The Golem of 30th Avenue, Part 1
This is the first half of a short story from my collection of stories featuring the Jews of Astoria, NY. Comment if you’d like to see more content like this, or if you know of anyone who may be interested in publishing a book featuring these stories. Part 2 is coming next week.
The Golem of 30th Ave.
Heimish Goldfarb set up his first blintze cart along 30th Ave in Astoria, Queens in 1898. When he arrived in New York from the old country, all he had were the socks on his feet and his family’s recipes for rolled pastries. He had no idea that over 100 years later, Heimish’s Blintzes would be considered an Edible Astoria staple. A lot had changed since then. For one thing, Heimish had insisted on only selling plain blintzes. After his son Avi took over the business, that policy ended. Customers demanded flavor to distract them from the ongoing war. Responding to this demand, Avi came up with the breakthrough idea of adding fillings.
Trying to attract a “more diverse” customer base, his first filling attempt of mayonnaise proved to be very unpopular. Eventually, Avi gave up on trying to assimilate and, in April of 1919, released a potato and onion filling. The rest, as they say, was history. This is not to say all of Avi’s creations improved the world; he had an evil side to him as well. If you ever found a raisin in an apple-filled blintz, blame Avi.
Heimish’s Blintzes is currently under the ownership of the latest patriarch of the family, Marvin. Marvin led the business well. He instituted a website early into the advent of the internet, and successfully defeated the onslaught of food fads that ransack New York City every few years: frozen yogurt shops, rice pudding, and even the short-lived algae bars of the early 2000s. No matter what came to Astoria, from food truck to pop-up, Heimish’s Blintzes survived.
Marvin thought he saw it all, but nothing could prepare him for the crepe craze of 2017. It had been generations since there was direct competition to the mighty blintz. The closest Marvin knew of was back when Avi ran the business. In 1948, A blini shop opened across the street. Boychik Blini’s aimed to uproot Heimish’s reign and did so with gusto. They started doing something Avi never considered: they used fruit. Of course, competition helps spark creativity, and Avi’s response of a sweetened cheese filling became an instant sensation. But while Avi was hard at work trying to develop the recipe that would save him, things turned even darker. Boychik Blini’s owner, Yussle Davidson, knew he needed more than flavor; he needed publicity. He invited Ernest Hemingway to come and have a nosh.
To everyone’s excitement and Avi’s dread, Hemingway agreed. On the day of the big visit, Boychik’s was bustling with excited fans and members of the press. They had a full Klezmer band playing hit songs such as “Brana the Beauty of Belarus” and Oy’ How My Feet Ache for You.” Yussle had even unveiled his latest creation, “For Whom the Batter Rolls,” a blini filled with sour cream and caviar. When Hemingway arrived, the music stopped, and the press, pencils in hand, waited as the writer approached the counter. From across the street, all Avi could do was sit with his head in his hands and wait anxiously for the end. As Hemingway sat down, Yussle proudly placed the plate in front of him. Flashbulbs from various cameras went off. Hemingway looked down at the plate. He looked back up at Yussle, confused, and asked, “Where’s the booze?” Expecting his favorite Italian beverage, he instead faced a soggy pancake filled with fish eggs. Much like a sentence in one of his novels, Hemingway left abruptly. Such was the end of Boychik Blinis.
While the Boychik fiasco was certainly a trying time for Heimish’s, it was nothing like what Marvin was currently facing. Within three blocks down 30th Ave, there were 9 new crepe places. They ranged from French and Japanese-style to one place called “A Pile of Crepe,” which served what they described as “a deconstructed offering of a traditional dish.” For $23, customers would get a plate of raw flour, a glass of milk, and some Nutella.
At first, Marvin welcomed the competition. He thought the variety and newness of these shops would have people longing for a more traditional taste. When that didn’t happen, and as more creperies opened, he thought the over-saturation of competition would favor him, as new fads tend to burn out fast. That didn’t happen either. Instead, local groups started organizing Crepe Crawls, where they would go from one establishment to another, sampling the goods. Marvin asked one of these crepe crawl organizers why they don’t stop at his shop, to which they responded, “You sell blintzes, not crepes; it would confuse people.” At this point, Marvin realized he was speaking with an idiot, and there was no point in pushing the conversation further. All the while, profits for Heimish’s Blintzes continued to drop.
Not knowing what else to do, he went to his rabbi. Marvin entered Rabbi Sheila’s office cautiously. He had heard her singing to herself from the hall and wanted to enter between verses so as not to catch too much of a headache. At the same time, he couldn’t afford to delay this conversation. Thankfully, as he entered, she stopped singing.
“Marvin, it’s so good to see you, as always. Please come, sit.” She gestured to the couch on the other end of her office. Rabbi Sheila sat down in the plush chair perpendicular to it. “So, what brings you my way. It’s not often I see you during the week.”
Marvin, in this moment of admission, crumbled into his seat. The weight of generations pressed down on his shoulders as he was about to admit his struggle to keep his business open. Seeing this, Rabbi Sheila reached across the table and grabbed his hand. For as terrible a singer as she was, her ability to comfort and guide those who sought help was unparalleled. Marvin began to breathe, and the words flowed.
“It’s the business. I just can’t keep up with all these creperies. It seems like every day, three more pop up. I just sit and watch people walk down the avenue past me and into their doors. I’ve tried almost everything, and nothing has worked. I created the One Blintze Challenge full of horseradish to attract kids, but no one comes. I’ve tried using superfoods like goji berries or gold sea moss gel, but no one comes. I’ve hired a local artist to create a Blitzed Blintze mascot, and that only attracted hipsters who kept talking about how they were eating my blintzes “ironically.” How do you eat something ironically? I’m at my wits’ end. I may have to shut down.”
Upon saying these words out loud for the first time, Marvin sank deeper into the couch and himself.
Seeing this man in such pain, Rabbi Sheila could not help but empathize with him. She took a moment to think.
“Marvin, I know these times are challenging. I wish there were some passage from the Torah, or sage wisdom, I could share that would make these difficulties go away. But, as much as I wish it were the case, not everything can be solved with a quote from Gamliel. All I can offer is support from the community. I can talk with Sisterhood to get your delicious blintzes added to the vendor rotation for oneg, and of course, we have the annual gala coming up. We will need to bring in outside catering. I know this will not solve the larger challenge you are facing, but hopefully it will help you stay afloat until things change for the better. You know, you could go for mikvah in the East River. I don’t know if it will help, but it would certainly give you new things to worry about.” Shiela liked to try ending things on a lighter note. She believed that even in the most trying times, a little levity could help snap a person out of the spiral of negative thinking.
Marvin’s definition of levity was different from that of Rabbi Shiela’s so he just smiled awkwardly at her upon hearing the suggestion.
Marvin thanked the Rabbi for her help. He didn’t really know what he expected to happen from this meeting, but knowing he had the support of the community and that he could be a part of those upcoming events did put him a little at ease. She was right, it wouldn’t solve the larger problem, but it did give him some hope. He left the temple feeling a bit lighter. Maybe he would figure out something to keep Heimish’s open.
The one thing that Heimish’s had, which none of the creperies did, was tradition. Marvin had 119 years of blintze-making experiences behind him, and even better, he had the notes. Every blintze maker from Heimish through Marvin kept a detailed journal of their time with the business, their experimentations with recipes and flavors, and the various dealings they had along the way. When Marvin got back to the shop, he went into his office, closed the door, and prepared to go through all of the journals.
Reading these journals was not a straightforward task. Heimish had been a sort of blintz-making zealot while also being a devoted Jew. This duality of self resulted in the creation of a rather unique journal writing and reading practice for those who inherited the shop. Firstly, all of the journals were written on parchment scrolls, like the Torah. This was not only expensive to keep up, but it also required sofer training. However, as tedious as writing journal entries was, Marvin’s challenge at the moment was with reading them. One did not simply open a scroll and get to it; there were ceremonies that needed to be followed. For this, he summoned his assistant Skyler into the office. She would act as the gabbi, as well as help in rolling the scrolls as Marvin went through them.
The ceremony:
Skyler: “Calling Marvin, son of Jason, grandson of Avi, blintze baker, the 4th.”
Marvin walked from his desk over to the first journal scroll.
Marvin: “Blessed is the blintze which is golden and rolled.”
Skyler: “Blessed is the blintze which is golden and rolled.”
Marvin: “Blessed is the blintze, most delicious of pastries, who has filled us from among all pancakes to give us this deliciousness. Blessed are you, o’ blintze, who gives us nourishment.”
And with that, Marvin took out his sacred spatula and started chanting through the journals. On occasion, Skyler would have to step in and correct Marvin on the mispronunciation of a name of a customer or flour-monger, but for the most part, Marvin read Heimish’s journal without issue. Unfortunately, that first journal did not hold many answers. Since Heimish’s blintzes were plain, and the business landscape of Queens had changed significantly since then, no lost secrets were to be found. In truth, Marvin had been reading these journals since his early teens as he trained to one day take over the business. He knew the words well but was hoping he would find something that could spark a new idea. After a couple of hours, he had finished Heimish’s journal.
The Ceremony:
Skyler: “Be Hungry, Be Hungry, and May We All Be Nourished!”
Marvin: “Be Hungry, Be Hungry, and May We All Be Nourished!”
They rolled up the Heimish scroll, danced with it around Marvin’s desk, and put it away, only to pull out Avi’s scroll and start the process over.
It was about a quarter of the way through the Avi Scroll that Marvin paused and leaned close to the parchment. Skyler, thinking he was stuck, offered “the word is Velveeta.” Marvin was up to the part of Avi’s story where he had started working on a cheese-filling recipe to combat Boychick Blinis. It was an interesting look at some of the failures before Avi finally found success.
“No, no, thank you, Skyler, but I’m not stuck on a word. Take a look at this and tell me what you see.”
Skyler leaned in closer and followed the spatula to its rubbery tip. She squinted her eyes, “scratches?”
“No, not scratches, scrapes!” Marvin announced excitedly.
“What’s the difference between scratches and scrapes? And why are you so excited by either?” Skyler asked.
“Scratches are just the normal wear and tear one would expect to see in the scrolls over the passage of time. But scrapes are how we erase entries from the scroll itself. Scrapes are intentional. It means something else was here before the Velveeta experiment. Look! It tracks down many parashot. If you look closely, you can still see the impressions of most of the words.”
“What does it say?” Skyler asked with baited excitement as if she hated her job, and this was the first remotely interesting thing that had happened since she responded to the Craigslist post.
“Let’s find out!” Marvin quickly grabbed some tracing paper, usually reserved for blintz measurements, and a pencil. He placed the paper over the journal sections in question and lightly ran the pencil over it, slowly revealing the lost text.
Marvin mumbled the first few words at a barely audible volume until he stopped dead in his tracks, looked up at Skyler, and asked her to leave.
“But what does it say?” Skyler asked, both shocked and disappointed that she would need to go back out to work.
“Oh, it’s nothing, just some nonsense about Gouda. Don’t worry about all of this,” he gestured over the scroll. “I can do the closing prayers myself later and put it all away.”
Skyler left the office and returned to the empty storefront. She buried herself back into her Yiddish lessons on Duolingo. Diamond League was calling, and maybe, just maybe, she’d start to understand what her job was.
Back in the office, Marvin stood over the scroll, still frozen. While there was a very brief mention of Gouda in the erased entry, that was not what shook him; it was another word, much more prominent and repeated, “golem.”
This was the exact text that Marvin was able to uncover from Avi’s scroll:
“Boysenberry? What on earth is a Boysenberry? Horsefeathers! Boychick has done it again with his latest flavor, which I still contend is not a real fruit. Meanwhile, my experiments with Gouda have not gone well. Poor Esther was sick for days after trying it. Every day gets worse and worse for the business. Everyone is raving about the fruit-filled wonders of Boychick’s Blinis. I know I am on to something with this cheese idea, but I just don’t know if we’ll survive long enough for it to work. I am ashamed to admit, I fell into desperation last week. In a moment of fear-driven weakness, I went across the river and sought out the Kabbalists who live within Central Park. Zalman Cohen told me about them after maariv one night. He told me to bring coffee and a cinnamon babka as a gift offering if I wanted their help.
I went to the park and just started yelling “Babka and Coffee, Babka and Coffee!” like a putz. Suddenly, I saw the glimmering eyes of a long-bearded man peering out from behind a bush. He was very disheveled, but his eyes had a spark of wisdom to them. Without leaving the shrubbery, he asked, “Chocolate or cinnamon?” I told him cinnamon, and he beckoned me to follow him into the woods. How desperate was I that I actually followed? Deeper and deeper in we went, until we came to a secluded clearing with caves along the edges. I had never been to this part of the park before and am confident I never will again. From out of the caves came three other kabbalists, all with long white beards, white yarmulkes, and white robes. I felt like I was attending Kol Nidre on safari. As each mystic came out, they looked at my guide and said, “Cinnamon?” He nodded, they nodded, and then sat down. I presented them with the babka and a thermos of black coffee. They ate, and I waited. Such is my life these days. Finally, one of them looked up and asked, “So, what brings you to our neck of the woods?” They all burst out laughing at this. The leader then looked back at me expectantly, “nu?” So I told them.
I told them about Boychicks, I told them about the boysenberry. They were very excited about this and wanted to know if he made babkas, too. They must have seen my distress and quieted down. They turned to each other, spoke inaudibly, and then turned back. “This blinis man? He wishes to do you harm?” I told them, I can’t speak for what is in his heart, but he is doing me and my family harm. They asked, “And you have spoken to him about this?” I told them I have tried on several occasions, but his answer was always the same: “Business is business.” They were shocked. “This is no way to treat a fellow member of the community! This is not the behavior of a mensch. We have received many babkas from across Astoria. If there is room for so many bakeries in one neighborhood, why did this man have to open his shop directly across from yours? No, this will not do; we will give you the answer. We will give you the instructions on how to make a golem to rid your community of such an evil man. But be cautious, it will cause much destruction, so be sure of your intent before you move forward.”
And with that, they handed me a paper with the instructions and silently returned to their caves.
