Menorah
MenorahJWG Ltd.

There are Judaica stores and then there is JudaicaWebStore.com, which I’ve shopped at for many years. I would definitely recommend JudaicaWebStore.com for anyone looking to purchase Judaica or Jewish items. The selection and price are excellent, the shopping experience always positive, and I feel good knowing that my purchases support businesses in Israel.

This past summer I did shopping for some gifts for Rosh Hashanah and a few hostess gifts for Sukkot. Most recently I purchased a new menorah for my own home. Here is a review of my most recent shopping experiences and why I recommend them:

Selection and Price

At JudaicaWebStore.com Judaica prices were much less expensive than I’ve seen in local stores and about the same or less than other Judaica websites. But what I really like about the store is that you can find items that you don’t see everywhere – in fact I think many of them are JudaicaWebStore.com exclusives. There range from unique paper cuts by David Fisher to beautiful jewelry designs to t-shirt prints that I’d never seen before. As far as selection, I always find everything I’m looking for and more. There is room for improvement in the etrog box section, as there were only two boxes available and both pretty pricey. But aside from that, I found the selection to be excellent. To get the best price, try the “Deal of the Day” – I bought a really gorgeous menorah at almost 50% off list price!

Shopping Experience

The gift-giving guides were very helpful, as I tend to purchase for special occasions. There were items and artists that I recognized from local stores, but they were offered at much lower prices. I like how there was a wide variety of prices and even small hostess gifts.

For example, in the Rosh Hashanah gifts, note cards with envelopes started at just $5 and honey dishes at $10, which were just perfect for us to bring a little “something” as we visited friends and family during Sukkot. The design of the website is much better and more clean feeling than competing sites, which makes it more pleasant to shop.

Some room for improvement would be in the suggested holiday or event items. For example, we use a lot of wall hangings in our sukkot, but there weren’t any listed in the sukkot holiday gifts section. Same goes for the wedding gifts. Some were rings, which are related to weddings, but probably not a “gift” per se. I ended up getting a hand-painted tzedakah box for the wedding gift. The Hanukkah gift selection was much better than the other holidays.

Customer Service

I found the customer service good. When I placed my order, I didn’t notice that one of my items was a specialized custom order (a Hebrew name necklace I bought for myself) and would take more time than the rest of the order. I contacted customer service by email when I received other items first. They let me know the status of the order quickly and I received the necklace a week or two later, which isn’t such a big deal to wait for such a special item. It would have been nice to have a toll-free US number for them to get in touch, but they were pretty quick with an email response so I can’t really complain.

Support Israel

I might not have mentioned before, but JudaicaWebStore is based in Jerusalem and sells almost all Israeli-made products. Since I am a huge supporter of Israel, it’s always a bonus when I can buy from Israel and support Israeli artists and businesses. I respect JudaicaWebStore for its support of Jewish and Israeli artists, including selling signed and numbered lithographs as well as originals.

JudaicaWebStore also sells products that help to give back to communities in need, like Rockets to Roses made from rockets that landed in southern Israel. They employ Israel-based graphic designers, they source materials from Israel whenever possible, and even use print shops in Israel for its t-shirts and posters. I feel good shopping there because it helps Israeli workers. I also think that people really appreciate the extra effort I’ve made to get them something special.

Bottom Line

Because of its great selection, competitive prices, excellent online shopping experience, good customer service, and support of Israeli artists and industry I highly recommend JudaicaWebStore.com for your Judaica and Israel product needs.