Everything About Mezuzahs

Last week I launched this Mezuzah Planet project. I knew from the start that the most difficult part of it would be to get the first few post.  Of course nobody wants to be the first.  That’s why I made a contest to win a $108 gift certificate. After a couple of days, I still only had 2 submissions.  I really wanted to get the ball rolling.  So last night I went to Flickr and started looking for pictures of people putting up their Mezuzah.  I found quite a few.  So I sent out emails to some of them telling them about our project and inviting them to submit their picture.  I figured that people who already had a digital picture would be more likely to submit it with their story.

When I came back in the morning, I was a bit upset to see what was in my mailbox.

Dear Aaron,

Thanks so much for writing and for your interest in my picture of the mezuzah. Unfortunately, I do not feel comfortable accommodating your request.

As I noticed on your online map, Rabbi Shaffier (I’m not sure if that is you or someone else) lives in and gets his scrolls from Tekoa, which is an Israeli settlement inside the West Bank. While Im an ardent Israel supporter, I do not feel comfortable associating myself with businesses or individuals that perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through settlements in the West Bank (even though I know that Tekoa rabbi Menachem Froman is a strong supporter of Israeli-Palestinian peace).

Sincerely,
-Rob

I wasn’t really so surprised by this email. When I put up my picture on the Mezuzah Planet Map showing where I live, I knew that it may cause controversy.  Its just that I can’t help being disappointed every time that I hear this kind of thing from my fellow Jews.  I wrote back to him:

Dear Rob,
I am sorry to hear that you will not be submitting to our Mezuzah Planet Map. As to your comments regarding my town of Tekoa being a “settlement”, let me refer you to the first couple and last couple of verses in the book of Amos.

Although I didn’t quote the verses in my reply (I didn’t want to go too ‘Old Testament’ on him), I was referring to the following verses:

1:1 The words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa—what he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.

Then the rest of the book speaks of the terrible things that will happen to the nation of Israel due to their sins. Then in the end it says:

9:11 “In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, 12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the LORD, who will do these things. 13 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. 14 I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. 15 I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the LORD your God.

Although I didn’t elaborate on my intention in my response, if he took the time to look at the verses he will see what my intention is. Amos the prophet lived in the same “settlement” that I live in over 2,000 years ago. And he is the very prophet who promised us that in the end we would return to this place and rebuild ruined cities.

Now here’s the thing. I understand (sorta) people who say, “Those Jews are messing it up for everybody, if they would just get out of that land, the whole world wouldn’t have to put up with terrorism.” I think that they are greatly mistaken but I understand that they just want peace and quiet and to be left alone. What gets me is that a guy who bothers to put up a Mezuzah - in fulfillment of a Biblical commandment - would be so anti Biblical in his views on the Israeli situation.

I concluded my short reply:

In any case, I wish you much peace and happiness in your occupied Native-American home in America.

Aaron

The thing that bothered me the most about his response to me was this. Here is this guy who I think lives in Los Angeles (if I am correct based on his pictures on Flickr) telling me that he cannot support my business because it is connected with the “settlements”. The United States stole California from Mexico. Mexico had a revolution ’stealing’ it from the Spanish who in turn had stolen it from the Native Americans. Here he is, a Jew, living comfortably in a land that non-Jewish white people stole from the Natives and judging me for living in our national homeland that has had Jews living here for over 3,000 years. The only way that I can understand this is to say that it is Jewish Antisemitism.

Then I was thinking that maybe I am being to harsh on the poor guy.  Here he is living in Los Angeles (I lived there once too) watching CNN and reading the LA Times.  He is probably just a bit brainwashed by what the media is feeding him.  They try to make it seem like the Jews who live in the Judea region (”West-Bank”) are a bunch of wild, violent types and we are terrorizing our Arab neighbors.  So I thought I would go ahead and post a few pictures to show you my kids and some kids of our Arab neighbors and let you be the judge.

Us

Them

From time to time, I like to look through the statistics for our website.  I keep on top of how people find us.  If it is from Google or if it is from some other page that links to us etc.  Today I was going through the stats and I found a new link that I had never seen.  It was from a site called AboutUs.org.  I wasn’t familiar with the site.  Part of what they do is to provide a platform for users to report their experience with different websites.  I was happy to see that they have a page dedicated to MezuzahStore.com.  When I checked it out I was a bit surprised to see the following comment posted from a user who calls him/her self “vmirzaye”.

There customer contact center number DOES NOT work! I called Aron Sheifer directly and he hung up, telling me “I have the wrong #”. The site charged my credit card 3 times, incorrectly. DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING FROM THEM!! 11:19, 27 May 2008 (PDT

It is not so much that I was bothered that there was a negative comment. It was more the content of the comment that disturbed me.  You see, I am the ‘Aron Shifer’ (correctly spelled Aaron Shaffier) that he/she is talking about.  I know for a fact that the story never happened.  In fact, I don’t answer the phones at all because I live in Israel.  The more I thought about the post, the more that I realized that it was someone (perhaps a competitor) who was trying to harm me and my business for personal reasons.

In the end I decided that the best thing to do was to post a reply and lay out my case.  Here is what I posted.

This comment was obviously posted by someone who has something personal against me or is running a competing website. Perhaps they are the owner of one of the several sites that has popped up in the last years that try to imitate ours and draw off of unsuspecting customers. Here is why I am sure this is the case:.

1. In the post, my name is mentioned as Aron Sheifer. My correct name is Aaron Shaffier. What is interesting about this is that my friends and acquaintances call me by the Yiddishized form ‘Aron’ or ‘Arun’. Also my last name, although spelled Shaffier, is pronounced Sheifer. If this was some random customer who found our site on the internet, and purchased and then had a bad experience, their only knowledge of my name would be what is printed on our website. The very way that they spell it proves that they know me personally or are in my business field and know of me from colleagues.

2. They claim to have called me personally. How do they have my personal number? I live in Israel! We have an employee in Oxnard, CA who deals with all phone calls. I sometimes will deal with issues that have been emailed, but I do not answer the phones from Israel.

3. Why would we charge their card 3 times? All of our orders go through an automated system which is linked in with Authorize.net, one of the largest credit card processors on the internet. We never once have had an issue of a card being charged multiple times. It is very clear that this person who is either a competitor or has some personal vendetta against me is trying to invent a nightmare story that will be sure to scare away customers. From a psychological point of view, you can understand their intent from their conclusion, “DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING FROM THEM”.

4. They say that our phone number doesn’t work. Unlike most websites, we do not bury our customer service number on some page that you have to search for. We post it loud and clear on the top of EVERY page on our site. If you are wondering, try giving a call yourself. I cannot say that we answer it 24/7. After all we are not Walmart of Costco, we are a small website selling a niche product and we have one person doing customer service part time. But the number does work and if you leave a message you will get a return call. In addition we offer email customer service as well as Live Chat that is often available. (Also posted on the top of every page).

In any case, despite the obvious bad intent of the this person’s post, I would like to thank them for giving me an excuse to share all of the reasons why you should feel great about shopping at our site. I believe that the truth is something that can be seen clearly by anyone with open eyes and that any person who reads the childish post and my reply will see which one is true. 01:34, 16 July 2008 (PDT)

The greatest thing about the internet is that it allows an open forum for all kinds of people to speak their mind. A site like AboutUs.org works very well when you are dealing with a large business that is shipping hundreds of orders a day. Then you have enough customers who will go there and post their experience. Even if you have a couple of people with bad intentions, they will be drowned out by the hundreds of positive post which are posted by real customers. In the end the consumer will be able to tell what is the truth by seeing the overwhelming consensus.

The problem arises when you have a smaller site like ours. We have a much smaller base of customers. This means that one or two people with bad intentions can go and make a false post like this one without much or any response from all of the real customers who have had a good experience.

I guess that in this case all I can do is to make my case in the response and to ask all of my customers who have had a good experience to go to AboutUs.org and post positive comments about us.  If you take the time to do that, I thank you in advance.

Aaron Shaffier

Owner - MezuzahStore.com

That is what the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week.  The ruling came in a case where Lynne Bloch of Chicago, put up a Mezuzah on the door to  her condo.  The home owners association at Shoreline Towers said that it was a violation of their rule against displaying items on the doors in the hallway.  It seems that a game of cat and mouse followed with the association removing the Mezuzah and Ms. Bloch replacing it and so on.  The jist of the decision was that the association has the right to make rules of this sort, as long as the are not specific to any religion.  You can read more about the decision here and here.

My question is, why can’t a home owners association in say a gated community do the same thing?  They would essentially be able to make a no Jews allowed rule in this way.  You can almost understand the logic in a condo where the association maintains the hallways and they are saying that they want a uniform look etc.  But the fact is that when you live in a gated community or even in many planned communities, there is also a home owners association that tells you which colors you can paint  your house and how tall you can let your grass grow etc.   I would love to hear the opinion of some lawyers out there if they think that this ruling could also apply to the communities that I mentioned.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was looking over our order history since we started back in 2004.  I realized that we have literally covered the planet with Mezuzahs.  People all over the globe have bought Mezuzahs from us.  I started picturing this image of the Earth covered in Mezuzahs.  Then I came accross some websites that have used Google Maps to display stuff like their different store locations etc.

I realized that I could do the same thing with Mezuzahs.  Today, I put up a new section on the website called Mezuzah Planet.  It allows customers to send us in a picture of them with their Mezuzah along with a little story about what it means to them.

Also, since I realize that nobody wants to be the first with these kind of things…we decided to make a prize.  For now, we will be awarding a $108 gift certificate to the best of every 10 submissions. If the feature becomes popular, we may have to do one certificate a month or something like that, but for now, if you submitt, you have at least a 1 in 10 chance.

I can’t wait to see what you all send in!

I don’t know how I overlooked this one!  This story is from more than a year ago but was too interesting to ignore.  When I read the headline of this story from the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, I was sure that they were going to say that somehow the cops mistook the rolled Mezuzahs for joints.  During the years that I worked in my store Mezuzah Center in Los Angeles, many people commented that watching me roll the Mezuzah scroll looked like watching someone roll a joint.  I just always smiled and didn’t say anything.  I never really had much experience with rolling joints in my years in Yeshivah.

It turns out that the story is about something different, but no less intersesting…

Alex Grabiner was not a particularly religious Jew, but when he and a few friends opened a medical marijuana pharmacy last year in the San Fernando Valley, they invited an Orthodox rabbi to install three mezuzot in hopes that God would bless their business.

“We wanted to create a place where there was a drastically different energy inside than there was outside,” said Grabiner, a 22-year-old Boston transplant.

“That is what the mezuzah symbolizes: That this is a house of people who believe.”

But last month, the Karma Collective, as the pharmacy near Van Nuys Airport is known, was burglarized. The thieves didn’t take much — a few hundred dollars, no drugs — but they cut through a steel security gate and knocked down the front door and another door that opened from the lobby to the cannabis shop…Read the rest of the story here

Also, note that the Mezuzah in the picture looks strikingly like the Mezuzahs that we sell in our store.  The folks in the story are only a few miles away from our store.  I wonder if they bought it from us.  I just hope that they don’t come back and ask for a refund on the grounds that the Mezuzah didn’t stop the robbers.

I recently came across this post at a blog called Kintropy in Action

Last week, I finally got around to hanging the Mezuzahs around the house. We’ve only been living here 6 years, and we bought the Mezuzahs 4 years ago. So last week, the day before we were interviewed by a reporter for a Jewish Newspaper, Robert and I decided it was time to hang them…

I got a kick out of it.  You won’t believe how many people write notes on their orders saying something like, “Please make sure my order arrives by Friday.  My in-laws are coming for the weekend and I don’t want them to know that we still don’t have any Mezuzahs after a year”.

MezuzahStore.com now has a new Jewish Link Directory.  If you have a site of Jewish interest, you can post a link to it in our directory so that our visitors can benefit from it.

We are being very selective about what links we accept.  In order to qualify, your site must be focused on a Jewish topic.  For more information and to submit your site read our guidelines here.

More and more, I am noticing Judaica products that are made in China or India.  Another thing that I am noticing is items made by Israeli companies that are actually manufactured in the Far East (much as you might by a Whirlpool dishwasher that was made in China).

I am not necessarily against this practice altogether.  We also sell a few items that are made in China.  For example our Clear Lucite Mezuzah Cover.  This is an example of a product that is meant to be mass produced as cheaply as possible in order to keep it affordable.  It is therefore understandable that it would be made in China.

What I am a bit uncomfortable about is the practice that is becoming increasingly popular of Israeli companies marketing Israeli style Judaica products that are made in China.  Some of these companies will even shop around Israel for products made by Israel artist and then go get the same thing mass produced in China.  They will then market it under the name of their Israeli company.  The words ‘made in China’ will be in tiny print on the bottom of the package (or nowhere at all).

I think that most customers who purchase Judaica products want them to be made in Israel.  And I think that this practice takes advantage of peoples simple trust.  As I have become aware of this practice, I am trying more and more to offer only items that are actually made in Israel.  On each product page, it will be noted if the item is made in Israel.  If you want to support this kind of business practice.  Vote with your credit card and make sure to purchase only these products.

Here is an article by one of the wholesale companies that we buy from who only deals with made in Israel products.  Check it out.

Reb Gutman Locks at Mystical Paths writes the following:’

A friend of mine, Daniel, was learning in a yeshiva in Brooklyn. He was having a problem and thought that maybe Rabbi Ben Tov could look as his mezuzah and tell him what he should change in his life. He took the mezuzah from his apartment’s front doorpost to the rabbi. The rabbi looked at the mezuzah and accused him of some very shocking things.

“You have been learning the new testament for a long time!”

“What!” Daniel was shocked.

“You are married to a non-Jewish woman and you are a missionary!”

He grabbed the mezuzah from the rabbi’s hand and ran out screaming about how crazy the rabbi was to say such things.

He went back to his apartment and was complaining to his roommate about what happened. His roommate had long peyos (side locks), wore a black hat and long back coat, and learned in the yeshiva with Daniel.

“You gotta hear what this crazy rabbi said,” Daniel told him. And he proceeded to tell him all of the things that Rabbi Ben Tov accused him of doing. His roommate looked down and confessed. Indeed he had been learning the new testament for years, was married to a non-Jewish woman, and was a secret missionary! They shared the same one-room apartment with the same mezuzah!

You can read the full post here

I have been hearing more and more stories like this over the last few years. People who bring their Mezuzahs to “Mezuzah Readers” like the rabbi in the story. They claim that the Rabbi can tell all kinds of things about them by looking at the scroll in their Mezuzah. Let me just say that I am extremely skeptical of this practice. To me it seems no different than people who read palms, horoscopes, Tarot cards etc. etc. etc.

If you would like to read more about the techniques used by these types I would recommend visiting http://www.randi.org

Since we started our website a few years ago, some of our best sellers have been Mezuzahs made from Jerusalem stone.  Mezuzahs like the Kotel Mezuzah or the Land of Israel Mezuzah have been favorites of our customers for years.

Recently, we got in six new products from the same manufacturer.  Some of these Mezuzahs are made out of pure Jerusalem stone.  Others are made out of Jerusalem stone as well as stone from several other parts of Israel.  The latter Mezuzahs allow you to bring something from all parts of the Holy Land into your home.

A few months ago, I had the privilege to visit in the factory of CJ Art in Yavne, Israel where these Mezuzahs are made.  I was so happy to see how all of the workers in the factory are Jewish.  A lot of factories in Israel employ Arab or foreign workers to save money.  The owner showed me all of the raw stone that they use to make the Mezuzahs and explained to me where each type was from.

These Mezuzahs are the real deal!