07-07-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Our Grocery Stores Are Gems
John Catsimatidis's success is a paradigm of the American immigrant experience ('Want Soviet Bread Lines? Vote for Zohran Mamdani,' op-ed, July 1). My wife's grandparents escaped Vienna after the Nazis began rounding up the Jews. In the process, her grandfather had to sign over his butter, cheese and egg business in a forced sale. Making it out on the last ship to Havana, he went on to open a small bodega, accumulating a handsome $1,000 profit before migrating to Borough Park, Brooklyn. There, he opened a kosher grocery serving the growing community of Holocaust survivors. Decades later, the grocery was taken over by a Turkish immigrant.
New York is a melting pot and city of opportunity. Mr. Mamdani's public groceries would spoil this grand American tradition.
