NEW YORK (JTA) — Yaakov Seltzer remembers a different world, when he would sell his customers prayer books, then hand them an invitation to his daughter’s wedding. When they would come in to Seltzer’s store to order a kippah for their new grandson, then ask him to attend the bris. Or they would stop in…
A much-beloved 83-year-old Manhattan Judaica store is set to close down in the near future, with the owner citing the high rent and the effect of Internet book sales as his reasons. “I can’t afford the rent and the Internet,” owner Yaakov Saltzer told the West Side Rag. His store, which he bought in the…
Looking to buy a killer Hanukkah gift? Well, if you have extremely deep pockets, this upcoming Sotheby’s auction might be for you. On December 15th, international auction house Sotheby’s will auction off 288 pieces of Judaica from around the world dating from between the 17th and 20th centuries. The auction will feature metalwork, textiles, and…
It was the highest price ever paid for a Jewish book. And the sale, along with 11 other books, broke up the most valuable private Judaica collection ever assembled. How much further the famed Valmadonna Trust Library may be broken up is unclear—and remains a concern of scholars and collectors around the world. The book…
A crazed attacker shouting ant-Semitic expletives punched the manager of a New York Judaica shop and then fled on a Razr scooter, city police said. The NYPD is investigating the incident at West Side Judaica as a bias crime, officials said. The 52-year-old victim told investigators that the man entered the shop on the Upper…
On a nondescript street of brick row houses, nestled between an insurance office and a computer store, in an out of the way corner of Brooklyn known as Marine Park that is not on any subway lines, lies a small storefront. From the street, it’s impossible to see in — the glass windows are blocked…
Last month’s column, as you may recall, made much of Judaica collectors who prefer to sell rather than donate their holdings. No sooner had I made that claim than a number of readers as well as colleagues duly informed me that I was barking up the wrong tree. Dolefully, they pointed out that even if…
The Judaica department of Ukraine’s vast state library — one of the 10 largest in the world — occupies five rooms on the fourth and top floor of a Soviet-built branch of the system’s archipelago of buildings, which are spread across Ukraine’s capital. In a nod toward Ukraine’s energy crisis, the building is drafty and…
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