Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Tailor Makes ‘Kosher’ Suits for Rosh Hashanah

It turns out an Indian-born tailor has a yiddishe kop when it comes to making suits for observant Jews. He has attracted many customers concerned about upholding the prohibition against wearing shatnez by making a line of suits that are certified as free of the mixture of wool and linen forbidden by the Torah.

Mohan Ramchandani, the owner of Mohan’s on East 42nd St., near Grand Central Station in Midtown, Manhattan, is doing a brisk business in the sale of shatnez-free suits ranging in price from $500 to $5,000. Like any good businessman, Ramchandani spotted a niche market, and he honed in on it.

But beyond merely identifying the whole shatnez concept in general, he perceived the particular problem that observant Jewish men faced in buying a suit off the rack. Even suits when suits’ labels did not list any offending fibers, shatnez was often found when they were taken for testing in special laboratories. KJ Singh, sales manager at Mohan’s, told the New York Daily News that linen canvas is often used to line collars and breast pockets of wool suits. Mohan’s found an alternative material as an effective substitute.

Although shatnez testing is not expensive, paying for garment alterations once shatnez is found can be costly. The sechel of making pre-tested and certified suits simply saves customers time and money — something Jewish customers especially appreciate at this busy time of year. Mohan’s, which has sold a total of 500 “kosher” suits so far, has tens of orders for suits that need to be delivered in time for Rosh Hashanah.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.