A family chooses a court whose ruling they won't be able to appeal, then goes back to figuring out how to make a better roast chicken.
Squirrel Hill, the historic Jewish neighborhood of Pittsburgh, is home to roughly 50,000 Jews, three day schools, and about a dozen synagogues across the denominational spectrum. In the 1940s, Murray Avenue held at least ten kosher butchers, a handful of poultry dealers, two fish markets, six bakeries, and fourteen grocery stores; Rabbi Bernard Poupko, who led Congregation Shaare Torah from 1942 to 1996, called it the yidisher gas — the Jewish street. Today the street has one kosher supermarket, Murray Avenue Kosher, owned by the Markovic family since 1996. A second is now planned two blocks away, after talks to sell the original store to a prospective buyer, Yitzchok Glassner, fell through in 2025. The dispute between the two sides — over financial records the Markovics say Glassner used without permission to secure his new store's lease — is now before the Beth Din of America, the country's highest rabbinical court.
Saul and Beth Markovic bought Murray Avenue Kosher in 1996. Their son Aryeh became a partner in 2021, and by last year his parents were ready to retire — which is roughly when Yitzchok Glassner, new to Pittsburgh, came asking whether the store was for sale. The two sides signed a non-disclosure agreement. Over several weeks the Markovics handed over their tax returns and profit-and-loss statements, the ordinary paperwork of a sale in progress.
The sale fell apart. Glassner decided to open his own kosher supermarket instead, in a vacant building two blocks down Murray Avenue. To secure the lease, he told a bankruptcy court that his new venture was in the process of acquiring Murray Avenue Kosher — which it was not — and submitted the Markovics' financial documents as part of that filing. The Markovics say those records are now sitting in a public bankruptcy file, shared without their consent, for a purpose they never agreed to. Glassner, in a statement, said he had tried to reach an understanding and acted properly throughout.
Both sides could have taken this to civil court. Instead, by mutual agreement, the dispute is going to the Beth Din of America, a rabbinical panel based in Manhattan. It functions like private arbitration, except the judges are rabbis, each often specializing in a different area — commercial law, contracts, family law — and once both parties submit, the ruling is final: neither side can refile the same claim before a civil judge afterward. A decision is expected within weeks, likely delayed by Yom Kippur and Sukkot; a written opinion could take longer still. What the Markovics are asking for is not the new store's closure. It's money — compensation for what the competition, launched this way, has already cost them.
None of that has slowed Aryeh Markovic down. The deli counter is being relocated, a hot-food menu is going in — chicken sandwiches, burgers, seating — and he's hired a chef to make fresh sushi daily. One of his brothers is flying in to help him get through it. "It's imperative to get it done quickly," he said. He is waiting on a ruling he will not be able to argue with once it comes, and in the meantime he has ninety-seven phone calls stacked up on everything he still can decide. He mentioned the number and laughed, a little wearily, before picking up to take the next one.