Every year, the bottom floor of Belfer Hall is transformed into a storefront for the YU Seforim Sale. Beginning in 1994, this sale boasts to be the largest Jewish book sale in North America, with about 15,000 customers annually. It is run by Yeshiva University students, and all of the profits go toward Student Life initiatives. This year, the sale ran from February 7 until February 28, and employed around 80 Yeshiva University students.
Ofir Afenzar, one of the six students responsible for running the Sale, said that his goal was “to make available the largest selection of Jewish books for the Jewish population.” In order to do this, the sale’s inventory comes from various vendors and and aggregates them at the Seforim Sale.
Sarah Sheps, another student who helps run the sale, added, “This year at the Sale we really pushed our online orders. We wanted to reach people who live completely out of state in areas like Kansas or Las Vegas—places that don’t have Jewish book stores—and give them the opportunity to shop at a bookstore that brings all the different vendors to one place.”
Afenzar was also in charge of creativity and design. He contributed considerable time and effort to the Sale, and he succeeded in helping to make this sale even better than it had been in previous years. “This year’s sweatshirts were more professional,” he commented. “We also hired considerably less staff.”
To say that there is a lot of work that goes into the Seforim Sale would be an understatement. Afenzar said that it “literally takes 6 months to make the sale what it is.” Sheps added that every single book that is sold at the sale has to be accounted for and labeled, which means that every one of the hundreds and thousands of books that are sold has been touched and sorted by an employee. “There’s a lot of work and craziness that goes into the Sale, but that’s kind of what makes it worth it,” she said.
Afenzar and Sheps both found running the sale to be an incredibly rewarding experience. Afenzar said that his favorite part of the sale was seeing his staff make customers smile, as well as seeing toddlers having their mothers read them a book in the children’s section. Sheps commented that her favorite part of the sale is the friendships that the workers build, and seeing these people everyday for a month while you work together in stressful environments. “It’s really nice to see the friendships build and continue on for years,” she explained.