The Kibbitz
sometimes, my tefillin were there because I’d have a late morning or I brought my tefillin to work or what- ever. At some point, I broke that bar- rier and I started asking some clients if they wanted to put them on. There was one particular person that I didn’t have the courage to ask until his final fitting. We had had conversations about Yiddishkeit , and he was about to go overseas to get married to a non-Jewish woman. He had his hand on the front door— the Uber was outside —with the suit in his hand, on the way to the airport of all things. And finally I asked, Would you like to put on tefillin? He said that he would love to. And there we are: we make him a bar mitzvah because he’s never put on tefillin in his life. I believe I could have my own little community at some point. I’ve built a beautiful space here in Tribeca, and I definitely plan on creating this. The idea of this space was not just to show my work and have a tailor shop, but also to bring in other craftsmen from around the world, bring in Yid- dishkeit and some spirituality, wheth- er it’s a minyan here and there, or classes, or just gathering people to inspire others. That’s still the goal. Are there any specifically Jewish de- tails that you’ve put into garments? So I’ll tell you one story. It’s not every day that I have a person that I fit who wears his tzitzis on top of his shirt. Sometimes to correct the balance of a jacket, I may cut into the jacket and, in playing with a scissor, I allow the cloth to open up in certain areas. So I’m cutting right into the back of this man’s jacket, and I made sure that I didn’t cut his shirt, obviously, but I missed the tzitzis. I cut right into the tzitzis. I had to make him a new pair of tzitzis, then I made him a couple more. I’ve made a couple of tallisses as
Tiefenbrun, here in his Tribeca atelier , has been profiled by the likes of Fortune and GQ .
ferent way, realize what works for a particular body. How do you see the intersection of your community engagement, as a person who is in the world as a public Jew, and the work that you’re doing as a tailor? A lot of what tailors do is spend time with people and get to know them, whether Jewish or not. You’re having an effect on their lives, making them feel better and look better. I’m very open about who I am now, but there was a time that I wasn’t: I kept the business as a business. But
roots are still there, the construction is still there, but I’m making lighter versions of it. I enjoy wearing light- er garments today. Maybe it comes down to my lifestyle and the way I am — a father of three kids, going in and out of the car, getting down on my knees to fit a client — and the bal- ance of my life. Clients have taught me so much. I have clients who have had things made all over the world by other tailors, and then one day they bring in a jacket from someone else and it’s like, Wow, look at how that’s made. Then I get a little creative and cut things in a dif-
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