Rabbi Heller's Blog

This spring will mark the end of an institution in Atlanta, with the closing of Judaica Corner. For 37 years, the store served as one of the key outposts of our Jewish community In the next few weeks they will be selling off their remaining inventory at discount. See https://lenamatisse.wixsite.com/website for more information. This week we read Parashat Acharei Mot-- how Aaron is supposed to continue after a death. What does the death of this Atlanta institution mean for us?   

There are certain resources that are considered essential to be a full Jewish community- a Jewish cemetery, a synagogue, a mikvah, a kosher butcher, a school, a scribel. Perhaps one step down the ladder (or taking the place of the scribe) has been the Judaica store. Where could you get a mezuah? Tallis and Tefillin?  A Menorah or seder plate?  We are the “people of the book.” The local regular community bookstore (remember those?) might carry novels or books of Jewish interest, but if you needed a siddur or a chumash (let alone a volume of Talmud), it was not going to be there, let alone at the Barnes and Noble!!  What if  you were getting married, and you wanted a ketubah that was prettier than the rolled-up paper one that had barely any room to fill in your information? What if you wanted Jewish themed jewelry or art?

The last 40 years have been tough for small independent businesses in general. The corner hardware store, appliance store, clothing boutique and grocery couldn’t possibly compete with the big box stores. Judaica stores weathered this wave because Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Publix were not selling mezuzot. The maturation of internet commerce was the wave that swept many Judaica stores out to sea. And to be fair, how could one compete? Amazon has a practically infinite stock of low-end menorahs. There is a full selection of ketubot available on ketubah.com, or number of tallitot available on Etsy. Even fairly obscure Hebrew books are now available directly from the publisher’s e-store, or can be accessed in an online database. Since the online sites had less overhead and far more inventory, they could undercut the local mom and pop resources.

And so in that sense, I suspect that many in our community will miss Judaica Corner in the abstract, but not in their daily lives. Many in our community had already gone online for most of their shopping needs, for cost and convenience. Indeed, a similar fate met our synagogue gift shop at B’nai Torah. For decades, it was an essential part of the fabric of our congregation, but there came a point where despite the incredible heart and devotion of our volunteers, having someone sit for 6 hours to sell perhaps one item, or having the secretary have to leave the phones unanswered for an hour while someone browsed, and having tens of thousands of dollars tied up in inventory, was harder to justify. I'll admit that when our shop closed, I wanted to support Judaica Corner, but my need for an item rarely correlated with my availability to make a round trip to Toco Hills, and I suspect the same was true for many. In addition to this trend, Judaica Corner also had to contend with the security concerns that affect every Jewish institution these days

The second half of our Torah portion this week, Kedoshim, covers many essential aspects of Jewish business ethics.  Measures must be honest, prices must be fair. But how does this apply in the realm of competition between businesses? In the Talmud, (Bava Metziah 60a-b) Rabbi Yehudah says that a merchant may not lower the price of an item below the market rate, but the rest of the sages disagree and contend that it is praiseworthy to do so, because lower prices benefit the community at large. Some non-profit organizations now make Judaica available free or on a donation basis.

The financial savings are real, but the losses are also tangible.  There is something to be missed about being able to browse, and about the immediacy of getting what you needed at that moment. With 24 hours until seder, “Prime Delivery” is not fast enough. There is also a loss of confidence. How do you know that what you are getting on line is the “real thing?” Recently a bat mitzvah girl showed up for rehearsal proud of her beautiful tallit, purchased online. The first thing I noticed was that the tzitzit threads, which make the tallit kosher, were a strange color, and had been tied entirely incorrectly. But I quickly forgot about that when I saw that the normal Hebrew blessing on the neck had been replaced by a quite heretical prayer to Jesus. Technically, Jewish law probably required me to burn it, but the family had spent a lot of money on it, so it got dropped off at Whole Foods to return to the mysterious bowels of the Amazon return system.

Other communities have managed to keep their Judaica/Jewish book stores afloat. Perhaps it is not surprising that LA has any number and New York has its share (although almost all in Manhattan have closed). But it’s not just the biggest cities. Detroit, Cleveland and Baltimore are comparable in size to Atlanta. Perhaps one factor is the presence of a Orthodox community, more robust and financially stable than that of Atlanta, centered in proximity to the store. That's a hindsight question for the economists or the sociologists.

Acharei Mot-- after the loss, the question remains how to move forward. Unfortunately for many in the community, if there is a sense of loss, it is more in principle than in practice. And indeed, the convenience and cost of online resources is hard to beat, in particular if you can avoid the pitfalls. I don’t know that I could come up with a winning business plan for a new Judaica store in Atlanta. However, some of the same issues apply to Atlanta’s kosher scene. Resources only remain if we support and encourage them. For any individual meal or transaction, there may be more convenient options, but in the long run if we don't support kosher food purveyors, caterers and restaurants, our cupboard will someday be a lot barer.