H O L D C O U R T.

Lipkin’s Bakery at 8013 Castor Ave. in Northeast Philadelphia closed to the
public on May 2.

Jewish Exponent archives
“New York is supposed to be the knish
capital of the United States. But people
have come down from New York ...

because they like our knishes better.”
STEVEN NAWALANY
Klein from Th e Inquirer wrote [an
article], and then literally all hell broke
loose. People were coming in and buy-
ing four, fi ve, six dozen knishes at a
time just to freeze them.”
For loyal customers, Lipkin’s is sym-
bolic of a quintessential Jewish bakery,
a staple in American Jewish commu-
nities. “Th ey say you cannot be Jewish on
an island, that being Jewish is being
part of a community, and part of your
community means your food and your
people around you,” Abington resident
Irénke Margit said. “Having Jewish
places for Jewish community is sort
of a Philly cornerstone, I think, of a
community.” Th e origins of Lipkin’s, however,
started out a little lonelier, when the
grandfather of Mitch Lipkin, a baker,
emigrated from Poland to the United
States. Secretly taking shelter on a boat,
Lipkin was diverted by the ship’s crew,
who threatened to throw him over-
board into the ocean, Nawalany said.

Lipkin made the argument that he had
a greater purpose on the ship and in
America: He could bake.

Upon arriving in Philadelphia,
Lipkin bought a South Philadelphia
bakery space from the Lipton family.

Aft er a fi re in the South Philadelphia
location, the bakery moved to two loca-
tions in the Northeast; another fi re at
one location gave Lipkin’s its home on
Castor Avenue.

It’s the same spot Barbara Ravisky
has patronized since the 1970s, favor-
ing the bakery’s hamantaschen and
rye bread over the knishes. Ravisky,
79, remembers Lipkin’s as always being
packed. “Everybody would come in — it was
always crowded,” she said. “Sometimes
you couldn’t even go into the store. You
had to wait until someone got the order
and left .”
Before Nawalany took over, he was in
the automotive service business for 25
years but loved the job for the social com-
ponent: He loved greeting customers.

He was also a decades-long fan of
Lipkin’s, with the bakery even supply-
ing his cake for his bar mitzvah. It’s a
love that continues today, making the
interim period between bakery spaces
bittersweet for Nawalany.

“It’s only been a couple of days, and I
miss it,” he said. JE
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