You’d have thought Butcher David Gantman was probably more at home with his cutlets and chickens than he was with the Torah scrolls he held, posing for this picture. And yet, according to the Steinfeldt Photography Collection of the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest, some time in the 1930s, Gantman rescued these Torah scrolls from a St. Paul synagogue (possibly the Sons of Moses) which burned to the ground.
The Orthodox Sons of Moses congregation was largely composed of Russian and Rumanian Jews, who worshipped in what had been a church on the West side of St. Paul on Thirteenth and Canada St.
Here’s a picture circa 1945 of David and Joe Gantman at work at Gantman’s Kosher Meat Market, at 682 Selby Avenue. The guy on the left went into a burning synagogue and walked out with two Torah scrolls.