As far back as he can remember, Noah Rinsky dreamed of becoming an Old Jewish Man — but it wasn’t always a good dream.
Growing up in Colorado Springs, his parents would take him and his brother to an Orthodox Shul on the High Holidays, where they saw elderly gents loudly blowing their nose during the Torah reading, cutting in line at kiddush and sneaking rugelach in their pockets for later.
“It was like looking at another species,” said Rinsky, 35, the mind behind the viral Old Jewish Men social media empire (he was wearing a rumpled OJM t-shirt with the Polo logo and the original name of that company’s founder, Ralph Lifshitz). “It was hard to imagine that you’d one day grow into this.”
But the early signs were there. Peers in elementary school told him that he dressed like an old man — though his mom was in charge of his wardrobe. When as a 20-something he lived on East Broadway with his brother — who was president of the Stanton Street Shul — he started hanging out with senior members of the congregation at kosher eateries like Colbeh in Midtown. His wife now jokes that he hunches and is “built like a fruit peddler.”