Erik Greenberg Anjou Deli Man

Deli Man is a documentary film showcasing Jewish food and its inseparable link to American Jewish culture. Once numbering in the thousands, there are now fewer than two hundred delis across America.

Produced and directed by Erik Greenberg Anjou, this is the third work in his trilogy about Jewish culture. The celebrated preceding films are A Cantor’s Tale and The Klezmatics - On Holy Ground. The principal guide of Deli Man is the effusive and charming Ziggy Gruber, a third-generation delicatessen man, owner and maven (as well as a Yiddish-speaking French trained chef) who currently operates one of the country’s top delis, Kenny and Ziggy’s in Houston. Kenny and Ziggy’s has been touted in press reviews ranging from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives to the L.A. Daily News.

“Texas?” you ask. Shalom, y’all. Because the story of the American deli is the story of Jews – their immigration, migration, upward mobility, and western assimilation. New York may always be the most populous, celebrated and redolent Jewish node. But substantial and influential Jewish tides also flowed from Chicago to Detroit, San Francisco to L.A., and Galveston to Houston and Dallas. How this burgeoning tribe moved and thrived from city to suburb and from suburb to strip mall, and in the process created a legacy and new generations of wealth, is the sunny topside of the Jewish-American journey. The shadowy understory is how that very success engendered the deterioration of the old, traditional urban block and neighborhood – the epic synagogues, Mom and Pop storefronts, and nucleus of Jewish cultural life at which deli was the succulent heart.

Supported by The Hugh Fraser Foundation.