The Synagogue

 

SHULS were very different in the Pre-Borsalino Era. Everybody went to a big SHUL that smelled of herring, had SIDDURIM and other books with English in them and had a balcony for the women. You knew there were women there because you could actually see them. You could wave to your mother and see Mrs. Lichtenstein’s daughter that everybody was trying to get you to meet.

Every neighborhood had a Young Israel that all the FRUMMIES went to. Sometimes Mrs. Lichtenstein’s daughter went to the Young Israel because a lot of the young, Modern Orthodox people gravitated there. Mrs. Lichtenstein’s daughter now wears one of those expensive human hair wigs because her Borsalino Era children refuse to been seen with her unless she covers the grey hair they gave her.

Today’s Borsalino Era SHUL is much more pious that the big-old SHULS we went to. It’s a little place with tables instead of benches, SIDDURIM that don’t have English translations and a steel and concrete, hermetically sealed, soundproof MECHITZA, behind which Mrs. Lichtenstein’s granddaughter sits. Of course we don’t know this for sure because nobody has ever seen the women, if any, that attend the SHUL. The Borsalino Era SHUL no longer smells from herring - that was banned in the late 60’s along with Hertz CHUMASHIM.

The Young Israel is still in the neighborhood, and reasonably well-attended by young Borsalino Era Jewish men. Of course, true Borsalino Era Jews shun the place because the newly reinforced MECHITZA still doesn’t go all the way to the ceiling and the young men that go there, though reasonably educated for “AH-MERICAN” boys, are in no way FRUM enough for Mrs. Lichtenstein’s granddaughter.

 

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