Snapshot: Seforim for All

By David J. Glenn

Avi had just been honored with his bar-mitzvah. He read the parsha flawlessly, and enjoyed the simcha with all his friends and family.

He was now ready for his very own set of Shas.

Problem was, his parents were struggling financially, and they couldn't afford the several hundred dollars for the set.

But there was an easy solution — Pinter's. 

The store, a Boro Park fixture at 4408 14th Ave., had a full set of used Shas for less than $10. 

Avi is now 30, with his nice-sized library of new and used seforim. But that tattered, $10 set of Shas remains his most treasured of the volumes on his shelves. "I wouldn't part with it no matter how much money might be offered," Avi said.

Yanky Pinter opened the shop at the site of a conventional Judaica store with its hefty price tags.

Now, "we have everything, whatever you want (in seforim), '' Pinter said.  

His posted hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and until 2 p.m. on Friday, but "we're really open 24 hours a day," Pinter said. That's because he displays an array of $1 seforim on a table outside the storefront, whether the shop is open or not. Customers simply place the money through the gate.

The seforim inside the store are more than a dollar, of course, but nothing is exorbitant— not even the "new-ish" ones, Pinter said.

Because there always was a good supply of seforim outside the store, bochurim, as well as adults, could pore over the volumes even when the "non-essential" store was closed during the early months of the Covid pandemic. "Many people came because we were the only place to get seforim during Covid," Pinter said. "Once we opened again, they became regular customers.

"They still come today."