From Rags to Knishes: A Quest for Torah Life and Chinuch in Depression-Era America

An autobiography by Yisroel Eliyahu Dubin

How did one man succeed in keeping his family frum?

Yisroel Eliyahu Dubin, known as Ellis, considered himself a simple Jew, but he was determined to send his sons to yeshivah. However, none existed in Philadelphia in 1929, so, leaving behind a comfortable life surrounded by loved ones and a secure job as an upholsterer, he and his family moved to New York’s Lower East Side. But the Great Depression as well as Ellis’s commitment to not working on Shabbos led to him losing job after job, until he finally started his own knish business.

Ellis endured numerous hardships and disappointments. He lost his job, he lost his savings, but he didn’t lose his determination.

From Rags to Knishes includes an annotated version of Ellis’s memoir and his daughter’s eyewitness account, along with heartfelt letters from his father in Russia, who was fearful that his loved ones in America would assimilate. Readers will be fascinated by this true story of how Ellis Dubin went from stuffing sofas in Philadelphia to selling knishes on the Lower East Side. His efforts paid off, and today he has hundreds of descendants who are still loyal to Hashem and learning Torah in communities across the globe.