Unfair competition?

Some Judaica merchants cry foul over Israeli expos

ERIC J. GREENBERG
The Jewish Week

Hanukkah ended last weekend, but for some American Judaica merchants and artists the holiday season was over weeks ago.

In fact, they say, the Hanukkah gift-buying season, traditionally a major source of their annual sales, never began.

Besides the U.S. economic recession affecting many businesses, they are blaming another culprit: the proliferation of Israel expos and fairs promoting Israeli retailers and craftspeople being sponsored around the country by synagogues and Jewish community centers, with millions of dollars at stake.

Judaica storeowners and artists in the United States, while stressing their unyielding support for the State of Israel, say that what started as a noble idea to help struggling Israeli vendors and artists decimated by the vanishing tourist trade has turned into an unregulated industry.

Their list of complaints:

The growing number of Israeli fairs has severely cut into their livelihood. They note with irony that they have been selling Israeli-made products for years, but are now often barred from participating in the pro-Israel shows.
The fairs amount to unfair competition for Israelis because they often receive the backing of the local Jewish establishment with free advertising, free volunteers and free or reduced cost of securing exhibition space.
Unregulated sales prices. In some cases, the Israeli merchants are able to undercut the prices of American merchants because the Israelis are not collecting sales tax, a potentially illegal scenario. Conversely, some sources reported that Israeli vendors were charging higher prices.

Perhaps the most vexing concern raised by the local merchants: Who is really benefiting from the Israel expos?

The original concept was to help struggling merchants and artists such as those in Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda Mall who have had few tourist customers for about two years because of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

And they have helped immeasurably.

"I couldn't have imagined this in my wildest dreams," Yuval Boteach, owner of Jewels of Jerusalem, said during a recent fair. "For months I have not been able to pay my rent at my store, but from today alone I can pay and survive, thanks to these angels," he said, referring to the fair organizers.

But American Judaica storeowners

Local merchants react to Ben Yehuda Mall

and community center sponsors agree there is no system in place to screen the Israeli vendors and determine who is included and who is not, and why.

Some American merchants say it appears there is a small group of Israeli merchants or their representatives being organized to come to the United States, traveling from fair to fair and doing well, while many other Israeli vendors are being shut out.

"A tightly controlled band of artists is being allowed into a group and that's it," said Rochelle Stern, a Long Island-based Judaica distributor who contends that some Israelis have suddenly gone into the Judaica business to take advantage of the emotions of Americans wanting to help Israel.

Freiser and others question why local Jewish nonprofit agencies, such as synagogues and community centers, as well as rabbis from the pulpit, are promoting and aiding for-profit Israeli businesses while hurting his own.

"It's an unfair situation," he said. "I'm selling much of the same kind of merchandise. This is my livelihood."

Leah Schwartz, who last month coordinated the largest Israeli expo in New York City, said, "Our intention was not to hurt the people who have ongoing Judaica stores."

But in hindsight, she admitted there were some problems, including not checking whether exhibitors were bona fide Israeli merchants and artists.

Barbara Mark Dreyfuss, who was co-chairwoman of the recent Ben Yehuda Mall in Greater Phoenix, said the event brought the region's Jewish community closer.

There were 10,000 people at the event, which took in $154,000, she said. "We mobilized the Jewish Phoenix community as never before. We had 650 happy and enthusiastic and now committed volunteers. We had Christians among those volunteers. We did a fabulous thing for this community and for Israel."

One problem, she said, is that each community effort for Israeli merchants is ad hoc and operating under its own rules, and therefore experiences aren't being shared.

Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, agreed that the fairs pose problems for Americans retailers and artists, and that they raise halachic (Jewish law) issues.

Lerner said rabbis in each community should decide for themselves whether the fair poses a halachic question as to the livelihood of local merchants. One Israeli fair is not going to hurt a local merchant, he said.

Nevertheless, he said, the American Judaica merchants and artists have valid points. "Do you cut this (campaign) off completely, or is there a happy medium?" he asked.

This article was reprinted with permission of the Jewish Week of New York.

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