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Before I begin, let me just say “SIT IN IT”, COMMERCIAL JUDAISM!

So I was strolling around the Home Depot looking for long wooden planks and boards of wood for our very first Sukkah together. How exciting! Suddenly I hear the electric boogaloo playing in four-part harmony. It was my wife calling.

“Itamar, why for you are building a Sukkah from wood? We need to feed our 90 lb golden retriever! Please try to spend under $100 on the Sukkah.”

“Challenge accepted!” I said, and threw my phone back in my pocket.

Okay, so a Sukkah for under $100 …

I had already measured the balcony inside-of-railing to inside-of-railing, so I had exact measurements.

Home Depot Logo

Here’s what I used:

• Nine 10ft PVC Pipes
  • $11.25
• PVC Pipe Cutter
  • $11.00
• 15ft x 12ft Light-colored canvas (who likes to sit in a room with dark-blue walls?!)
  • $26.95
• 100 Zip-ties
  • $6.75
• About 7 stocks of corn (minus the corn) – NOT from Sukkah Expo!
  
  • $15

GRAND TOTAL: $70.95

Holy crap! We didn’t even reach the 3/4 mark of my max budget yet! Would this anger the gods of commercial Judaism? Shall I decorate the sukkah with hundred dollar bills to make up for my thriftiness? Is it less kosher? What if I had a rabbi watch as I slaughtered the Sukkah? Then would it be more kosher?

Because I’m pretty sure the minimum for a Sukkah at sukkah expos is at least quintuple what I spent.

Let me help you compare prices, and maybe you can decide for yourself:

MINIMUM IS over $400 at http://www.sukkahdepot.com/English/

THESE OPPORTUNISTS SELL A SUKKAH FOR OVER $1200 (WITHOUT SCHACH!) http://www.sukkahoutlet.com/ez-sukkah.html

MINIMUM SUKKAH: $389 http://www.judaicany.com/sukkahs.shtml

Sukkah below is for demonstrative purposes only. Do not ingest orally.

Sukkah

It’s a well documented fact that Jews live with Jews. The 5 Towns, Teaneck, Englewood, Skokie, etc. Anyway, point made. This makes living anywhere else a real shlep.

My wife and I live in Montclair, NJ – and the overwhelming response we get from (at least Orthodox) Jews is “Montclair? Where is that?!” – when we explain that it’s right next to Clifton, Passaic, and West Orange, they heave a sigh and normally say something like “Oh, we know where THOSE places are.” And before you can slip into a comfortable topic like the weather – the follow-up question is, without fail, “WHY?!

Well, folks – here’s my answer:
Montclair, New Jersey is really nice. It’s got clean streets, cute shops, nice cafes and nice people all around. Naturally, there are no Jews. Why, oh why do we Jews insist on living in messy, slightly-tilted, non-gentrified areas? Far Rockaway, Staten Island, Passaic (yes, Passaic), some parts of Teaneck.

At first I thought it was because of price and affordability, which would be completely and totally acceptable. However, after moving to Montclair, and paying a really decent rent in a neighborhood with close to zero crime, no vagrancy, paved streets, and reasonable apartment rentals, I decided that it’s a self-inflicted choice on their part. You have the choice – you can live in a nice town with no crack addicts and polished roads, and you choose to live on the other side of the tracks. Or am I just pissed because there are no Jews in my area, and I wish I could have my cholent and eat it too?