The Definition of a Shonda
C’mon Jack. Would signing a deal ensuring the workers of 2nd Ave Deli can return wherever you reopen be so terrible?
Gulam Mustafa had been working at the 2nd Ave Deli’s counter since 1974; Marsha Agata had been a waitress there since 1973. Neither had received notice that the deli was going to close after New Year’s Day.
“What I don’t understand is why [deli owner Jack Lebewohl] couldn’t just come up to us and tell us he was having a problem and he’d be closing,” Mustafa said. “He had no words for us, just a little piece of paper that said closing for renovations.”
“It’s called a shonda in my language,” Agata said, referring to the Yiddish word for “shame.”
Both workers believe Lebewohl plans to open another restaurant elsewhere, and they want to be rehired if he does. If he doesn’t rehire them, workers said they would picket the new spot.
Please, Jack. The only thing worse than 2nd Ave Deli leaving us for good would be the bastardization of it by mistreating the people who helped it exist over these last decades. Abe wouldn’t do this to them.
The full story, again from Metro.
Interesting, thanks. There has to be something more to this story than simply a rent increase.
As someone who loved that place despite the high prices, and who lives two blocks away, it’s very sad each time I walk by and see the gates down and sign removed. I’m sure the new place won’t have a Molly Picon room, and that’s a REAL shonda!