On more than one occasion Shmerling and I engaged in barter: two bars of dark chocolate for one plastic jar of peanut butter, which had managed to remain intact despite traveling overseas in my duffle bag.

Schmerling also had a weakness for cucumber and mayonnaise sandwiches. Naturally, he was adamant about using a particular brand of Swiss mayonnaise – one that, I kid you not, came in a tooth paste-type tube.

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Today Schmerling is a respected Chabad shaliach somewhere in Florida. For me, though, he’ll always be that earnest young man meticulously applying mayonnaise from a toothpaste-type tube onto French bread.

Getting back to the Rubashkins, I realize the immense company they built from scratch is under intense criticism from certain quarters. But I confess to harboring a most favorable bias when it comes to that family – a bias based on some very generous young Rubashkins sharing some very delicious cold meat with some very hungry fellow yeshiva students on some very long Shabbos afternoons.


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Shmuel (Shmuly) Tennenhaus is CEO of VanityKippah.com. He lives in Seattle, where he has developed an affinity for fish.