Food

What’s ‘Kosher’ Worth? A Hell of a Lot

Image by thinkstock

By Maya Shwayder October 29, 2013

How much is a kosher website worth? Apparently, half a million dollars. Kosher.com sold earlier this week for that full sticker price.

But wait: It wasn’t owned before? Well, it was, but brace yourself for the actual shocking part: There is no website present at kosher.com. Navigating to kosher.com takes a netizen to a blank, generic search side. This is pretty surprising, given that the kosher food industry is a $12.5 billion per year business (yes, billion, with a “b”).

The site was previously owned by Rosalind Davidowitz of Lawrence, NY and is in the hands of Los Angeles lawyer Eli Perlman. Perlman’s client — an unnamed company — purchased the site and plans to lease it out. (Sadly, Perlman isn’t interested in sharing any more details).

Other domain names that are surprisingly unpopulated include kosherfood.com, Jew.com, and Hannukkah.com. Sadly, thanksgivukkah.com has already been claimed.

Jewish.com looks to have the makings of a site, but is actually nothing more than an a depository of ads for “Jewish Jewelry,” how to pick Jewish names, and where to find the best Jewish dating websites.

Israel.com is also, shockingly, a very simple blog site with aggregations of Israel-related news from around the Web.

RoshHashanah.com is another that doesn’t exist, and YomKippur.com redirects to a sub-site of Shabbat.com, a social network for connected Jews who are looking to spend Shabbat with someone.

So there you have it, web entrepreneurs! A whole host of Jew-related domain names, just ripe for the taking.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO