Page 94 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

stories, and so on, are less widely known, are not systematically acquired by Jew-
ish libraries (although a scattering of their volumes can always be found), and
only rarely are incorporated into formal curricula in Jewish schools.
But no picture of ArtScroll’s presence in the London community is com-
plete if restricted to an examination of the established institutions, since it is
through the retail book market that the press appears to have made the greatest
impact. This is evident from a survey of Judaica bookstores in the London
area, which reveals the press’s prominence in terms of percentage of total shelf
space, the positioning of texts in window and in-store displays, and promotional
offerings—most signi¤cant, an annual sale organized by the publisher. Although
retail booksellers are generally unwilling to divulge speci¤c data about pro¤ts,
the heavy presence of ArtScroll books in their stores (in several cases, they rep-
resented as much as 50 percent of the total stock) is a clear indication of steady
demand. Nevertheless here, too, signi¤cant distinctions must be drawn within
the ArtScroll corpus. Several London-area Judaica booksellers reported only a
limited interest in non-liturgical titles among non-haredi customers, with the
exception of of a few “best-sellers,” such as Rabbi Berel Wein’s three-volume
Jewish history. As for the rest of the booklist, dominated by biographies and
self-help titles, its principal customers are characterized by booksellers as either
existing members of the haredi community or as ba’alei teshuva “looking for
background information” or “impulse shopping,” as one merchant put it.
These observations suggest that ArtScroll has won the loyalty of certain cate-
gories of consumers and users, but the ability of the press to dominate this
market is restricted by the institutional af¤liations of Jewish groups within the
London community, and by the attitudes of local authorities toward the press
and its various genres of writing. In this regard, it is noteworthy that rabbis,
librarians, booksellers, and educational professionals play a key role in enforcing
the distinction between the “religious” texts, which they often praise as “valu-
able additions,” and the other works on the ArtScroll booklist. Many of these
non-haredi local brokers speak quite disparagingly of the history and self-help
books in particular. One librarian, responsible for stocking and maintaining li-
braries at two Orthodox synagogues in London (both of which happen to use
the ArtScroll Siddur) put it this way:

Any thinking, modern, educated Jew ¤nds the whole ArtScroll ethos extraordinarily
banal and sanitized. I think most people are aware of that. But again, they accept
that because of the parallel bene¤ts of information that the books contain, and
that they’re generally well presented and well argued, and have a lot of useful mate-
rial in them. So for example, the ArtScroll books on particular topics, like kashrut
[kosher laws], or even explanations of parts of the service, stuff like that—all
these speci¤c books which give information about halakhic matters or liturgical
matters—generally speaking, they’re quite reasonably received as being informa-
tive. The stuff on history is what people ¤nd the least interesting. I mean, I ¤nd it
all amazingly bland and repetitive. Rabbis are seen in a uniformly pink glow; their
human complexities are just not addressed in the ArtScroll texts. You can substi-
tute one rabbi for another, and you could almost say the same about all of them.

Communicating Authority, Consuming Tradition 83