Borsalino Hats in the News

The Italian evening newspaper “Corriere de la Sera” carried an extensive report last week on the branch of the Italian hat producer Borsalino that recently opened in Jerusalem’s Meah Shearim. The article contains various quotes from the store’s manager, Mendy Bastomsky, of Kfar Chabad.

Below are some excerpts from the article:

The store is the company’s first branch in Israel. The manager, Mendy Bastomsky, aged 33, is married with four children, and he is a Chabad chassid. For twelve years, he has worked for various hat manufacturers in Jerusalem. He loves northern Italy, and he says he attends company meetings five or six times a year. “Whenever I go there, I don’t feel strange,” he says.

Borsalino has been producing hats for the chareidi community for over one hundred years. “We started working at the beginning of the twentieth century, more or less at the request of chareidi Jews,” explains Monica Abata, who has been handling the Israeli market for the past ten years, over the phone from Italy.

Source: COL