In Jerusalem’s Beis Yisrael neighborhood, the famous oven’s flame burned faithfully every week, down through the generations for 126 years, sending a heavenly aroma through the streets and producing Lendner’s Bakery signature specialty— challah for Shabbos. Until three weeks ago
Photos: Baruch Yaari
T
he note announcing the closing of Lendner’s Bakery three weeks ago, taped to the establishment’s nondescript door on a narrow side street in Jerusalem’s Beis Yisrael neighborhood, quoted a pasuk from Yirmiyahu (31:3): “I shall yet rebuild you and you shall be rebuilt, O Maiden of Israel; you will yet adorn yourself with drums and go forth in the dance of merrymakers.”
Anyone who might have found that melodramatic or over the top (“Hello? It’s just a bakery?”) had obviously never tasted Lendner’s challah.
The appeal of this fluffy bread with the crunchy crust was driven home to me several years ago when I had to fly to Antwerp for Shabbos. When I called ahead to arrange my accommodations, my host, a Yerushalmi expat, told me in no uncertain terms that to gain admittance to his home, I had better arrive in Belgium with fresh Lendner challos in hand.
Something in his tone told me not to take this lightly. And so, on a Thursday night, only a couple of hours before my flight was scheduled to take off from Ben-Gurion, I begged my driver to take a detour deep into the warrens of chareidi Jerusalem for what I promised would be a quick errand. I guided him through the maze of streets, retracing the route I took as a child every Erev Shabbos.
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