<Begin Segment 7>

BF: Well, let's talk a little bit about "Kosher Canyon." [Laughs] Can you tell me why it was called this and what that refers to?

AS: Well, I can tell you that when we moved, when we moved from that rental house on Twenty-fifth Avenue, there were a lot of Jewish people there. But it, there were also some non-Jewish people. Then we moved to a house on the corner of Twenty-sixth Avenue and East Alder, and I believe every house on both sides of the street, there were Jewish people living in them. I don't think we, that would go from maybe even Yesler Way to East Cherry, and then up and down East Cherry there was, I remember there was a small grocery store which is now, I think, a restaurant. And, and then across the street from there there was a sort of a deli, a small deli/grocery store. Okay, so that was between Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth, oh, going back to Twenty-third, on the corner of Twenty-third and East, East Cherry was a large, larger grocery store owned by a Jewish family. Now, there was also a store, it carried mainly produce, right across, that was not Jewish, and that was a Japanese American family. That one I remember, I guess, because it was different from the others. [Laughs] And there were at least two kosher meat markets on East Cherry, and then later there was a kosher bakery and deli on East Cherry, then we had one more. And so, so -- oh, and then there was a small synagogue on Twenty-sixth and I think East Fir or Spruce, or maybe between those two streets. Oh yes, and then the Talmud Torah was built, that's a Jewish day school. It actually was just to teach about Judaism, learn Hebrew, and so it was an after-school program. And that was, so that was in the, it was on Twenty-fifth, right off of Cherry, East Cherry. So most of the people -- and not only Twenty-sixth Avenue with all of its Jews, on the other side going north a bit, mainly Jewish families. And so it, I remember Twenty-ninth Avenue had a lot of Jewish families. See, coming back, there was a street called Temple Place, and I don't know if they changed the name. But anyway, anyway, it was just, it was just lot of... and then, of course, there were Jews that, who had more money, who were in the Madrona, sort of Madrona, well, it was the Madrona district. And...

BF: But they would come to this area to do shopping, perhaps...

AS: Yeah.

BF: ...or go to Temple.

AS: Right, yeah. The synagogues at that time, there was Herzl which is now on Mercer Island, but it was on the corner of Twentieth and I think that was Spruce. And that was a very large synagogue, but there's, we call that Conservative Judaism, but they do keep kosher, but men and women can sit together, they don't have to, in the Orthodox, the women have to be separated, either upstairs or sort of a curtain divider, women on one side, men on the other. And then the Orthodox synagogue was, oh, I think I told you, on Seventeenth... was it Seventeenth? Where the Langston Hughes Performing Arts, or whatever they call where that is. That was called the Bikur Cholim synagogue, and of course, eventually the Jewish people began to move away, and the Orthodox seemed to go towards the Seward Park area, so now Seward Park has the Bikur Cholim is there, and they actually merged with, the Bikur Cholim merged with this little synagogue that was on Twenty-sixth Avenue, so it's, I think it's called Bikur Cholim Hadath, I think that's right. There are two other Orthodox synagogues, not, I mean, one's just across the street, the other is down a half, I mean, a few blocks. But it's, those are Sephardic synagogues. And, and I was told that one of the Sephardic synagogues, it's mainly people from the island of Rhodes, and the other one -- and I don't remember which is which, the other one people are mainly from Turkey. But since then, we've all mingled. Temple De Hirsch was something I would have never thought of. I mean, that was, they were the Reform. We are members of it now. [Laughs]

BF: [Laughs] But back then, your family was Orthodox.

AS: Yeah, wouldn't have considered it.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.