Episode
An Orthodox Jewish Congregation Keeps on (Food) Truckin' in Birmingham
- Podcast
- Gravy
- Published
- Sep 24, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 1414
- Processing state
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Summary
In “An Orthodox Jewish Congregation Keeps on (Food) Truckin' in Birmingham,” Gravy reporter Margaret Weinberg Norman documents the story of JJ’s Sandwich Shop, a glatt kosher deli on wheels operated by the oldest Orthodox Jewish congregation in Birmingham, Alabama. In the Magic City, food trucks are familiar, but both kosher restaurants and authentic delis are rare. Knesseth Israel, founded in 1889, is filling both gaps while exploring a surprising new way to sustain its historic congregation. Like many small Southern synagogues, Knesseth Israel faced dwindling membership, financial pressures, and questions about its future. After selling their synagogue building and parting ways with their Rabbi, the congregation chose a bold new path: to open a business. Knesseth Israel’s restaurant venture began with a vegetarian crepe enterprise called Holy Crepe, and through experimentation evolved into JJ’s, which specializes today in homemade corned beef and pastrami. On our listening journey we meet Beth Scherer Smokey, a longtime member and volunteer who led the congregation through this transformation. We also meet chef Nathan Lichenstein. Raised in an Orthodox Hasidic family in New York, Nathan once ran a glatt kosher food truck in the city and cooked for thousands of pilgrims annually in Ukraine. His move to Birmingham brought not only culinary expertise but also new energy to Knesseth Israel. His passion for good, kosher food has made JJ’s both a crowd-pleaser and a point of pride. This episode places JJ’s within the wider history of Birmingham’s Jewish foodscape, once clustered along Fourth Avenue, overlapping with the heart of the historic Black commercial district and the old Jewish neighborhood. Community historian Barbara Bonfield recalls memories of borscht, kosher b…