“What do they teach in college these days…? Let me tell you something: in the real world, you need a little ganiff in you. You know what that means, ganiff?” And the nice Jewish boy replies in that sardonic way that only actor Richard Benjamin can: “Thief.”

Fast forward to the present, to businessman Noah Alper of Berkeley, Calif., who sold his Noah’s Bagels chain in 1996 for $100 million; whose employees painted schools and helped in soup kitchens, even before a store would open in a neighbourhood; whose newly released Business Mensch: Timeless Wisdom for Today’s Entrepreneur (Wolfeboro Press) is a welcome and much-needed antidote for on-screen ganiffs and real-world ones like Bernard Madoff.

Alper’s timing couldn’t be better. Business Mensch, which goes nicely with coffee and a shmeared bagel, and can be finished in less time than a movie, is just what we need to buck us up in a post-Madoff world. As readers move through Alper’s eclectic, successful career as a serial entrepreneur (his venture to sell Holy Land products to evangelical Christians flopped), we see how this son of an atheist father (who still raised money for Israel bonds) integrates Jewish values and ethics into his business practices.

And we begin to feel better already.

Written with Thomas Fields-Meyer, Business Mensch suggests a modern-day Maimonides’ Guide for the (business-minded) Perplexed, aiming to “set the record straight about the relevance of Jewish values to running a business with honesty, integrity and ethics.”

Alper says he was “personally pained” to watch the Madoff scandal unfolding – “Jewish law and wisdom does everything to preach against [greed]” – but in place of hand-wringing, we get an uplifting reminder.

“Truly using Jewish values in business leads only to doing the right thing: serving the community, treating employees and customers with fairness and respect, dealing honestly and openly and helping those in need.”

Opening up personally and professionally, Alper, 62, tells his story in a breezy style and a heimische voice, walking us through his suburban Boston childhood, his early nose for business shovelling snowy sidewalks as a kid, and the enjoyment of serving his customers (while learning to deal with the occasional tightwad). Most of all, he impresses upon us how much of his business menschlichkeit was learned at his parents’ kitchen table.

But make no mistake: Alper is smart, in that vision-thing way of successful entrepreneurs (indeed, the bagel idea began to percolate after he watched a video about a Montreal bagel store), and he’s an extremely astute businessman (selling the Noah’s chain little more than six years after opening the first location). Prior to the bagel biz, he had founded the Bread and Circus grocery stores, now part of the Whole Foods Market chain.

While the book is undeniably his story – including how he found his way to Israel and then later, observant Judaism in midlife – Alper draws on his experience at Noah’s Bagels as a teaching template for Jewish values.

In one chapter, he speaks almost reverentially about Shabbat and bringing rest into one’s life. But he never gets preachy, just pragmatic: “The point isn’t that every entrepreneur needs Shabbat per se. It’s that you need to build pauses – in months, days or even minutes – into your life and even into your business.”

In the chapter It Takes a Shtetl, Alper builds on Ben-Zoma’s quote in Pirkei Avot – “Who is wise? The one who learns from all people” – as a reminder that “in the Jewish outlook, wisdom comes from learning from people.” And not just from a few.

Alper credits similar, early life lessons to his father, David, who “had a great sense of humility and respect for people who did their jobs well… whether a waiter or a lawyer.”

He notes that while his father regarded fair play and honouring people’s dignity as universal values, “I have always believed that they were deeply rooted in his own parents and grandparents’ Jewish identity.”

And how did the son put that into practice? Several ways, but one anecdote stands out to my mind: Alper consulted his front-line workers, many of them students, for feedback on the food display cases and what they’d do differently to improve the customer experience. (Take note: not only could these kids take the day off before a big exam, but it was policy that employees could eat what, and how much, they wanted, gratis, except for the pricey lox, which they got at a discount.)

While no one joins the entrepreneurial ranks to lose money, Alper shows that a business can and should practise outreach in its neighbourhoods to advance the Jewish precept of tikkun olam. When employees take part in community service, as they did at Noah’s Bagels, they are the public face of the company. And that brand becomes vested in the minds of customers as socially responsible and caring. Win-win.

Much of Alper’s message seems so simple and self-evident, yet clearly, in light of what has happened recently, it can’t be repeated often enough: “Act like a mensch – a good, decent person,” he urges, noting that Jewish parents have passed down this advice to their children for generations.

And what, exactly, is a business mensch?

“As the old expression goes, there’s a difference between a ‘man in business’ and a ‘businessman,’” Alper notes. The former “goes through the motions,” while the latter, among other things, is insightful, resourceful and competitive.

A business mensch “combines these qualities with an ethical backbone and has a ‘shine’ that is palpable… often it is the mensch who leads the way, both in business and life.”

Now a consultant to aspiring and established entrepreneurs, Alper will be  speaking at the Toronto Jewish Book Fair on Oct. 27, at 8:00 p.m. at the Koffler Centre. For more information, visit www.kofflerarts.org.