A schoolboy brings his expensive watch to the yeshiva one day and leaves it on his desk during recess. When he returns to the classroom, the watch is gone...

An Orthodox couple divorces after years of unsuccessfully trying to have a family. Shortly after the divorce is granted, the wife learns that she is pregnant...

A young Romanian Jewish girl, who watcher her father being slain by the Nazis, is given a doll and a watch — and a chance to gain freedom and safety by escaping to Israel — but she refuses the offer...

Thus begin three true stories, a tiny fraction of the hundreds  that constitute the life’s work, religious mission and personal passion of Rabbi Paysach Krohn, raconteur extraordinaire — or, to use the term that has come most succinctly to describe him, maggid.

It is said that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and that may be especially true in a Jewish home, where so many rituals and observances revolve around special meals.

If the kitchen is the heart of the home, then it can be argued that the East Side Kosher Deli (“the Deli”) is the heart of the Denver Jewish community.

From this busy building at 499 S. Elm St. in Glendale, thousands of Jewish mouths are fed, with ingredients purchased from  the Deli, prepared take-out meals, repasts in the Deli’s restaurant or meetings and celebrations in the banquet rooms, all under the watchful eye of the of “chief cook and bottle washers” Michael and Marcy Schreiber.

The Schreibers’ and the Deli’s identities are intertwined. The role the Deli plays in the life Denver’s Jewish community is in no small part due to its owners’ long hours and sense of responsibility. Their imprint is seen, felt — and tasted — in every aspect of this institution.