S

ome of my 
friends on the 
left do not like 
Israel at all. They 
make glib proposals 
for what Israel should 
do. In theory, they 
say, if Israel followed 
those proposals, it 
would become the 
most morally scrupulous country 
in the world — if any scrap of Israel 

would continue to exist. 
Of course, they imagine that as 
Israel “just ends the occupation” and 
“just opens the border with Gaza” 
or even “welcomes the beginning of 
a bi-national state,” the Jeffersonian 
democrats of the Palestinian leader-
ship will peacefully come to power, 
and all will be well. 
In practice, those proposals seem 
poised to result in the death of mil-
lions of people, which my friends 

on the left try not to figure out. All 
these scrupulous morals would leave 
the entire land ruled by the saintly 
Palestinian Authority or by Hamas. 
Sometimes, these friends on the left 
manage not to use the traditional 
vocabulary of anti-Semitism because 
these friends think they are anti-Zi-
onists, not anti-Semites. Sometimes 
they do say anti-Semitic slogans, but 
only because they have such high 
moral standards, and the honest 

March 21 • 2019 5
jn

T

his is a story 
about Matt 
Prentice and the 
people he feeds. I’
m 
one of those people, 
as far as back as my 
non-unique children’
s 
menu orders at the Deli 
Unique, as momentous 
as the mashed potato 
martini bar at my wedding, as recent as 
last week.
For the past four years, Matt Prentice 
has been serving 1,000 meals a day. His 
patrons are not deli diners with exact-
ing specifications for their soup or sym-
phony subscribers or business travelers 
taking in views from the 72nd floor of 
the Renaissance Center.
Matt Prentice feeds the shelter resi-
dents, area homeless and food insecure 
neighbors of Cass Community Social 
Services.
This is not an Aaron Sorkin legal 
drama. That would quote directly from 
depositions, discovery and the 50-page 
Oakland County Circuit Court judg-
ment against Matt Prentice for $2 mil-
lion in damages and enforcement of a 
5-year non-compete clause that expired 
late last year 
.
This is not a parable of atonement, 
altruism or asceticism. Like others, 
Matt Prentice’
s work and world are 
different than they were before the 
recession. He flew too close to the sun 

on wings of pastrami. After the 
lawsuit, Prentice took his turn 
among the siblings taking care 
of their mom. 
Then he went to Cass 
Community Social Services 
for the same reason others go 
to Cass Community Social 
Services — he needed a job 
and a place to live. Now he 
stays in an apartment above 
Cass Community United 
Methodist Church. There is 
a communal bathroom that 
out-of-town volunteer groups use when 
they are staying at the church. He takes 
the Q-Line to check out new restau-
rants. He alternates between cigarettes 
and Altoids.
This is not a flashback episode. If it 
were, it would cut back to Matt Prentice 
working in a kitchen at 12 years old, 
starting as a chef at 16, enrolling at 
the Culinary Institute of America and 
experiencing hunger over the weekend, 
having relied entirely on his classes for 
food. That story would include Danny 
Raskin, without whom Prentice thinks 
his first restaurant would have failed:
PROBABLY THE greatest change in 
any restaurant almost anywhere is that 
of Deli Unique (formerly Northgate) 
at Greenfield and 10½ Mile … It’
s an 
entirely all-new ballgame … and clean 
as a whistle now.
Big reason is the new ownership … 

youthful, ambitious, so-eager-to-please 
Matt Prentice, whose 80-hours-a-week of 
creativity is beginning to pay off.
It’
s now a gourmet delicatessen, if 
there is such a thing … and Matt’
s 
Culinary Institute of New York, Fox & 
Hounds, Belanger House, etc., expertise 
shows some very fine colors.
Nor is this an episode of Ice Road 
Truckers. There were vans — or van, 
after one of them broke down — arriv-
ing at Gleaners Community Food Bank 
before the sun came up and anything 
had disrupted the sheet of ice that 
formed overnight and caused another 
day of school closures. 
I meet Matt there to pick up the gov-
ernment surplus food he had ordered 
and to look through the pallets of 
rescued food for ingredients: milk, pep-
pers, carrots, kumatos. 
As the ice sheets break apart over the 
course of the morning, the Windstar 

jewfro

Matt’s Apprentice

views

Ben Falik
Contributing Writer

Louis 
Finkelman
Contributing Writer

Matt Prentice

continued on page 8

continued on page 6

commentary
Dangers on Both Sides

My
Story
My
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