The Cobbler of South Williamsburg

Photograph © James Angelos-All Rights Reserved
One of the perks of living in NYC is to get The City, part of the New York Times' Sunday supplements, which is also available in its web edition. This week, in a nod to Passover, it published an article titled The Kibitzer of Cobblers’ Row (for those not familiar with the Yiddish term, a kibitzer is 'a meddler who offers unwanted advice to others'), along with a slideshow of photographs of the Hasidic cobbler, peppered with Dovid Miyerov's voice.

The accompanying article tells us that the Hasidic enclave of South Williamsburg is where cobblers can make a good living. In this community, males wear long, double-breasted coats with matching felt hats while females wear pleated skirts and pearl earrings...there are no sneakers here.

It is here that Bukharan Jews from Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have brought their long cobbling heritage, and Dovid Miyerov is one of those.

On the slideshow's audio we can hear him say: " good health, good customers...and life....that's it".

That's it indeed.

Posted in: Festivals,Multimedia,Photojournalism