from Shaul, who said more than 100 Katyusha missiles had hit Safed in seven days, killing two and injuring 30. One slammed into the basement of his next door neighbor, another hit the top floor of the building next to his daughter’s apartment.
Those rockets did not explode, but the one that landed in his backyard did.
“Besides totally traumatizing my 20-year-old and my 4-year-old, all it did was break 15 double-glass windows, fill the house with smoke and glass, and leave shrapnel holes up the western side of our building,” he wrote.
As for the Smolenskys, they chronicle how rockets slammed into the valley behind the hospital, how airplanes are dropping retardant on a large fire nearby, and how close the calls can be.
“Around 7:30 p.m. a rocket swooshed by our house and eventually landed in a neighborhood up the mountain from us,” they wrote on July 23. “One woman was injured as she sat in her salon. Another rocket landed near the police station.”
Marcy and Michael usually receive these e-mails in the middle of their 14-hour work days, which are packed with nonstop activity, like catering
kosher lunches at the Allied Jewish Federation or stocking shelves with everything from kosher Cheerios to cherry jam imported from Israel.
Michael expects their shelves to empty of items from northern Israel, like Elite instant coffee, which is made in a factory in Safed, or wine from northern Israel.
“How are they going to harvest grapes when they are being shelled?” he says.
East Side Kosher Deli already is being affected in a different way, he says. “We’re seeing people in here we’ ve never seen before. They’re here buying Israeli products as a means of support.”
Despite the demands of their business, the Schreibers are never too busy to pray. Michael prays at least three times a day; Marcy prays whenever her Israeli friends come to mind.
Sometimes, she reflects upon her visit to Safed and its ancient cemetery with teal-blue colors, the resting place of such holy men as Rabbi Isaac Luria, the 16th-century Kabbalist who revolutionized the study of Jewish mysticism.
“I worry Katyushas will hit the holy places, the cemetery and synagogues,” she says. “Obviously, the people are of primary importance, but the holy sites are also of primary importance.”
Staff writer Colleen O’Connor can be reached at 303-820-1083 or at coconnor@denverpost.com.
