Thursday, September 19, 2024
Potential Trump visit to iconic Gottlieb’s deli has Hasidic world aflutter
When the U.S. Secret Service scoped out Gottlieb's deli, a kosher spot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this week, word spread through Hasidic Brooklyn faster than flanken falling off the bone.
"The excitement in Williamsburg is palpable," reported Matzav.com, an Orthodox news site. Hasidic WhatsApp is crackling with speculation.
The rumor mill was predicting that former President Donald Trump, who is making a rare campaign visit to the New York area Wednesday, might visit Gottlieb's on Thursday. Some reports said the protected visitor might be Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican nominee for vice president. Gottlieb's owner isn't sure, but talks as if it might be the guy at the top of the ticket.
And that he will likely nosh.
"Trump, I imagine, will order something to eat, will possibly eat here, meet and greet people, but I'm not sure how," the deli's owner, Menashe Gottlieb, told a reporter outside his restaurant Tuesday, speaking in Yiddish.
Gottlieb said the Secret Service had on Sunday and Monday visited the restaurant, which was founded 65 years ago by his grandfather, Zoltan Gottlieb, a Holocaust survivor.
Corned beef and cholent
Wood-paneled Gottlieb's evokes an earlier era of Yiddishkeit, with its retro sign and hot dogs rolling on the grill. "As old school as you can get," wrote one Facebook fan.
It's a particularly popular hangout for Jews of the Satmar sect, one of the most insulated of Hasidic groups.
But Gottlieb's, which seats about 50, welcomes outsiders, too. Yelp is full of reviews from tourists praising its heavy Ashkenazi specialties: pastrami sandwiches, cholent, fried onions, matzo ball soup and five kinds of kugel. Non-Hasidic tour guides regularly bring their clients for a meal at Gottlieb's, which is Glatt kosher, which literally means it uses a specific kind of kosher meat but is generally used to imply "strictly kosher."
"Had a taste for a corned beef sandwich," wrote one Gottlieb's customer, who gave it five stars. "The quintessential Brooklyn deli experience."
That quintessential-ness makes Gottlieb's an attractive spot for politicians trying to court the Jewish vote.
Though Trump is not popular among New Yorkers overall, and the majority of Jewish Americans did not vote for him in 2020 or 2016, he has the support of many Orthodox Jews.
Why would Trump go to Gottlieb's?, the Yiddish-speaking reporter asked its owner.
"Gottlieb's is Gottlieb's," said Gottlieb, who was told by the Secret Service to pay close attention to his phone in the coming days.
In the meantime, he said, "officially we're open for customers."
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