80
JANUARY 21, 2021 | The Jewish Home
74
OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Seforim Forwarders Not Just Another Seforim Store BY MALKY LOWINGER
There’s a new shop in town, and it’s not quite like anything else you’ve ever experienced. Seforim Forwarders, located at 1011 Broadway in Woodmere, offers a unique variety of services. For starters, they offer shaimos l’genizah at the highest level of kashrus. They also sell a huge selection of seforim and Jewish books, including many hard-to-find items, at deep discounts. The shopping experience at Seforim Forwarders can best be described as a treasure hunt. Only the treasures can be purchased here at a fraction of their original cost. To anyone passionate about seforim or Jewish books, it’s sure to be a favorite destination. We spoke to Louie Taplin, the proprietor of Seforim Forwarders, to get the story behind the store.
Tell us a little bit about your background. I grew up in Lakewood, and I’ve literally been selling seforim almost my whole life. Seforim have been in my family for generations. My great-grandfather, R’ Moses Pollack, sold seforim on the Lower East Side. My grandfather, Rav Yisroel Taplin, wrote seforim. And my father, who’s a total seforim addict, has been in the business and serving the Lakewood community for twenty-seven years. I’ve been helping him with his business ever since I can remember. You currently have a thr iv ing, established store in Lakewood and one in Monsey, besides
the many pop-up shops you set up over the years in various communities. Why open a store in the Five Towns? Great question. As you know, we have stores in other locations and we’re baruch Hashem busy. But my dad had a lot of inventory sitting in storage – excellent merchandise that people would enjoy. About two years ago, I approached him with the idea to open a store here. We cer tainly aren’t strangers to the Five Towns. We’ve had a shaimos truck parked on Beach 9th street during the pre-Pesach season for the past twenty-plus years. We’ve been serving the local shuls and yeshivas as well as private community members. We’ve also done
occasional pop-up shops in this area where we’ve offered an eclectic mix of seforim and books. On a personal note, I’ve been doing a lot of shaimos pick-ups in this neighborhood, and I started getting to know the people and building relationships. So we’re certainly not new to the community and everyone knows us here. Is ther e s omething unique about the Five Towns community that made you decide to establish a store here? What I’ve learned over time is that clearly there are a lot of people in this community who are passionate about seforim. They are thrilled that we opened up in
