On your blog you write, “Come and experience an Authentic bookstore before they cease to exist.” Please explain.
Well, Judaica stores will always be here. But if you go back 50 years on the Lower East Side, there were 50 stores just like mine. Today it’s a harder world. People are busy with their lives, they’re reading less, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Maybe it’s the price of a better life. A hundred years ago people were more aware of anti-Semitism. They were more Jewish in many ways, and so they had more of an interest.
Another thing is the price of maintaining a store has risen very fast. Today on the Lower East Side it’s prohibitive to rent a store. Used books sell for only so much, and it’s very hard to make a proper living from it. The story of bookstores in the U.S. in general – not just Jewish bookstores – is a pretty bad one.
How do you survive? Through Internet sales?
There’s no way I could do it without the Internet. Also, it’s sort of two parallel businesses at this point with the rare books paying for the other books.
Many people with your interest in sefarim become rabbis or librarians. What led you to become the owner of an old-style sefarim store?
I don’t know. God leads in funny ways. I don’t know if it was a conscious decision. It just was something I always wanted to do. And once you’re in, it’s hard to leave, because what am I going to do with 150,000 books? So I don’t know if I can ever retire. Maybe they’ll bury me with the books.