Mitch Lurie
Mitch Lurie's family traced its heritage to Eastern Europe, with his mother's parents coming from Latvia and his late father's parents from Lithuania. Both sides arrived in South Africa in the 1920s in search of opportunity, with his mother's family entering the meat cutting business and his father's family working in the clothing trade. His parents met in Cape Town, married in Johannesburg, and raised four children. Mitch grew up modestly but with much love during the apartheid era, attending public white schools. A devoted athlete, he played soccer, cricket, rugby, tennis, and swam, later serving in the South African military and representing the country at the 1985 Maccabiah Games in Israel, where the team competed under the name Sons of Israel due to sanctions.
In 1986, with conditions in South Africa deteriorating, Mitch came to visit his sister, who lived in Dallas. While staying in Boston with a friend's brother, he received a job offer to help run a jewelry factory. Though he had been working for his father's kosher butchery and playing professional soccer, and dreaded telling his father, he accepted the position and began a new life in America. He spent two years in Boston before the company asked him to establish a distribution center in Dallas, which he ran for five years. He met his wife Dean, from a small West Texas town, at the company, and the two married in 1992.
After leaving the jewelry company, Mitch endured a series of business ventures and setbacks, including a baseball card store, leather furniture stores, and a packaging business, at one point filing for bankruptcy. Undeterred, he eventually acquired a struggling store, took over a furniture factory, and built his own company, the Leather Sofa Company, with Dean at his side. By the time of the interview he owned a large factory in Lewisville and was opening his seventh store. The Lurie family, including sons Tanner and Seth, is affiliated with Congregation Shearith Israel, where Dean underwent conversion. Mitch remains deeply grateful for the opportunities America afforded him, often noting he arrived in Boston with only 67 dollars in his pocket.
Full Transcript
good morning uh this morning we're interviewing Mitch lurry for the roots to boots project which is a project of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society good morning Mitch thank you so much for being with us no problem uh hopefully we can enjoy this I think it's going to be great um the way we'd like to start these interviews is to ask you to give us uh some history about your both your maternal and your paternal sides of your family going back before South Africa going back to Europe and to tell us a little bit about the history of your family in Europe prior to the days
in South Africa as much as you can possibly remember from what you've been told uh it's not how much I remember but it's what I've been told my mother's parents both came from latva and my late father's parents both came from Lithuania and they arrived in South Africa in the 1920s and uh my mother and father's brothers sisters all of them Unfortunately they got involved in some of the second world war dealings that went on and so really uh Heritage comes from Eastern Europe do you know what their motivation was to move to South Africa um it was looking for opportunity and that's really what
both of them came my father's actually my mother's um mother's brother came over to South Africa first and then brought my mother's mother over and what opportunities did they find in South Africa at that time at at the time they got my mother's side of the family got involved in the meat cutting business they were butchers and my father's side they um were involved in the schmata business which is um the material and stuff to do with clothing and stuff what was your um your mother's family name my mother's family name was Becca b e k r MH and in South Africa and um her
maiden name was demski and when they came to South Africa it became demovsky somehow the name changed and and how did you how did your uh parents meet uh my parents actually met in Cape Town South Africa um they were set up by some friends of theirs and they started dating in Cape Town South Africa and both of them moved to Johannesburg and that's where they got married and what what year was that they got married in 19 U my brother was born in 57 and so 19555 and at the time that uh that your parents married what was your father's profession uh he was
a butcher so he actually went over to my mother's worked for my mother's family at the time so he was a butcher at the time and how many children in your in your family in my immediate family there's four of us I've got an older brother who runs my late father's business in South Africa which happens to be a kosher Butchery and then I've got a sister that lives in Dallas her last name is heritz and I've got a younger brother that lives in Atlanta so there's four of us tell me about your childhood in South Africa I'd like to know about your schooling about
your um social life what it was like as a child there we we grew up in a part eight South Africa so the schools that we went to were um white schools when I say white schools black people weren't allowed to attend our schools because it was in a area of uh Johannesburg where black people weren't allowed unless they had a pass to get in and that was what a part8 was all about was the the white government which was actually Dutch um set up these laws and rules uh restricting black people from entering the uh White areas so the white people had their areas
growing up in South Africa in the parted area I'm embarrassed to say but was really really nice for white people because you had maids and people that did your yard and there were all the black people and you didn't pay them very much and it made our life really easy but that's what we were brought up doing and we we didn't know any differently until we really grew up and got older to start realizing what was going on was your school a a public school or a religious school uh I went to a public school um my primary school uh was a mixed boys and
girls school and my high school which was also a public school was old boy school and that was quite common in South Africa so you had uh you had black uh maids and and H household help in your own home yes we did and I mean we we grew up and um fortunately we were lucky enough to grow up with not a whole lot as far as F finances and everything we always had a lot of love and there was always food on the table but we grew up very very modestly but we were still able to have two maids in all all the time
because they were so cheap did you ever get to know the children of those of the maids uh we would see them uh over the holiday periods they would come up and they would stay but not for very long so we really didn't get to know them did not okay were you involved at all in any U Zionist youth organizations uh I was involved in um I actually went to a camp my parents made us go to a camp it was for under privileged Jewish children and they would make us go to this camp and they would always say they wanted us to bring normality
to the camp because these were very underprivileged children they couldn't afford going we I'm not sure if my parents got help for us to go but we were kind of normal to go we were good Sportsmen we were you know in mainstream when most of the kids had went to this Camp wen't when you say they made you go was it was it an unpleasant experience for uh for us it really wasn't but it wouldn't be something we would have chosen because there were other camps you can go to where the people that were better off than us would those children would be going there
but my parents wanted us to teach or taught us that we can go to these camps to see what how fortunate we are even as little as we had was it was it a Zionist camp or was it just something for underprivileged children it was for underprivileged Jewish children and what about what about uh anything that was Zionist oriented was there any was there any um um Zionist feeling in your family uh my father uh if he had his way he would have gone to live in Israel on a drop of a hat he went to Israel and he fought in the 1949 War he
was actually in the South African military at the time when the war broke out and he got an honorable discharge so he can go fight in fight for Israel in the 1949 war was your mother opposed to moving there uh yes she was because she had a life over there in South Africa and she was comfortable over there and really no nobody wants to just drop everything and move to a place where you really don't know anybody or how the life is over there what were your what are your most your Fondest Memories of your childhood in South Africa well for me the Fondest Memories
was just the tradition of Shabbat dinner every Friday night and that was the only night of the week we weren't allowed to go out and also playing sports I was and I still am a sports junkie and I was fortunately God gifted me with some talent and I lived for playing sports what sport in particular uh I played soccer and I played Cricket I played rugby I swam on the team I play tennis whatever whatever the ball would bounce I'd catch it was this school related or were you involved in any national teams uh it was all School related and I was fortunate enough to
be selected to go play soccer in the mbia games for South Africa so you went to Israel I went to Israel to play in the mabia games in 1985 and my younger brother came with me he was also on the soccer team what did you think of Israel when you went there in that year um that was the second time I had been to Israel the first time I went I was just I had finished the military in South Africa and I was just touring around and I went and I lived on a Kut and I really loved Israel um when I went for the
makabi games it was a lot different because we were staying in a hotel and everything was cated for us and it was quite a tough deal for South Africans at the time because the apartate movement was still very very strong and there were sanctions against South Africa so when we went to the makabi games for to play soccer we weren't allowed to be called South Africa we had to be called mod in and I believe the translation is Sons of Israel right and um there were some teams that refused to play against us because of the sanctions what about the the Israeli population how did
they treat you uh fantastic you know you just felt warm when you went over there you felt like you were at home I mean I just remember the very first time I went to Israel when I walked off the airplane you just felt different over there you felt like something was holding you and the first time I saw the Western Wall it was just a really good experience for me and I was very young when I did that at that point uh did you have any personal interest in perhaps moving to Israel no I never thought about it because I family was so close and
you know I lived in South Africa I was enjoying South Africa you know nobody enjoys going to the military and uh when I went we had to go for 2 years and we had to go it wasn't a choice it was something that we had to do but I was playing soccer I was uh doing really well actually played soccer professionally over there for a little while and I had no interest in going anywhere so After High School um did you go go on to college no um I I was a little different from most children most children went to college in South Africa it
was a little more difficult to go it was harder to get accepted into college and there weren't many choices and unfortunately I wasn't smart enough actually my parents and everybody that knows me would say I was smart enough I didn't apply myself enough but I wasn't accepted to go to college but I had no interest cuz all I wanted to do was play sport mhm so tell us about your sports career then um it was you know I played soccer all the time during my school life and I always had I always played club soccer I played Club Cricket I played Club Cricket at quite
a high level and then when I got out of the when I when when I was in the Army I played for the South African Army I was selected to play for the South African Army soccer um and when I got out of the army uh I got involved in a professional South African soccer team and I played there for 3 years before I actually came to America were you married in South Africa or no I came to America in 1986 and I was single and I started in Boston tell us about your choice to come to America and uh what what the this was
well why and why you chose Boston you know I I I honestly believe I'm the luckiest person in the world when I first came to America I came because things were really not looking great in South Africa there was a lot of crime and things were happening really really close to me and so I decided to come visit my sister who had immigrated to America and she lived in Dallas so I came to visit her and her and her friends would sit with me and say Mitch you need to find a a job over here you don't need to stay in South Africa things aren't
there's a dead end over there things aren't going to be great and I always used to tell them you know if somebody wants to hire me they'll find me rather than me find them and they all said not going to happen it happened who found you what happened I was I was visiting A girlfriend of mine's brother in um Boston and my sister went out for dinner with some friends of theirs and one of the people in the group said they're looking for a young South African to help run a Jewelry Factory does anybody know of anybody so my sister gave them my name but
said he doesn't want to stay in America so good luck with that so I was actually in Boston at the time and I got a phone call from these people and they asked me if I'd be interested in a job so I said well you know I'll never say no to anything I don't know what you're talking about so they I flew up to Dallas where the head office was and I interviewed with them and they offered me a job in Boston and they said you know where were you staying and I told them where I was staying and I actually happened to be staying
with one of the guys that worked in their Factory it was a girlfriend of mine's brother so uh I actually asked them for a whole lot I asked them to do my papers for me and for a car and accommodation thinking there's no ways they were going to do it and they were gracious enough to help me out and um do whatever IID asked for but the hardest part for me was I was playing soccer professionally in South Africa and I was working for my dad in his kosher Butchery so how am I going to tell my dad that I've been offered a job and
I've really accepted the job and I'm not coming home MH so I phoned my dad and I said to him I've I've been offered a a a job actually I've got I'm going on an interview what do you think about me going on on an interview and my dad said you know Mitch there's not a whole lot in South Africa for you because things aren't really good in South Africa you should go and see all it would be is an insurance policy if they can do your papers for you it's an insurance policy and once you finish you know five six years working there get
the experience you'll come back to South Africa so I'd already taken the job and I was scared to tell my dad that's what happened so the very next morning my dad phoned me and and sorry and he asked me I've interview went and I told him that I'd taken the job anyway for the next 2 3 weeks I couldn't even speak to my dad cuz I'd get too upset and I I just knew that this isn't what he wanted it wasn't what I wanted and so I decided to make a new life in America now my mom and dad did support me they they they
gave me all the support that I needed but it was really tough in the beginning cuz I really didn't know anybody in Boston other than this girlfriend of mine's brother and so I was just lucky enough to get a job and to get an opportunity in America and how long did you stay in Boston I was in Boston for two years um the economy in Boston was really was very very good McDonald's were paying people $750 an hour to start and the economy in Dallas was really bad it was in the mid 80s it was 1986 that I took the job and um so the
people that owned the company they decided they wanted to make make a distribution center in Dallas so they wanted to know if I wanted to come over to Dallas and start a distribution center for me for them so I actually came over and I got hired contractors and everything and we built a distribution center for these people in Dallas and what was what was the name of the company the name of the company was ver light gold and there were actually South Africans that owned the company and so I came over here and we opened up a distribution center over here for them and I
helped run their distribution center for 5 years were you still a single gentleman uh I was single and I met my wife at that company you know when I lived in Boston my younger brother worked for them also and he always would say there's this girl over here she's really really cute you should meet her you should meet her but I lived in Boston and she lived in Dallas so you know it wasn't anything you could think about but i' would always speak to her on the phone because I would buy all the um colored stones and it was a jewelry company and I would
uh do all the purchasing and she would be accounts payable so her and I would have to speak on the phone so we spoke on the phone and we started you know getting to know each other on the phone so tell us about this young woman that you met um she's from a small little town in West Texas what's her name her name's Dean um she comes from a very small town in West Texas I think 900 people and she was working for the company in Dallas and um one of the company policies was we weren't allowed to date anybody so secretly her and I
started dating and we dated for a while and then eventually I had to go to the owners and say listen I can't live this way I know that your policy is we not allowed to date you know you either have to fire me or you have to fire H you have to fire both of us and they chose to keep both of us wow that was great and so so we dated for um she says 5 years and I said it was like 3 months seriously I'm just kidding um and I always wanted to go into sales the company did a whole lot for me
they did my papers I'm very very gracious and without them I wouldn't be where I am today they taught me a whole lot of how to do business but I always wanted to earn some more money so I wanted to get in sales and it never was a sales position or they made sure there wasn't a sales position for me and the reason was in the company it was quite a big company there was a frontal key there was a code for the alarm and there was a combination for the vault and there were three owners each of those owners only had one of those
three things I was the only person in the whole company that had access to all three of those things so they didn't want me to get out of the Distribution Center and they were paying me well to be a distribution manager or supervisor or whatever it was but I wanted to earn more so after I got my green card I went to them and I said you know I'd like to get into sales and they said there's no position so I decided that you know I've hit a dead end and I need to move on so I told him that uh I'm done with being
a distribution manager and I moved on my wife she had already left and she was working for a healthc care company and uh I opened up a baseball C store with a friend of mine and two investors and my wife Dean started working over there and that didn't last very long unfortunately when you got Partners everybody's got different ideas and as soon as there's a little bit of money it goes to places where it shouldn't go and nobody really agrees So eventually my Partners bought me out and I got into the Fage industry so tell us about tell us about two things one um did
your do you and your wife have a family yes we do and then also what business did you open well we the and I got married in 1992 and in 1994 we were blessed with our first child Tanner uh he's going to be 20 next month and in 1997 we had our second child Seth and he's just turned 17 um Tanner is at University of Oklahoma he's a sophomore and he's doing business over there and Seth is at Plano West High School and he is a junior um after the baseball cart store uh my brother was working in the furniture industry selling furniture and he
was very passionate about it and there was an opportunity for me to get involved with his brother-in-law to um start a store and once again I was lucky enough to work with somebody who was very different from me and it didn't work out and I keep saying I was lucky because you learn from people that don't do things the way you would do them and as long as you can learn the good things you're okay what store was that it was a leather furniture store called INF leather and I was supposed to buy into the store and it turned out he didn't really own it
his father did and so it really ended up quite messy so I started working for somebody in the leather furniture business and started selling furniture and then there was a South African that went into a packaging business to help them um help turn them around and he actually hired me to get into the packaging business and I did that for two years and I really didn't like it but at at that time you know um deian and I weren't doing that well and I had to have a job so I was working on the weekend selling leather furniture and during the week selling packaging and
I got involved with one of the guys that used to work with me selling furniture and we decided to open up a leather furniture store is that what you're doing now and that's what I'm doing now but it's once again I had to learn from somebody that didn't do things the way I did and I was lucky enough to have him as partner and everybody said to me Mitch this guy isn't right he he doesn't do things right you don't want to get involved and I thought I knew better and um I went into business with him and after 4 years unfortunately we to close
the business down because um he was you know doing things not the same way I would like to have have them be done so I had to get hold of an attorney and he told me the best thing for me to do is uh get rid of the partner by closing the business down and unfortunately I'd filed person I mean I had uh signed personally on a lot of leases and everything so I had to myself and Dean had to file bankruptcy and that was about 12 years ago I went and I found a job selling leather furniture for one of our competitors M and
I did very very well I was their top salesperson for two years and um he was looking for a general manager and uh he hired a outside company to come in and find him a general manager and they were flying people in from all over the country looking for somebody to be a general manager and eventually the guy that they had hired to hire a general manager told them that I might be perfect to be his general manager so I interviewed for general manager and Dean told me don't do it because you work so hard right now you're going to work hard and once again
I didn't listen and I took the job and I was going to get paid more and obviously I was going to work harder being the general manager and the last thing I said to the man that owned the company I said you know I'm taking less that I'm earning right now I'm going to be working harder all I want to know is that 2 3 years four years down the road when I can show you what I can do there's going to be something for me so I can get my money paid back that I've been losing now and he turned around and he hugged
and he kissed me and he said Mitch I really do appreciate the sacrifice you're making absolutely things are going to be great for you and that was on a Tuesday and then on the Wednesday it was um Wednesday morning I went to open up the store he had asked me not to say anything to any of the salese uh because most of those House people had been there for longer than I had and I was going to be their boss now so I said no problem so on the Wednesday morning I went to open up the store and I'm getting everything ready and the owners
of the place husband and wife team come and I see them pull up so I'm always positive I'm thinking they're coming to tell me how the transition's going to be and they walked into the showroom and they said we need to talk I said sure So I sat down and he turned around to me and he saids MIT a position that we have in now the your position in our company is no longer available so being positive I said that's fine I'll just keep selling I'll be happy selling I won't be working as hard and I you know when if you think later on down
the road that I can still become general manager let's talk about it again and he said no you don't understand your position in the company is no longer available at that stage I realized I was being fired and I said to him because I had known him for a long time I said Kent help me out because I've never been in this situation before tell me what I wrong what went bad from this afternoon when you hugged and you kissed me and you thanked me for the sacrifice to 12 hours later I don't have a job with you please help me out and he says
Mitch you just don't get it I said Kent you have to do better than that help me out please tell me and all he said was Mitch you just don't get it and to this day I don't know exactly what it was I can surise that he was very in Robins the motivational talk speaker and he told me that I should probably go to Chicago to do one of his seminars and I told him that you know I really do think Ane Robbins is a great speaker and a great motivational guy but you have to fully believe in what he does before you put in
the time to do everything and I didn't think it was a good idea at the time and I think that's what it was that upset him and as I'm walking out the door the last thing he said to me was Mitch you should maybe do this for yourself and I had no intention of doing it I didn't have any money or very very little money DN and myself uh we had filed bankruptcy so we didn't have a whole lot of credit and I just remember my younger brother had started a company in North Dallas called habitat and there were three partners and he always told
me that if if I wanted to do anything on my own I should get there that store because it was right on the corner of Road and Alpha Road and he said you know even if you don't do Furniture you put a 7-Eleven there that's how many people see the store and come in over there so my brother had sold out several years earlier to the owners of habitat so I walked into habitat and there was a young kid sitting behind the counter now the owners of habitat was one of the most talented designers that I ever met it was a husband wife team and
he was the most talented creative person that I've ever met as far as furniture and I walked into the store and it looked horrible so I asked the kid behind the counter does he have Doug Jana's telephone number the owners of the place and he said sure So he gave me the number and I phoned and I left a message for Doug because they know knew who I was and I phoned Jenna and she answered I said Jenna I'm standing in your store and your store tells me you don't want to be here because you're the most talented designer your husband's the most talented Furniture
maker and creative person and I'm sitting here and your store smells bad and it looks bad what's going on and she said well actually we've got the store for sale so I said oh ready so she say yeah did you know about this through an agent I said no I just walked into the store just to find out what's going on because I don't have a job right now and I'm looking to do something so she said oh we've got it for salees I said well how much are you asking and they told me and it was an astronomic amount at the time because Dean
and I had nothing and she said but she'll have her husband call me so her husband called me and I said you know I'm looking for a job but not only a job I I really don't want to do a job I want to start something on my own if you guys are looking to get out how long do you have left on your lease and he told me 2 years I said if you can't sell the store give me a call and maybe we can do something where I can take over your lease cuz I was thinking you know I don't have the credit
cuz I filed bankruptcy and I need to get started and this might be a perfect opportunity so he says well what were you thinking so I knew that I had a small amount of money in my 41k plan I had just been paid out on a Insurance claim on my roof and uh I knew how much money I had and I wasn't a whole lot of money so I told him how much I would have to pay him and he said that's not going to work anyway 2 weeks later he sent me a proposal over that was more in line with what I had offered
than what they were asking and it was actually somehow it became less than what I had offered them so I 7:00 there that morning I phoned him I said okay you know what I need something really badly they had asked for less than I was asking and they didn't realize it so I said I'll tell you what let's do a deal so he said no problem so I got online I didn't know couldn't afford an attorney and I found a document that would say a bill of sale and I drew everything up with no attorneys and I said okay I've got everything together so he
took it and he went to his attorney and we made some very few changes and he said okay we're ready to do the deal and we did the deal for me to get into the store so I sold my 41k I cashed out on my 41k plan this was in uh February of 2004 so I sold my 41k I had the insurance money and I had a total of about $37,000 that I had to hand over to this guy and I had nothing else but I knew I could sell furniture and I knew it was a great location so I went into his store and
part of the deal was I would sell for him for 2 months help him get rid of his inventory and then I would take over his lease I wasn't getting paid for 2 months but my wife was working and we had insurance if something happened to their children we were fine and that's how I started my business um I had a person that was supplying me with leather furniture uh he had a factory in Denton and when I first started he had just closed the retail store so what he was kind enough to do was he gave me all these floor samples so I didn't
have to pay for floor samples and he said as you sell the floor samples you'll put in an order for a new order and you can pay me 30 days so I started doing business with this man a very nice man out of Colombia and I was paying him 30 days and was working fine but I started selling quite a lot of furniture and he had some Financial issues so as we were selling more furniture he was had to buy the leather and he had to buy all the uh products to make the furniture and he started getting to some Financial issues so he approached
me to to find out if I'd be interested in taking over his Factory so I said you know what let me figure it out um let me see if I can you know do this on my own so I figured out how much a new Factory would cost if I was doing uh everything myself and I went to him I said this is what it's going to cost me so he said I'll tell you what Mitch you know pay me a certain amount over 3 years and you can have all my equipment you've got an ongoing Factory and you've got people and everything and his
Factory was in Denton and I didn't want to drive up to Denton and I didn't know how I was going to run a factory and do retail so I found somebody that can run a factory his lease was up over there in 3 months I I did the deal to buy his Factory actually wasn't buy his Factory I was buy his equipment and take over his Factory so I found a uh a place in Carolton uh 25,000 ft and I got a factory set up over there and in 3 months I moved all the equipment over and I started my own Factory so now I
had a problem because I had a big Factory and now I needed to make sales so I found a store in Ceda Hill and I opened up another store in Ceda Hill with one of the guys that used to work with me at the old place and we started selling and selling and we started opening up stores and the guy that I bought the factory from he was working with me in the in the factory to help me and his wife was and they had a computer system that I never understood so I told him I wanted to go over to QuickBooks and as soon
as I went over to QuickBooks him and his wife decided to leave so I don't want to know what went on between then and me going on QuickBooks so now I was in a factory on my own and my wife was working for a company but at least we had insurance and everything things so I found my wife and I said Dean you're going to have to quit she says can't do it we've got income we've got insurance I said danan you have to quit you have to come help me run a factory so that's how we started our business today um I own a
building in Lewisville where our Factory is it's 58,000 ft and next week I'll be opening up my seventh store wow wow what what a story and honestly and there it's the hab it's called habitat no it's actually called the leather sofa company oh the leather sofa company and I I honestly believe to this day I'm the lackest man in the world that I was able to be down I was able to be lucky enough to work with people that didn't do things the right way so I could learn how to do things the right way what what a story what a story mlop thank you
so um you've had a fabulous career and you've really had some knocks and you've really come out on top and but you know I've really been lucky with everything I'm lucky when we grew up in South Africa we didn't have anything I mean really we had food on the table we had but that's all we had so I was lucky that I could see what it was like to be that way and I never want to do you know have nothing so I was you had so much perseverance I mean that's the thing that I see through this story is that you know you'd get
knocked down but you you'd get back up again and you'd and you you knew that you had what it took to make it and no matter how many times somebody would knock you down you'd get back up and you've and you've really made it and it's just that's a fantastic story sure you know I just I just have to thank God for my wife because yeah she's been a fantastic support to you yeah so often when things go bad your wife leaves you we got closer wonderful Wonder so let me ask you this are there is there anything about South Africa that you miss uh
obviously you know I miss my mother because she's still lives there and fortunately she she's still healthy enough to get around she doesn't get around as well as she used to my brother lives there and his whole family so I miss the family how often do you get back uh I'm lucky enough to get back at least once a year do they come here at all um my brother does my mom she's too old to travel right now so uh I make a point of going to visit her are there any uh particular um Foods or Traditions that You' brought back that you brought with
you that you continue here in the United States uh yeah there's some South African foods there's something called bovos that's like a farmer sausage that's what the direct translation is it's like an Italian sausage that we eat um most of the time in South Africa it's made with pork we never ate pork when we grew up so we get it over here and it's made with beef who makes it for you um there's somebody in Atlanta that makes it um you know uh I my wife she converted uh when we were dating she didn't even tell me but she got hold of the rabbi at
Sher Israel and she started speaking to him and she started doing a conversion course without me even knowing and then one night she says she's going to a meeting do I want to come I said what up of meeting and she told me what she was doing and uh a boys were in the preschool system and um one day I was sitting down with the rabbi over there and the Rabbi says so tell me a little bit about you so I said well we were brought up quite religious because my dad had a kosher Butchery everything was kosher at home I said here in America
unfortunately I live like um reform but deep down I feel like I'm Orthodox so he says you know what met Jew a Jews a Jew as long as you're Jewish so then he said tell me about your wife so I told my wife that she M through shareth Israel and she he said wait a minute I can't bomit for your children so I said you just told me a Jews a Jews a Jews he said well you know it wasn't a Orthodox um way that she converted so your children to us don't look Jewish so we had to actually leave and we actually brought over
here to the Jewish Community Center and we had to change which synagogue we went to um and we got married at Sher with Israel did your children go to a Jewish Day School or did they go to no they didn't they've always been secular theyve been public schools what uh have you had any significant involvement in the Jewish Community here in Dallas personally not not at all you know I I do attend synagogue and I haven't been involved in the Jewish Community much and what synagogue are you affiliated with uh with sherith Israel share this is your wife at all involved in the community no
not at all you know Dean and I we work really really hard and it's no excuse not to give back but you know uh it's really hard you know bring our children having our own business and just working these long hours and you know we we do do things behind the scene where people don't know what we're doing as far as Charity and stuff do you have do you have South African friends in the community I I do have some South African friends in the community um we have American friends from school growing growing up with their children but not a whole lot of South
African friends I would say it's about 5050 do you see any differences in terms of how the um South Africans socialize and the Americans socialize um uh I I don't see a whole lot of difference you know I know that South African Community when I first came was it was quite clicky and I didn't like that I just I wanted to do my own thing and I just wanted to focus on what I can do rather than what everybody else isn't doing and you know I just felt like it was quite a community where I would walk walk out the door and they'd be speaking
about me and I didn't feel comfortable that way I've I've heard that before so I'm not shocked all right so I'm not breaking you ground no no no but but it's interesting to hear different people's perspective MH um because you came you came to you didn't come directly to Dallas you were in a different Community First correct so and you didn't come as a married person which is also different yes so uh different people's perspective is is different different on on term in terms of their arrival into into the Dallas scene yeah one one of the things that I fail to mention is and I
I tell my boys the whole time that I'm going to write a book and we're going to call the book 67 the day I took a job in Boston I had $67 in my [Applause] pocket that was it and things have certainly changed thank god um are are there things that I have not asked you about that you think are pretty significant in terms of either the way you grew up in South Africa your family life there or your family life here or just things that you'd like to share with us sure you know South in in South Africa you lived at home until you
got married so if you got married at age 30 you lived at home in America it seems like at 189 when the kids leave for college they done with ever coming home so I I thought that was a nice thing about South Africa that everybody was still at home and you know it was still a family until you made your own family over here you know this one of the saddest days actually sad or happy was when I had to drop my oldest son at University you know you start asking yourself have you given him everything that he needs or have you taught him everything
that you need that he needs so it it was it was a tough thing for me to drop my kid off here he is he's been sheltered his whole life he's got everything that we've ever been able to give him and suddenly he's out on his own in South Africa you go to university and after University you come home to your house where you lived and grew up and you live and you eat there and the next morning you get in the car and go back to University because they're Comm the schools are commuting schools correct it's all commuting schools there's not a whole lot
of people living over there do you expect him to come home after he's finished with University or do you expect him to actually go off on his own I think he'll come back you know whatever he chooses I'm going to support but uh I think we've shown him enough that he would probably come back you know obviously if he gets a job and he starts earning money he might want to go out on his own as far as start living and working and please God both the boys uh show more of an interest in our business that thean and I can take it easy and
the boys can come into the business and so we know it's in good hands well that would be wonderful it would be perfect so the so the biggest issue then in terms of university is that our we have so many universities and so to choose from and such a diverse large country where they're located that the the probability of a student living at home when he goes to school is is not likely that that is correct and then they get so used to not living at home that when they come home and there's still rules and restrictions they don't like it so they want to
get out and that that's one of the main things that I saw the the other thing you know growing up in South Africa you know you were Jewish before you were South African what I've noticed in America is you you're American before you're Jewish and maybe that's just a perception I have but that's what it looks like to me tell let me ask you a question so when you came here to the United States and you moved to Boston uh and Boston of course is a very was a is and was a very diverse um city with a lot of of uh blacks and other
what we would consider minority groups living together how did you feel being in that city was it was it uh strange for you was it comfortable uncomfortable tell me about that experience from a personal standpoint you know it was just so different because it was the first time i' had been out on my own so I wasn't living at home and you know I have to earn money and my first paycheck my bosses they wrote the check out to REI to the winter store over there so I can have a coat because I came in the middle of Sumer and all I had was shorts
so everything that I was earning over there I had to figure out how I was going to pay rent how I was going to get gas for the car I was going to eat put clothes on my back i' had never had to do that i' had never done laundry my life s I'm going to have to figure out how to do laundry so for me the first I only spent two years there but the first year was just basically getting used to living on my own and doing things for myself as far as the diversity and everything um there were a lot of college
children over there and I was young enough so we' go out to places and there were always young college kids over there and uh I I had a good time over there getting to know the type of Life over there the type of life in America you know I felt comfortable doing it I've always been able to talk to people uh I've always been able to sell things so that made it easy for me so was it an eye opener being being able to speak to people from other cultures where you came from something that was so so uh closed in yes you know it
it it was absolutely uh and I open up for me because when I would tell people I came from South Africa they would look at me and say but you white you know but then you ask them do you know about a parate yeah that's you know really bad but they had no idea about a parate they were you know looking at me because I'm white and they had no idea about Africa you know I said I'm from South Africa and they said oh they've got a friend from Ghana and that's a different country you know so they didn't understand the the way you know
South Africa was you know in America you know I was an immigrant for six seven years before I got my green card and you know I lived here illegally in essence for seven years but I was paying my taxes and I wasn't getting into trouble and so when I had to get my green card I had to go back to South Africa to get it and the woman over there that interviewed me she says I don't think I want to give you your green card because you've lived illegally in my country for 6 or seven years I said you know I had no choice I
paid my taxes I didn't get into trouble I had a job I did everything and I didn't want to be in South Africa because things were really bad in South Africa please give me a chance you know and so right now with all the immigration over here it's made up of people from all over the world and there's no better country you you can't do what I've done in America anywhere else in the world and I tell everybody that I meet go live work and eat in any country you want for a year any country choose Switzerland choose anywhere in the world and you'll appreciate
what you've got in America after that well thank you so much Mitch this has been enlightening it's been delightful I've enjoyed very much our our talk together and we appreciate you taking your time with us today sure no problem thank you thank you so much sure