Meet Mendel Glick, the Holocaust survivor who founded Australia’s largest and finest kosher bakery chain, Glick’s Cakes and Bagels. Born in 1924 in a Polish town near the Czech border, Glick was in 6 concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He was the sole survivor of his family; his parents and 9 siblings were all murdered. After the war, Mendel lived in a DP camp and worked in the kitchen of a US military base. He and his wife Sarah, also a survivor, moved to Melbourne in 1949, where they opened their first bakery in the late 1960s. Glick’s is famous for its delicious European-style boiled bagel. But, on Friday nights before Shabbos, you’ll see people lining up around the corner for some of Glick’s piping hot challah! Mr. Glick passed away in 2017, leaving a legacy of more than 170 children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren – and he left the world a sweeter place. #shabbatshalom
Peter Haskin/The Australian Jewish News
Contributor: Jill Goltzer