Veteran volunteer . . . Trudy Stowe in ESRA’s Raanana bookshop

They’re the public face of ESRA, and all three of our bookshops have great stories to tell

ESRA Bookshop,Klausner Street, Raanana

At 9:30 am on Monday mornings, veteran volunteer Trudy Stowe opens the bookshop on Klausner St in Raanana for business. Very often, she’s greeted by boxes of books piled up outside the door, waiting to be sorted.

“We ask people to drop off books during the hours that we’re open – 9:30 am to 1 pm, but often they just leave them anytime,” says Trudy, a soft-spoken former Londoner who managed a dental practice and helped her lawyer husband before her retirement. Trudy has been volunteering at the book shop for about nine years (“I can’t remember exactly,” she says, smiling) and has been living in Raanana since her family came on aliyah in 1977. Now, she is one of a team of loyal volunteers who work on a rota and share one thing in common – a love of books.

Volunteer Leslie Nadel . . . 
I love books, she says

The bookshop is a reader’s paradise. In two small rooms, plus a vestibule and outside space, books are neatly shelved to the ceiling, classified alphabetically and by subject. There are children’s books, thrillers, current fiction, classics, magazines, cookbooks, travel books, biographies, sci-fi – a full range. Each book costs from NIS 4 to NIS 25, a pretty good deal compared to the prices at local shops. Often, since people sometimes donate books that they bought overseas, browsers can find books that the local booksellers don’t even carry. Moreover, the Raanana bookshop holds half-price sales from time to time, making the books an even better bargain.

All the books are in excellent condition. That is because the team will only accept them if they are. Says Trudy, “We ask that people donate books in good condition, and if they are novels, that they are recent and have been published in the last five years. We are pressed for space.”

So what happens to the others – the tattered texts, the books without covers, the encyclopedias no one reads anymore, the books in other languages? “Unfortunately, we have to recycle them in the blue bins,” she says. “That’s a fact of life.”

On duty that day was Leslie Nadel, who has been volunteering for the past year and a half and works at the bookshop because – no surprise here – “I love books.” She jokes that her husband won’t let her buy any more, not that she pays attention.

The Raanana bookshop provides some very useful services to readers that ESRA members may not know about. For example, if someone is looking for a particular book, he/she can telephone and ask if the shop has it in stock. If not, the team will make a note of the book wanted, and call if and when it comes in. Book clubs frequently request multiple copies – “sometimes we can provide them all.”

The books are sold at a stand during coffee breaks at some lectures at the Raanana Mishkan, and the bookshop also sells gift vouchers. Some people buy the books as presents. They are particularly useful for children who are invited to endless birthday parties requiring small gifts. Since the books are all in good condition, they make great gifts at very reasonable prices.

During the morning, many people wander in. Most buy a book or two, but some lonely souls, says Trudy, “just want a chat.” The staff is happy to supply that.

Customers vary in age, and yes, many are young. Some are children, particularly in the holidays. Other keen customers are teachers, who are looking for teaching materials.

Their best customer? “There is an elderly lady in her 90s who can’t come in personally any more but sends her companion with NIS 200 from time to time. We keep a list of the books she has already taken, so she doesn’t get the same book twice. She is so grateful!”

Although the books are priced low, there are still a few awkward customers who try to bargain. No deal! “We explain that our prices are competitive, and we are a charity and we explain what ESRA does.”

I asked which author is most popular with customers. “It varies. There seem to be fads in authors. At the moment, Daniel Silva books are very much in demand. He seems to have taken over from John Grisham. Tom Clancy is out of fashion and so is Patricia Cornwell. Books by recent prize winners are requested, but not Philip Roth books – they didn’t sell. And Agatha Christie books fly off the shelves!”

The bookshop is located in the center of Raanana, just off Ahuza, but the location is not ideal, since the steps make it inaccessible for the handicapped. The staff is hoping to find a better location and they are happy to have new volunteers, who in addition to doing a mitzvah, will find a welcoming group of women who have developed a comradeship among themselves.

In the meantime, devoted readers who prefer an actual book to a Kindle version will continue to make their way to the shop, where they are sure to find a great read at a bargain price.

Beit Fisher, 5 Klausner St, Raanana.
Open Sunday-Friday 09:30 – 13:00.
Tel: 09 748 0541.

‘Jewel in the crown’ was a storage room'

ESRA Bookshop, Azrieli Mall, Modiin

Each of the three ESRA bookshops has its own character, and ESRABOOKS in Modiin is no exception. It’s “the jewel in the crown of local ESRA activities”, says manager and branch chair Cynthia Barmor, a veteran of 50 years in Israel and 12 years in Modiin, who has put her working experience as a former emissary of JNF and KKL staffer to good use in building up this very successful enterprise.

Backed by the national ESRA office, it took Cynthia and her co-chair at the time, Jackie Klein, a full year to find the right place, in a storage room in the Azrieli Mall, and once they did, they managed to find donors for electricity, lighting and shelving. The shop opened in October 2010.  In keeping with ESRA theme colors, the well-planned shop is decorated in tones of grey and orange. It has had its share of bad luck – a flood from a burst pipe once wiped out a third of the stock – but the volunteers ensured it bounced back even stronger, with new shelving, books and installations.

There’s lots to choose from at Modiin’s ESRABOOKS
in the city’s Azrieli Mall

Today, there are ten members of the shop committee – “all fabulous ladies and one fabulous gentleman” – who decide on policies such as sale dates, prices, etc. in a democratic manner, as well as several dozen volunteers who man the nine three-hour weekly shifts.  Unlike the Raanana bookshop, the Modiin shop sells books in Hebrew as well as English, to cater to Hebrew-speaking locals, and donations are not strictly limited to recent best-sellers. Like the Raanana shop though, Cynthia does ask for donations in good condition. And if you’re thinking of unloading your old encyclopedias or textbooks here, don’t. Unfortunately, there is no market for them.

Cynthia has some happy memories of incidents in the shop, such as the time she found NIS1,600 in a book. Another time, she found $800 in cash. In both incidents, she was able to trace the people who had lost the money. In one case, she was helped by the fact that the shop asks book donors along with customers, to sign the monthly raffle sheet which gifts the winner a free book of his or her choice together with a free ESRA bag. In this way, people leave their email addresses along with their contact numbers.  Not surprisingly, in both cases the delighted recipients of the lost funds made generous donations to ESRA.

“We would love to expand,” says Cynthia. “Meanwhile, we’re happy with the important funds we raise for our project for kids at risk in Modiin. At the same time, it is wonderful to hear our customers constantly telling us what a wonderful service we provide to the community.”

ESRABOOKS in Modiin, Azrielli Mall, first parking level, end of lane 18.
Open Sunday – Friday 10:00 – 13:00;
Tuesday – Thursday 16:00 – 19:00.
Tel: 08 634 6528;
esramodiin@bezeqint.net

First edition found in a ‘Grey area’

ESRA Bookshop Five Towns, Zichron Yaakov

“We’ve moved around a lot,” says Jane Krivine, a bookstore volunteer at the ESRA bookshop in Zichron Yaakov. (Chairman Laurence Jacob is on vacation for a few months.) Jane, who came from London in 2003, was Chair of the ESRA Caesarea-Zichron Yaakov branch until last year and has a background in classical music promotion and arts festival management. 

Opened in 2008 in Or Akiva, the shop then moved to a new shopping mall in Binyamina (“It was off the beaten track and didn’t generate much traffic, so we moved again.”). It is now located in a shopping mall next to the Masorti synagogue in Zichron Yaakov. The current arrangement is a good one: instead of paying rent, ESRA pays a percentage of takings.

“We’ve had a very good response over the past ten years, with terrific volunteers, but things change, and now we are open just one day a week, on Tuesdays, from 10:30 am to 1 pm,” Jane says.

Inside the ESRA Bookshop,
Five Towns, Zichron Yaakov

The high point of the bookstore’s history, without a doubt, was the momentous discovery that a donated book was extremely valuable. “Someone brought a book in which looked old. It was a first English edition of an ancient book called The Art of Warfare by a Chinese general, Sun Tzu, a translation published in 1905.  Someone had slipped some letters into the book, written by an officer in Palestine during the Mandate. There were notes written in the book by its original owner, a mother who had lost her son in World War I. The book itself was philosophical and difficult to read, but it turns out that it was required reading in military colleges.

 “A volunteer suggested that we show it to an expert, so I wrote to an antiquarian secondhand bookshop in London, and when I went to London on holiday, I took the book with me. The owner offered me 800 pounds sterling in cash! That was the best takings we ever had.”

The shop’s best sellers? “Books come and go in fashion, just like clothes. People like the usual thrillers, by James Patterson and Dan Brown, but there is also a surreptitious demand for the “Shades of Grey” books. Of course we have to discard some donations. When someone empties their parents’ 70-year-old bookshelf, the books are often not sellable.”

“I don’t know what our future is going to be, but we’ve had a really wonderful ten years.”

ESRA Bookshop in Zichron Yaakov: Masorti Community Center,

1 Hashmura St, Upper floor, Room 322.

Open Tuesdays 10:00 – 13:00.

Tel: 04 639 8056