P I T TS B U R G H
December 14, 2018 | 6 Tevet 5779
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Candlelighting 4:36 p.m. | Havdalah 5:40 p.m. | Vol. 61, No. 50 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL New leader for Kollel Jewish Center
Still same name, Pinsker’s welcomes fourth owners
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Chabad distributes more than 1,100 mezuzahs in memory of Tree of Life victims
Rabbi reaches out in effort to engage younger population. Page 2 LOCAL Iranian ex-pat raises TOL funds
By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer
A Student’s early-morning action turns into movement. Page 3 LOCAL Communities on edge Antisemitic flyers found in Squirrel Hill; Toledo ‘copycat’ arrested. Page 4
Café 18, and state liquor import — the wine portion of the business, as Cohen explained — Cohen was intrigued. Years earlier, Cohen had helped create a kosher restaurant two stores up the street, in what is now Green Pepper, he said. At the time, the restaurant’s owner, who was living in Cleveland, was interested in opening a steak place and needed someone to manage it. While he was in town, Perelman connected the Cleveland man with Cohen, who Perelman knew had an interest in food services. Cohen became the manager, helped convert a site that sold stockings into a restaurant and eight months later considered buying the business. But Cohen walked away from the offer because “I was young,” he said. For the next 20 years Cohen sold real estate — “it was a safe consistent thing,” he said — and operated a catering business on the side throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. “It was measured and practical. You don’t have to worry about covering rent, and
ndrew Kotov has lived in his Squirrel Hill home for about 20 years, but will soon be affixing the first mezuzahs to its doorposts, thanks to a ChabadLubavitch of Pittsburgh initiative in memory of the 11 people murdered in the anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue building on Oct. 27. “We are not very religious, but I think it will be good for the kids to grow up with mezuzahs,” said Kotov, who immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1993. He plans to affix about 10 mezuzahs throughout his home, with Rabbi Yisroel Altein coming by to assist. Ko t o v ’s son Fifth-graders and daughter are from Englewood, currently preparing N.J., sent 100 for their bar and bat hand-decorated mitzvahs, he said, mezuzahs to and he hopes the be affixed to Jewish homes mezuzahs will help in Pittsburgh. Photo provided by “push them in the Rabbi Yisroel Altein right direction.” “The mezuzahs are a positive sign,” Kotov said, “especially with the events at Tree of Life.” On Oct. 28, the day after the Tree of Life murders, Pittsburgh’s Chabad rabbis convened to “see what we should do,” said Altein, spiritual leader of Chabad of
Please see Pinsker’s, page 16
Please see Mezuzahs, page 16
Dan and Baila Cohen are the fourth set of owners since Pinsker’s was established in 1954. Photo by Adam Reinherz By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer
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hree-and-a-half decades after Shlomo Perelman and David Nadoff purchased Pinsker’s from Abraham and Donald Butler, who themselves had acquired the Judaica business from Milton Pinsker, Perelman has passed the enterprise on to Pittsburghers Dan and Baila Cohen. (Nadoff had already sold his share in the business to Perelman approximately two years after their purchase from the Butlers.) As is common in this community, the Nov. 1 transaction involved an almost circuitous reunification of past associates. In 1988, Dan Cohen, who was then leasing computers and software, helped Perelman set up his first computer system. “So I was in and out of here over the years, and because we are friends I’ve helped him out with different things,” Cohen said while seated inside the store located at 2028 Murray Ave. in Squirrel Hill. When Perelman informed Cohen on Oct. 23 that he was interested in selling Pinsker’s, along with its associated restaurant business,
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