Shelf Life

Strasbourg, France, may not have much name recognition as far as Jewish communities go, but thanks to David Fishman, it’s become the heart of a major operation receiving seforim no longer in use and passing them on to new homes

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tep into David and Serach Fishman’s apartment in Strasbourg, France, and you’ll see rows and rows of boxes filled to the brim with seforim. While David, a native Canadian, spends his days running a company focused on subsea turbine-sourced renewable energy and desalinated water solutions, he also devotes large chunks of time to the mammoth seforim project he’s pioneered.

David’s clientele spans the Jewish spectrum: young chassanim come to fill their new libraries after marriage, men seeking an out-of-print sefer reach out, people who can’t afford to buy seforim know he may be able to assist, and he’s even sent sifrei Tehillim to service visitors to the Jewish cemetery in Penang, Malaysia.

While typically seforim that are no longer in use are designated for genizah and eventual burial, David has found that a standard sheimos collection contains myriad items, whether sifrei Kodesh, sifrei Tehillim, or even bentshers, that are still eminently usable.

“How can one dispose of great seforim when we should be trying to save them?” he says. “There are so many people who need them — some are searching for these exact seforim, others would be interested if only they knew they were available.”