Fire at Local Market Leaves Jewish Community Determined to Help

After a weekend electrical fire shuttered an Oakland, Calif., kosher market, the Bay Area Jewish community is vowing to help the neighborhood fixture rebuild.

According to the Oakland Fire Department, the Aug. 2 one-alarm blaze caused about $30,000 worth of damage to the Oakland Kosher Market, which supplies meat, dairy and other foodstuffs adhering to Jewish dietary standards. Because the fire happened on Shabbat, when the store is closed, no one was hurt.

Although the owner and community members are hopeful the market will open in time for the advancing Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah – some seven weeks away – they admit that the closing of Oakland’s only kosher grocer has made food shopping difficult.

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“It’s the only place where I can get [kosher] organic beef,” said resident Zev Padway. “It’s a tragedy for the Jewish community, because it’s a valuable resource for going to a store and knowing that everything’s kosher.”

According to Rabbi Dovid Labkowski, co-director of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Center of Oakland, the stricken store is one of three kosher markets in all of Northern California. It’s also the only butcher outside of S. Francisco, which for some residents of Oakland can be an hour’s drive away.

“It’s a landmark,” says Labkowski. “It’s where everyone goes to shop. Everyone gets their meat there.”

For Yaakov Albietz and his family, Oakland Kosher is a shopping essential. With the store’s temporary closing, he and his wife are exploring such options as ordering online, buying a larger freezer, shipping from Los Angeles or traveling to S. Francisco.

“It’s kind of shocking,” said Albietz, who runs a software development company in Berkeley. “For now, it just means chicken for Shabbat and borrowing gefilte fish from neighbors. We’re trying to be committed to their reopening. We want to support the local butcher, and will make sure to go back there when it reopens.”

Moshe Mitrani expressed similar sentiments.

“It’s a loss, it’s a big loss,” he says. “I hope it will reopen soon.

For community members and their leaders, the most important assistance that can be offered while Oakland Kosher sells non-perishables out of a nearby warehouse and awaits insurance claims is to demonstrate solidarity.

“The store helps a lot of people keep kosher, so we’re trying to give it moral support,” says Rabbi Yehuda Ferris of Chabad-Lubavitch of Berkeley. “We’re praying for the store’s recovery.”

“We’re going to make it as easy as we can for them to reopen,” echoes Rabbi Bentzion Welton of the Vaad Hakashrus of Northern California, which supervises the store’s Jewish dietary laws. “We’re hoping that it’s going to be quick.”