Several times in the past year or so I’ve been sent to Boro Park with a name and address in hand to do a Mishpacha interview. I’m quite familiar with Boro Park; I live ten minutes away and have lived in Brooklyn for twenty four years. But each time as I enter a house I must have passed a thousand times before in my car I find myself discovering yet another amazing person I never knew existed. It leaves me with the feeling I could knock on any random door in Boro Park and be sure to discover a terrific story inside.
Isn’t this a beautiful reflection on frum Yidden that they live so discreetly yet do the most incredible things? You scratch the surface of someone who looks like a walking definition of the term pashute Yid — the person you elbowed in the fruit store on Thirteenth Avenue last week as you reached for the tomatoes — and underneath you find surprising accomplishments or incredible stories. It gives a whole new meaning to the pasuk “kol kevudah bas melech penimah” (Tehillim 45:14).
My interviewee of the week was Mrs. Devoirala Spira of Boro Park who was one of the original founders of the organization Tomchei Cholim. She fits into a mental category of mine I call the Boro Park Bubbies — which in this case should evoke images of gray panthers rather than doddering grannies.
I’ve interviewed several ladies like her including most recently Mrs. Hindy Zafir [for Kosher Inspired]. Not one of these ladies is taller than five feet. They all have sensible shoes short coiffed wigs and the same spotless apartment kitchen with shiny vinyl chairs and pictures of great-grandchildren on the fridge. But the best part is that the Boro Park Bubbies have more energy than most people half their age; they’re spry and clear-eyed behind their glasses. Holocaust survivors they’ve spent their lives diligently rebuilding what was lost. Many of them have yichus but they don’t wear it haughtily or affect any particular holiness; they’re the most down-to-earth people you’re likely to meet.
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