Moishe Ferencz: Supermarket Widower
A screenshot of a video showing the funeral of Mindy Ferencz in Jersey City on Wednesday night. Image by Molly Boigon
Moishe Ferencz opened JC Kosher Supermarket on Martin Luther King Drive in 2017 after he and his wife, Mindy, moved from Brooklyn searching for more financial stability and space for their three children. Moishe and Mindy ran a successful business together, putting out hot kugel and cholent for their customers each Thursday and selling at least five different varieties of yogurt. The store was a gathering place where customers came to talk politics. Children came by in masks and princess crowns to collect Halloween sweets from Moishe, who handed out individual pieces of candy from a clear Tupperware container.
But the search for a better life also brought Moishe unimaginable grief.
One day, he stepped out to bring cake to the synagogue and Mindy took her place behind the counter, only two be ambushed by two anti-Semites who shot and killed her and two others.
“You gave me everything I ever wanted,” he said in Yiddish during her funeral, sobbing. “And now, I have to do it all without you.”
Moishe’s strength and loving relationship with his late wife is an inspiration to Jews and non-Jews everywhere, and we humbly honor him by including him in the Forward 50.
