Nachi Weinstein, the bibliophile behind the seforim chatter podcast

Photos: Yisroel Tesser, Yehuda Esral

The man sits in the center of a large basement, surrounded by 17 Ikea Billy bookcases lining the walls. Each bookcase boasts six shelves, and each shelf is packed with published Jewish works. The room is just shelf after shelf of seforim — 102 shelves in all — holding a grand total of more than 2,000 seforim and Jewish books.

In the middle of the shelves is a white desk, where he sits hunched over a bright screen. He absentmindedly pushes up the glasses perched on his nose as he stares intently at the words on the screen. He frowns, backspaces, and his hand hovers over the trackpad before it shoots out, grabbing the sefer at the top of a tall stack to his right. He quickly leafs through the first few pages, peruses the publisher’s introduction, and finally, there’s a small satisfied smile as he finds what he’s looking for. He types a couple of paragraphs, quickly now, and then reads through the text start to finish to make sure it’s ready to be uploaded.

It’s nearing midnight on this summer Motzaei Shabbos — just a precious hour remains until the new week officially begins — and Nachi Weinstein is putting the finishing touches on yet another edition of his SeforimChatter podcast before posting it online.

After compiling a short description of the episode — be it about a talmid chacham describing his latest halachic work, a university professor discussing a historic battle over a family fortune,  a librarian presenting highlights of a new exhibit or a historian piecing together a picture of daily life in a bygone era — Nachi will add a description of his guest’s bio. Next step is to record introductory remarks — that episode’s sponsor, programming notes — and then finally, he skims through the audio, giving the episode a quick listen, before uploading it to the hosting site to be disseminated to various listening platforms.

Come Sunday morning, an eager audience numbering in the thousands will tune in to the new release.

Nachi’s listeners range from accomplished talmidei chachamim to distinguished professors who are experts in their chosen disciplines, from people at home in the beis medrash to those who frequent university lecture halls. There are also a host of subscribers with day jobs in the business and professional worlds. Young or old, male or female, kolleleit, businessmen, tenured academics, or retirees — all devote a chunk of their weekend routine to the show, which can range anywhere between 45 minutes and two hours.

The common denominator uniting Nachi’s remarkably diverse audience is an almost insatiable hunger for understanding Jewish history and seforim in a deep and stimulating way. His listeners know that the best clues to the character, legacy, and values of the People of the Book are in the paper — and parchment — trail left over time. And there’s nothing that excites them more than the hidden details or historical portraits that lie in a broad knowledge and skilled dissection of the printed word.

Yet talk to avid listeners (and as a rule, all SeforimChatter listeners are avid listeners), and you’ll hear another shared motif: an appreciation for Nachi Weinstein himself, a bibliophile who’s extraordinarily well versed in the most obscure periods of history and who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of everything sefer-related.