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Does Shaw's know something we don't about a sudden influx of Jews in West Roxbury?
By adamg on Sat, 03/07/2009 - 6:12pm
When you walk into Shaw's on Spring Street now, the very first thing you see is a display of Passover foods (except, strangely, macaroons).
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Comments
Huh?
The local supermarkets have fairly large displays for Passover food every year.
Yes, but not like this
As soon as you enter the West Roxbury Shaw's, you have to take a 90-degree left turn to get into the main store. Right there, they have a display case that you can't miss, if for no other reason than you don't want to run into it. Normally, it's full of either fireplace logs or charcoal briquettes, depending on the season. But now it's all Passover stuff, and it's pretty dramatically right in your face. In years past, they'd have the Passover stuff over by the "International Foods" area.
Also new at this Shaw's: No more Citizens Bank mini-branch - where it used to be is now just a wall with an ATM stuck in it. As we were checking out, I told the kidlet I hoped the bank workers got out before they were walled in. I think she's taken to ignoring me on purpose when I say stuff like that :-).
Does Shaws have "Passover" Coca-Cola? :-)
Usually, Coke with high fructose corn syrup is not kosher for Passover, so they bring in "Passover" Coke made with real cane sugar. I hear that it's a 1000X better than the corn-syrup Coke.
Could some major religion please
...declare high fructose corn syrup to be totally forbidden, so they have to stock the real sugar soda year-round? Kthxbye
Your prayers may be answered!
The reason why HCFS is used versus sugar is that sugar is expensive, and importing cane sugar to the US carries very high tariffs - and of course keeps the corn lobby happy.
Rumor has it that Pepsi is coming out with cane sugar versions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew this year. I'd splurge an extra quarter or two for the real thing.
And I believe HFCS is
And I believe HFCS is subsidized like crazy. Taxes are actually paying to cause the obesity and diabetes epidemics. :)
You are correct, sir!
No argument there. Rather than turn it into a political/health thread, however, I will say that I'm looking forward to the cane-sugar version of Mountain Dew.
Check Target!
At least here on the west coast Target stores are carrying Coke made with cane sugar coming out of bottling plants in Mexico. Check the labels to see whether it's making its way east.
FWIW: some of the line of Hansen's sodas that are made with cane sugar rather than HFCS. I think it's carried at Trader Joe's.
Oh, yeah
I forgot about the Chestnut Hill Star being closed for renovations. I think they closed that Citizen's branch around the time they opened the branch at the Stop & Shop.
This Jew perceives differently!
No, they really don't. I often have to go to several stores to find one that has sufficient Kosher-for-Passover groceries for the entire week. Remember, it's not like Chanukah where you just need some dreidel cookies and some nifty candles to go along with the usual food and supplies in your house. You have to get rid of (or put in the basement if you're like me and don't like to waste things) everything in your kitchen and buy ingredients that are KFP for all of your eating, cleaning, toothbrushing, etc. during the week. The display of a couple boxes of matzos and some latke mix in most grocery stores doesn't do it. Most stores don't carry KFP toothpaste or soap or really very much else, so I usually end up going to a Kosher grocery store.
West Rox = South Newton these days
Simple answer. South Newton lost all it's supermarkets, so we shop in West Roxbury now. Everyone from Chestnut Hill down to Oak Hill in Newton uses the West Rox supermarkets because they are not only the closest to us now, but they are also cheaper, and have better parking than trying to fight the parking lots of the northern part of Newton, or the Watertown and Waltham Stop and Shops.
The truth is, Newton has screwed it self out of a ton of revenue by closing every supermarket in the southern end of town. Dumb? You betcha!
Did the city of Newton
Did the city of Newton somehow close the supermakets itself? Or did they just go out of business?
Newton
the omni on Rt 9 has been closed since the fire, and the Star Market on Rt 9 is closed I think (or the parking is closed) because of the construction as well.
And the stop and shop on the VFW....
Minor correction
The Omni actually closed only briefly after the fire, then re-opened for quite some time. Then, finally, closed for good.
The Stop & Shop on the VFW Parkway closed when they opened the SuperMegaGiganto Stop & Shop in Dedham - not really all that far away.
If I understand correctly, however,
There's been a fairly substantial jewish population in West Roxbury for a number of years. jews began moving into West Roxbury at least 40 years ago, after the B-BURG fiasco that took place back in the late 1960's and early 1970's.
Tell me more
What's the B-BRG fiasco?
I've posted about the B-BURG fiasco on another thread here.
To give you a summary, however: Boston's B-BURG (Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group) Program was a consortium of some 20 Boston-area banks that operated in partnership with Real Estate agents, that cropped up in the late 1960's, shortly after MLK's assassination, to ostensibly help first-time low-income African-American homebuyers to break out of the ghetto and attain the responsibility of homeownership for the first time, with FHA (Federal Housing Admn)-insured mortgages. The B-BURG program, however, was a fiasco.
Instead of allowing black homebuyers access to housing throughout the city and therefore creating integrated neighborhoods citywide, the Jewish neighborhoods of Mattapan, and parts of Roxbury and North Dorchester were chosen for this experiment, citing resistance from the other white ethnic neighborhoods nearby, and affectively "redlined", restricting black homebuyers to the "redlined" areas. Often enough, black homebuyers who'd found decent housing that they liked that were just afew blocks outside the B-BURG area(s) were denied loans.
Unscrupulous real estate agents warned Jewish families to "sell and get out before property values declined". With the advents of these calls, along with threats, arsons, firebombings, break-ins, and the proliferation of other crimes, pre-existing white flight from the "redlined" neighborhoods increased, creating an overcrowded ghetto that still exists today. In short, instead of helping people break out of the ghetto, B-BURG had enlarged, expanded and re-enforced it.
Hope I've been of some help here.
Wha?
Where are all these Jews hiding in West Roxbury? Yes, there are Jews there (there's even a temple, although it's on Park Street, not Temple Street), but really, there aren't that many, unless you count all the denizens of the several dozen Jewish cemeteries in the neighborhood.
The Jews of Mattapan and Dorchester largely moved to the real suburbs, like Natick, Framingham, Sharon and Stoughton, not West Roxbury.
They're not all in West Roxbury.
While it's true that most of the Boston-area Jews have moved to Brookline, Newton and other suburbs, there are some in West Roxbury, Allston-Brighton, Somerville, Cambridge, and the Back Bay-Beacon Hill area.
'Some' vs. 'fairly substantial'
OK, glad we have that out of the way, because as much as I'd love to sit down for a nice roast beef on rye with a knish on Centre Street, it's just not going to happen any time soon.
(there's even a temple,
Surely you mean Corey Street, not Park Street...Corey Street, not to be confused with Corey Road, Brighton...
Yes, you're right
Never ask me for directions! Yes, it's the street that runs into Centre where the Theodore Parker Church is.
Temple
The temple is on Corey St. not Park St.
The no macaroons reminded me
The no macaroons reminded me that years ago a co-worker was nice enough to go through the basics of some of the traditions for this Goy. It all started because I was curious about the macaroons for sale and the gist relayed to me was that unlike matzah, etc there was really nothing in particular that warranted their inclusion. They are just there I guess. Kind of cool in a weird way.
Uh...
This is about the fifth or sixth time this has been brought up on this forum.
The jews fled Roxbury and Mattapan because the more conservative elements tend to vote down tax increases to support public schools (since in those days it was more often to have separate jewish schools) - the property values stay low, the blacks move in, the jews move out. There are actually several books written on this.
In many Shaws in the area, they do the Passover supply display...just like how they have tons of Easter candy. What is the shocker here? Most of the Jews moved out of Rozzie and Slumerville years ago - I know it is shocking,but try to cope.
Harmon & Levine's "Death of an American Jewish Community"
is an excellent book on the subject, I think.
It 's also not true that no Jews reside in the city these days, though.
Who said they didn't?
Plenty of us landsmen all over the city of Boston. Why, these days, a good Jewish kid can even grow up to become city council president.
My point exactly, adamg.
This:
is what I've been getting at.
In a very roundabout way
You started by saying there are a lot of Jews in West Roxbury.
"A lot" is not the same as "some."
Well.....
I stand corrected, though I do know several Jews who grew up in West Roxbury.
I know it's shocking, anon, but
try to cope with the fact that not everybody's going to agree with you on everything.
You're not making any sense whatsoever
Your allegation is that the Jews fled Roxbury and Mattapan because they didn't want to pay higher taxes for schools?
Is there some way you can explain the part where most of them went to places like Brookline and Newton, where the schools are much better funded and the property taxes are much higher?
Excuse me, anon(not verified),
but I wasn't the one who said this:
:
at all.