OU Bans Candyman

In the Purim issue of the "Outlook", an advertising supplement distributed in the Five Towns and Queens, "Harris S. Judah" wrote a very funny spoof about the OU's alleged ban on shul candymen. (It's not online, although "Mr. Judah" has a website at www.judahsharris.com). The OU's next target: shuckling in shul.

The subject of shul candymen is close to my heart because for most of the last 30 years of his life, my dad was a shul candyman. I always thought that a shul isn't really a shul without a candyman.

Unfortunately, there was always something that bothered me about my dad's role as candyman. And I see the same things going on today.

The percentage of kids who said "thank you" to my dad when he gave them a candy was tiny, no more than 10%. This always amazed me and appalled me. (Although my father didn't do it, whenever I visited him for Shabbos, I would ask the kids after they took a candy, "what do you say?", thereby eliciting a thank you.)

I see the same thing today and worse. Besides not saying thank you, a large percentage of the kids simply drop their wrappers or lollipop sticks on the floor, inside or outside the shul. At the end of every Shabbos, the stairwells of the shul and the grounds outside are strewn with lollipop sticks.

This may seem like a small thing, but I don't think so. Where is the basic derech eretz? Where are the parents? Do they know what their kids are doing? When my kids were small (or, these days with fosterboy), whenever they came back to our seats with candy, I would ask whether they said thank you. If they said no, I would send them back to the candyman to say thanks. And, I would constantly remind them to throw their garbage in the garbage can. It's pretty basic.

I am not one of those curmudgeons advocating a ban on candymen (they actually exist in every shul) but it kills me when I walk through our beautiful shul on a Sunday morning only to see scores of wrappers and lollipop sticks all over the grounds. Something is wrong.