Word Prompt – JUDAICA – Lenny Solomon

I remember it well. It was March 1984. My first music group, Kesher, was releasing their first of three albums. We were releasing them on vinyl and cassette. So the beginning of the process was dropping off records to Nachum Segal at WYUR and Art Raymond, z”l, of WEVD. Now we all know that Nachum went on to JM in the AM at WFMU and now the NSN network. That was the radio part.

But what about the Judaica shops! Yes, the shops that sold Jewish books, music, candle sticks, sefarim and many other Judaica. For that I had to go to the distributors. And in 1984 they were Sol and Johnny Tischler at Menorah and Mendy Werdyger at Aderet, which is now known as Mostly Music. Both for Kesher and Shlock Rock, we dropped off cassettes to them for distribution to Judaica shops worldwide. I remember seeing my music in Golds in Australia and many other places around the world. The distributors would send my products to the stores and I would get nachas seeing them on the shelves.

I also would mention Tara Publications and Velvel Pasternak, z”l, as well as Sameach Music. Judaica. Without these Judaic stores we might not have gained any popularity. Those were the days!