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Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Entries from The Diary of a Jewish Bookseller March 2019

A young teenage customer visiting the store, had taught himself Ladino from scratch and stocked up on literature in Ladino that he can take with him for his scheduled hospital stay following a surgery

An Alien visiting the USA on the evening of Feb 3 would have seen an entire nation watching the superbowl and 5 people in Mizrahi Bookstore digging through piles of books, oblivious to my insisting that I need to leave

A regular customer asked to order a new pair of tefillin and have it expedited in time to be able to give them as a gift for his wife for her birthday

I overheard a Rabbi and a Seventh-Day Adventist Pastor in the store discussing the merits of Islam and the dearth of critical readings of the Koran by Muslims

A frantic sounding caller requested I find a Jewish Bible of the version that is traditionally used for a Goral Hagra, insisting that the order was time-sensitive

I received a request for a miniature mezuzah, the customer needed it placed on a necklace to be worn for protection

The buyer of an Artcroll Shas I sold discussed with me his intentions to study the Talmud with his wife every evening

A loyal customer devoted his entire tax refund to his book collection, asking me to set things aside in the weeks before, with payment to follow once the refund is received

A first edition of Making of a Godol was purchased and gifted by a husband for his wife's birthday, stating that he was sure she would appreciate it much more than she would appreciate jewelry

a long term customer from overseas let me in on his secret: He was the long-awaited Messiah and will soon be revealed to the world. He emailed me the following:"Have you heard about the Rabbis looking for the Messiah? Gee, i wonder who that man is, 
Moreover i really feel sorry for all those who knew who he was, ant yet they chose not to proclaim him, unless you still have my letter, it will bring you millions in an auction when a Kabbalist a rabbi from Israel will announce me. Kol toov and Purim Sameah"

I received a request for a specific book of Segulot, the person requesting stated that he recalled having seen in the volume a Segulah that would help his son overcome his anxiety from his college exams

A Bride stopped by the shop a few hours before her wedding to pick up a copy of the prayerbook published for a Kallah, with prayers to be recited on the day of her wedding

I acquired a collection of several thousand volumes, all of which were housed in a small apartment, with each and every book with no exception shelved within a ziploc bag

A customer berated me for offering for sale books on the Ba'al Shem Tov whom he labeled as the Ba'al Shem Ra

Hearing a customer describe his collection sounded to me like a laundry list, he owned the Hat of Rav Yitzchak Kaduri, the cane of Baba Sali and a Tzitzit of Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg

A day before his scheduled conversion, the yet to be Jew came in to stock up on all the Breslov classics before he makes the plunge

A ten year old utilized the snow-day off from school to come in and spend his birthday present money on an 18th century Hebrew book and several old postcards

An order came in for several Hasidic Hebrew books with a request that the books be inscribed with a prayer in the memory of her grandmother in honor of her Yahrtzeit

A grandmother paying for her grandson's order remarked how she would much rather be buying books than pay for the tattoos and earrings that her other grandchildren were getting



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