Entries from The Diary of a Jewish Bookseller and recent acquisitions, Oct 2018

A request over the phone for Jewish books on Bitcoins, had me scratching my head, until it struck me that the customer was referring to בטחון Bitahon (trust in God).

A conversation with a customer somehow evolved to the fundamentals of Jewish faith, when the customer, clearly exasperated, exclaimed to me: "You're not even a real apikores!"

I encountered 2 customers in the store, one an older Ashkenazi American Jew and the second a young Habad Hasid, in a deep conversation in fluent Arabic! Somehow, in conversation, they both discovered they have been learning Arabic on their own, without finding who to converse with. They both took advantage of this rare opportunity for them and the conversation in Arabic shifted from books, to politics and the Lubavitcher Rebbe until they had to part ways.

Context is everything, but it was still unusual to receive a request from a customer for 2 titles, an English edition of Duties of the Heart and an English copy of Mein Kampf.

A local homeless man, rings the bell and asked for a book about the Holocaust. Turns out he is rather educated with 2 masters, though unfortunately, with a host of medical issues and no home.

A package with 5 rare books I sent to the Upper West Side was stolen from inside the building after delivery. A few days later, after already hitting a dead-end with the post office and nearly giving up hope, a middle-aged haggard looking man shows up at the customer's door with 2 of the volumes. Stating that he found the books in a nearby park in a box with recipient's address, he exchanged the volumes for a $20 tip and disappeared into the night. A few hours later, he shows up with 2 additional books from the shipment in exchange for $10. Alas, the fifth volume appears to be lost forever.

Following up on book requests we received from years back, at times finds the customers at a time when they no longer have an interest in the book. One case of the opposite extreme occurred when I notified a customer that a title of Sarah Schenirer she requested years ago came in. By (divine) coincidence, she was precisely in the midst of working on writing on the specific subject she needed it for when the email that the book arrived showed up in her inbox.

An angry message from a customer was received, complaining that the bibliography of Maimonides she ordered was not a biography.

Some prominent recent acquisitions include the libraries of:

Dr. Joseph Badi ob"m
Born in Poland, Joseph Badi survived the war, eventually reached Palestine/Israel, and immigrated to the United States in 1953. Dr Badi earned his graduate degrees at NYU and The New School, authored several books on Israel, and was a professor of near/mid-eastern studies at The New School.

Rabbi Meir Goldberg z"l
Rav Meir Goldberg, Rav Hamachshir of the Vaad Hakashrus of Flatbush, formerly known as Vaad HaRabbonim of Flatbush. Rabbi Goldberg passed away in 2017

Gerhard Salinger ob"m
Salinger was born in in 1922 in a town that used to be called Stolp, not far from Koslin (now Koszalin). There he witnessed the deportation in 1942 of the remaining Jews, including his parents, from his town to 'the East', the destination thought to have been Auschwitz, where he himself survived between 1943 and 1945. Having lost his entire family in the war, Gerhard moved to New York after the war, where he worked as an accountant. His wife whom he married after the war, died in the 1970s, they did not have any children. He made it his mission to preserve and record all obtainable information on lost, small and dying Jewish communities throughout the world.  He authored numerous works on various Jewish Communities, from Hungary, to Tunisia, in English and German. His library is a testament to his mission and devotion to preserving a record of every Jewish community and synagogue that he could find any mention of. Amongst the many hundreds of books on various Jewish communities in his collection, are stuffed thousands of his correspondences with various historical societies in his attempt to obtain records, relevant newspaper clippings, photographs that he was able to obtain and endless local publications of synagogues and communities recording their local history. He died recently aged 94.

Gerhard Salinger 

Azriel Golawa ob"m

Azriel was born in a DP camp after the war in Halain, Austria. He was brought to the USA when he was three years old. He grew up in Crown Heights and went to Yeshiva Eastern Parkway and afterwards to RJJ for high school and semicha. He learned in Israel for a year in 1966-7 in a yeshiva in Kefar Chassidim. He got his bachelors in English from Brooklyn college and a masters in Jewish History from Yeshiva University Bernard Revel. His interest was in the second temple era and wrote his thesis on the book of Tobit.  His father, Avraham Golowa, was a talmid chochom and learned in yeshiva in Kletsk and with Rav Ahron Kotler, and later served as a Shochet and Mashgiach in the USA.