MILWAUKEE – Let’s not blame Chicago.
Yes, yes, it’s true. Wisconsin finally has a Jewish motorcycle club, after representatives of the Chicago Jewish motorcycle club literally rode down here to ask the Chronicle, what gives? Your city is the home of Harley-Davidson, and you don’t even have a Jewish motorcycle club? Never mind that Chicago is a bigger city, or that Wisconsin’s Jewish motorcycle riders have gathered for years without needing an official club.
Today, Wisconsin finally has a Jewish motorcycle club – the Kosher Cruisers of Wisconsin – and it’s not for Chicago, but just because founders David and Samara Crawford have decided it’s time.
When David showed up to an event last summer with 200 other Jewish bikers in Toronto, bearing the logo of the Kosher Cruisers of Wisconsin on his back, it was a hit. “If I had a shekel for every person that came up and asked, ‘Can I take a picture of your coat?’, I would have paid for my trip.” Thanks to the cheesehead in the logo, he wound up with a nickname at the Toronto rally: “The Big Cheese.”
Every year, members of the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance participate in a Ride to Remember, benefitting Holocaust education, and the Kosher Cruisers of Wisconsin will participate for the first time in June. In 2023, the Ride to Remember arrived in Milwaukee. In 2025, the destination is Charlotte, North Carolina. The Wisconsin club will ride with the Chaiway Riders of Chicago in a North American Holocaust Museum Tour that will begin in Charlotte after the Ride to Remember, making its way to California, then back to the East Coast.
Riders support Holocaust education, but it’s also all in good fun, as you can tell from some of the other names of clubs affiliated with the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance: Hillel’s Angels in New Jersey; Thou Shalt Ride in Syracuse; and Yidden on Wheels in Australia. Shout out to Pennsylvania for having two clubs with names to kvell about: The Mazel Tuffs in Pittsburg and the Shvitzing Alta Kakers in Harrisburg. We are not making this up.
Honorary member Jerry Salinsky
Yet, certainly, the finest club in the nation has got to be the Kosher Cruisers of Wisconsin, thanks in part to honorary member Jerry Salinsky. A resident of Chai Point, he’s no longer riding, but he was on his motorcycle until well past his 90th birthday. The club presented Jerry Salinsky, club member Jim Salinsky’s father, with a club hat and very officially made him an honorary member.
Jerry Salinsky started riding about 30 years ago. He’s biked all over. He’s biked in Australia and New Zealand, to Colorado where he survived a harrowing flip-over, and down to Georgia and then Florida for a Jewish motorcycle trip.
Once, the father-and-son duo led the local walk for Israel. “I had a bracket that had a shofar against across my handlebars, so I could sort of lean over and blow the shofar,” Jim said.
Motorcyclists often say they love the ride because of how it makes them feel.
“It’s all about getting off the interstates and getting on twisty roads and the beauty,” David said. “To be cliche about it, you’re in a car, it’s to get somewhere, you know? You look out the window, yeah, that’s pretty. But when you’re on a motorcycle, you’re, you’re enveloped by whatever is around you.”
About a dozen people are engaged with the Kosher Cruisers of Wisconsin so far. “We are just getting started,” David said. But, he added, it’s about having a nice time together, not amassing a motorcycle empire.
“Arizona is different than Ohio, different than Indiana, just in terms of the kind of people and what they do,” David said. “But the commonality of these Jewish groups is that we all sort of speak the same language. We all want to eat. We all want to ride to eat. That’s the foundation of every Jewish motorcycle group.”
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Learn more:
To find out more about Wisconsin’s Jewish Motorcycle club, search on Facebook for the “Kosher Cruisers of Wisconsin.”
More info:
Jmar2r.org
Nahmt.org
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The founding members of the Kosher Cruisers of Wisconsin are David and Samara Crawford, Danny Muchin, Jeff Schuster, Pam and Jeffrey Shovers and Jim Salinsky, with honorary member Jerry Salinsky.
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