In a nondescript Boro Park store, a legend has been operating for decades. It’s a magnet for Jews of all sorts who are united by their common love for the holy volumes that transcend their differences. Welcome to J. Biegeleisen Hebrew Books, the first stop and last word for seforim lovers everywhere

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ust the standard Koveitz Meforshim on Gittin, please,” says the fourteen-year-old boy. As he completes his purchase, he’s barely able to contain his pride: the ring of the cash register is heralding his new status as a yeshivah bochur. For the seventeen-year-old next to him, who’s buying the newly released shiurim of a prominent rosh yeshivah, this is no less a rite of passage; he is becoming a lamdan.
For all of them — the chassidishe yungerman, the doctor from Teaneck, the collector who knows that rare and out-of-print seforim sometimes find their way through the humble store — the J. Biegeleisen Hebrew Books Store is an oasis. It’s a familiar address for people who, despite external differences, are all connected by a shared passion. They don’t just want access to the information inside the sefer, they need to own it, to have it on their table and in their study.

A Healthy Addiction

In a society plagued by many negative trends and needs, all too often, the writer must put words to a troubling problem. What a joy, then, to write about this most beautiful of addictions: the People of the Book’s insatiable love of seforim. And what better way to do it than by traveling to the undisputed seforim headquarters, the supplier’s supplier, the dealer whose phone number is stored in the speed-dial of serious customers everywhere. It’s a store so nondescript, without any sign or identifying feature, that it seems to fade into a line of other shops that stretches on for blocks and blocks in Boro Park’s commercial district.
Yet even without a marketing budget, the name Biegeleisen (or J. Biegeleisen Hebrew Books, for the sake of accuracy) has become singularly identified with the industry, the definitive “if they don’t have it, it doesn’t exist” locus for seforim collectors, lovers, and purchasers.
Like the vast range of the seforim inside, the store isn’t limited to any one type of customer. It’s not just a destination for serious seforim aficionados; on any given day one can find here a bar mitzvah bochur fingering the books gingerly, a shul shamash looking to augment his congregation’s library, and an accomplished talmid chacham looking for an obscure treatise on the Yerushalmi. There’s a mystique here, enough to create an aura.
Besides the mix of people, another unique Biegeleisen feature is the fact that price is not indicated anywhere on the sefer. Instead, there is an obscure coding system so that the owners — rather than the would-be purchasers — know the price. Many customers, however, relate with no small degree of pride that they have “cracked” the code.
When I enter, I meet one of the “addicts,” a well-dressed businessman who visits the store “if not every day, then every second day, just to see what came in.” I ask why. “Because this is my thing, I am sick,” he answers, and it’s clear from his smile that he is quite content with his “sickness.”

When Seforim were Friends

The proprietor of this empire, Reb Shloime Beigeleisen, leads me to a small alcove in the back of the store, where we sit on chairs with no backs. His air is noncommittal and matter-of-fact. He thinks I’m wasting my time with the interview; he is a regular person, and the store is a regular store, and he doesn’t know why I think it’s newsworthy, and he says as much. As he begins to speak, however, it becomes clear that the store’s mystique has deep and fascinating roots.
Reb Shloime is, bli ayin hara, over eighty years old, and most of his life has been spent here, between the books, boxes, and rope. He answers my questions politely, but with the detached air of someone who really doesn’t understand what I want.
Biegeleisen’s is likely the oldest seforim store in New York, certainly the oldest one in Boro Park, having opened close to a hundred years ago in the neighborhood. Reb Shloime’s father, Reb Yakir Biegeleisen, arrived in the United States from Galicia along with his own father. Lovers of seforim, these Belzer chassidim began to buy, trade and sell their own seforim out of the family home, which was located in Boro Park of the twenties. Of course, all seforim at the time were printed in Europe, and thus harder to come by. Soon enough, word spread. Even if the man of the street had no need for a Rashba or a Teshuvos Rabi Akiva Eiger, there were European-born and trained rabbanim across the country who found their only solace in the timeless words of the seforim.
“Often, these rabbanim lived in cities where they had no one with whom to ‘speak in learning,’ and their seforim were quite literally their best friends. My father created a catalog which he would send to all of these rabbanim.”
By establishing their niche in this way, the Biegeleisens soon had a steady business. Then, in the forties, the stream of immigrants from Eastern Europe became a flood, and the business entered its glory era. The new arrivals looked at seforim not as synagogue décor, but as staples for a vibrant, functional Jewish home. They knew that Yakir Biegeleisen — a bookseller of the old school — would provide them with a mix of honesty, unsurpassed yedios, and appreciation for the contents of each individual sefer.
Reb Shloime indicates a letter written by one the greatest geonim of that era, Reb Michoel Forshlager.
“He was something special, a talmid of the Avnei Nezer of Sochatchov, and someone who was in constant contact with my father,” Reb Shloime recounts. “He left over a priceless seforim collection, in addition to volumes of his own chiddushim, which have yet to be printed.”
In a postscript to a shtickel Torah, Rav Forschlager writes to someone looking to establish contact with rabbanim in America: “To my knowledge, Mr. Biegeleisen would be ideal for this, as he communicates with all the rabbanim in America, and also the balabatim that purchase seforim, and everyone is pleased with him. He conducts his business honestly, and knows and appreciates his merchandise; he is a Belzer chassid ...”
That letter is far from the only piece of history here. There are little fragments of times gone by all around the store, starting with the sign — J. Biegeleisen Hebrew Books — that originally graced the old store on the East Side. Today it sits in the store window, facing the interior. One relic that I personally find touching is a brittle receipt taped to the wall, dated in the early fifties, confirming the payment of Pinchas Hirschprung of Montreal for the seforim he received. It’s poignant because, as anyone from Montreal knows, Rav Hirschprung — chief rabbi of the city — spent hour after hour, day after day, year after year, fully immersed in his seforim. The yellowed scrap is more than just nostalgia; it’s part of a paper trail of eternity.

Library Builder

The talmidei chachamim of his era invested more than their trust in Reb Yakir Biegeleisen; he was indispensable to them in another way as well. With his connections and expertise, he helped many institutions establish their seforim libraries.
Reb Shloime remembers one of the earliest such incidents:
“There was a seforim collector, a very wealthy man, who was moving to Eretz Yisrael. He asked my father how to arrange the shipping logistics for his library. ‘Why go through the expense and bother?’ my father said. ‘Instead, you can leave them all here where people will learn from them, and you can start a new collection there.’ The fellow accepted my father’s logic and with that, the otzar haseforim of Yeshivah Torah Vodaath was started.”
The story of the Chaim Berlin library, as Reb Shloime tells it, is especially fascinating.
“There was a professor at Harvard, a brilliant scholar named Nathan Isaacs, who had a great love of seforim, particularly seforim of sheilos and teshuvos. He discovered my father and basically made him responsible for assembling the seforim that formed his collection. My father would send him seforim along with index cards which noted where the interesting teshuvos were. In time, he put together quite a collection.”
In 1941, the professor passed away. Reb Yakir Biegeleisen realized that the family had little interest in the collection, and he made them an offer, hoping to purchase it in its entirety for Yeshivas Chaim Berlin. Along with Rav Hutner and Rav Shlomo Freifeld, the bookseller traveled to Boston to see the collection. Reportedly, there were just two beds at their accommodations. Rav Hutner told the other men to sleep while he sat up through the night with a sefer Teshuvos Maharash Engel.
“The trip was successful, Baruch Hashem, and the library was established at Chaim Berlin.”
Reb Yakir invested much of his energy and resources assembling the seforim collection in Boro Park’s first Belzer shtiebel. “It had everything,” Reb Shloime remembers, “the new, the old, the hard-to-get. But over the years, many of those seforim have gone missing. People ‘borrow’ and don’t return.”
I’m amazed. “People steal seforim?” I ask.
He gives me a long look, as if marveling at my naïveté. “Of course they do. I’m sure they have all kinds of heteirim for it also.” He lifts a sefer from the table and slips it under his jacket. “It’s fairly easy, too.”

Over the Years

Over the many decades of its operation, the store has seen many changes. The first was simply in its location; in 1951 the store left Boro Park for the East Side.
“Look, Boro Park was dying out. There was no future here for this type of store,” says Reb Shloime with a wry smile. In 1980, they moved it back to Boro Park. Apparently it had stopped dying out.
But the physical location of the store is far from the only change it has seen.
The actual inventory has changed dramatically over the years. When the store started out, scholarship in America was reserved largely for lone rabbis. The majority of the store’s inventory was devoted to textbooks and primers for Jewish schools. Today, almost every young chassan receives seforim for his new home, and is enough of a scholar to appreciate the texts. The store mirrors that change; it no longer carries the textbooks that used to be its mainstay. (And Biegeleisen’s has also stopped selling esrogim, a business spawned by the fact that they were viewed as “Judaism providers” to so many synagogues and schools.)
But over the years, says Reb Shloime, there are some things that remain unchanged. There is still the individual who loves the Torah, now as then.
“That there are some people who really love Torah, love to learn, love seforim ... there are still such Yidden. That has remained.”
I take the opportunity to try to confirm the rumor that Biegeleisen’s has some steady customers who call every single day to find out which new seforim came in.
Reb Shloime doesn’t confirm or deny. He just smiles.
Then he resumes the thread of our conversation, telling me, “What has changed is that even while we have more yeshivah-educated customers who are capable of understanding profound seforim, with that, true scholarship is way down, and the majority of seforim that sell today reflect that. The days of people purchasing sets of comprehensive and intricate shiurim on sugyos are over.”
So, I ask, if a young talmid chacham wishes to make his mark by publishing a sefer, how would Reb Shloime advise him?
“Well, the halachah seforim with a peirush on the bottom of the page always sell. Piskei Teshuvos was a huge seller. Also, seforim al haTorah have a chance.” Then he grimaces. “And Kabbalah. Those seforim go.”
What sefer would he consider a “best-seller?” Reb Shloime thinks.
“It’s hard to answer that. The Minchas Chinuch that was released in its new format by Machon Yerushalayim about fifteen years ago has become a classic in homes and shuls.”
While newspaper publishers see the Internet as a real threat to their product, Reb Shloime seems sanguine when he discusses this very obvious change to the world of printed material.
“Obviously, many of the hard-to-get seforim have become more accessible through various websites,” he says, “and people say that new technology, like Kindle, will replace actual books. Of course that doesn’t worry me; people sit and learn on Shabbos and Yom Tov.”
Biegeleisen’s is famous for its access to rare seforim. I wonder aloud how the proprietors manage to get their hands on almost any sefer. It’s clear that Reb Shloime is going to be even more reticent in response, but he does tell me that they buy off collections from estates, a resource that enables them to keep many rare seforim in stock.
“I will tell you something else,” he shares. “It’s painful to see collections, assembled with love and single-minded dedication, and then, when the collector passes away, his kids can’t sell it off fast enough!”
Speaking of rare seforim, there are many seforim that have earned opposition from different groups. How does a store with such a diverse clientele navigate the tricky path of political correctness?
Reb Shloime’s answer is surprisingly simple: “We sell lots of seforim. The only seforim that I will not allow in the store are ones that write against Belzer Chassidus.”
Are there seforim that sell for reasons other than their content? “Sure, people are clamoring for a first edition of the Noam Elimelech for ‘segulah’ reasons. Altogether, chassidim are always interested in seforim from the Zhitomir printing press.”
Reb Shloime feels that sometimes, people go to far.
“We always knew that having Sefer Raziel HaMalach in the house was considered protection against fire. Fine. But now, people come in to buy one for their pockets, for their cars ... that was never the segulah.”
One of the most obvious changes in the seforim business is the enhanced aesthetic appeal lent to seforim by modern printing and publication methods. In this store, with its shelves crammed with faded volumes and spanking new tomes, I wonder whether aesthetics make a difference. Are people more likely to purchase a sefer with a more attractive cover? Not really, is the answer. A sefer, at least, is still judged by its contents rather than its cover — or design.

Not Your Average Customer

The vast array of seforim on Biegeleisen’s shelves continue to draw all sorts of visitors, among them the most venerated scholars. On any given day, one can enter the store and see prominent roshei yeshivah and rabbanim; that aura is part of its storied past.
“It was always like that,” Reb Shloime reminisces. “You never knew who you’d meet. Many of the great rabbanim from across America — Rav Ruderman, Rav Leizer Silver, Rav Gifter, and others — were in contact with my father. There were always packages of seforim going out to them. Rav Shlomo Freifeld came once a week. Chaim Lieberman, the secretary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, would come in every week to buy seforim for the Rebbe.”
He laughs.
“We got all types. Shlomo Carlebach, the singer, would come in. He once bought a Kedushas Levi, but then he came back a few days later for a new one, since he had given away the first one.”
There was also Yiddish theater actor Zero Mostel, who enjoyed the atmosphere in the store, and writer Elie Weisel, whose thank-you note hung on the bulletin board until one day when the family noticed it was missing.
I asked Reb Shloime if he’s ever locked the store for any one customer. “Yes,” he tells me. “When my Rebbe, the Belzer Rebbe, was here, we locked the store, closing it to the public.”
Has the economic downturn affected the store?
“Sure. How long are you sitting here, and how many people have come through the store? Quite a few, no? Yet how many times have you heard the register open?”
So people come to look, and not to buy, I infer.
“Exactly,” Reb Shloime tells me. “But we don’t mind. Let them look, let them enjoy.”
Still, despite the easygoing attitude, Reb Shloime concedes that selling seforim is a tough business.
“We have to order the perfect amount. If we run out of a sefer, the customers get annoyed. If we buy too many, it isn’t worthwhile. The profit margin is so small that we need to sell every single sefer we order.”
So what does the future hold? With demographics changing again, perhaps it’s time for a Biegeleisen store in Lakewood?
“People come in here all the time from Lakewood and asked us to open there. Will we ever? Who knows?”

****

I leave the store with the understanding that I have succeeded in uncovering few, if any, of the secrets stacked among the seforim shelves. Reb Shloime seems to keep most of his encyclopedic range of insider’s information to himself. Yet my trip was still a pleasure: a journey to a real seforim store, run by a family that has been giving the People of the Book what they need for close to a century.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 315)