Jewish Icecream

When I was about 4, we lived in an apartment in a house on Brenner Street in Newark.   The house had four apartments, 2 on each of 2 floors.  Brenner Street was right off of Springfield Avenue, near 10th Street, which was later the heart of the area the Newark riots took place.   My grandfather Savel owned the building and lived in the apartment across the hall from us.

Now, Jews eat a lot of sour cream.   I guess I might not have taken to it naturally as a child, given its tart taste.   So in my family we called it Jewish ice cream.   I'm guessing that was a ploy to get me to eat it (just as I called water "water juice" for Nina to get her to drink more water.)  Anyway at some point around age 4 I was to have my first opportunity to walk around the corner to Springfield Avenue and buy something from a store totally on my own.   So as chance would have it, my parents sent me off with money in hand to buy Jewish Ice Cream.   I trotted around the corner and stood nervously at the deli counter.   It took a long time for the shop owner to notice me, but at last he did and asked me what I wanted.   "Please may I have some Jewish Ice Cream?"   "Vat are you talking about?  Ve don't have nuttin' like dat!!!"  I was mortified, scared, and defeated, by this huge failure.   Ran crying home and my father tried to recover by taking me back to the store and explaining that what I really wanted was sour cream.   Oy Vey, it still hurts.

By the way, the other thing I remember about that deli is they had one of those ads in their window where the eyes of the person seemed to follow you as you walked past....pretty spooky!