We are happy to add another gifted blogger to our Guest Post section! 🙂
Today we are hosting Miriam Hendeles,  a mother of grown children, grandmother and mother-in-law. She blogs at 
http://bubbyjoysandoys.com about being a grandmother. At her website, https://www.miriam-hendeles.com she discusses topics related to being a mother-in-law. Miriam is a music therapist who works with elderly in hospice care.
You are welcome to read “Judaica Musings” guest post by Miriam Hendeles.
Whenever I enter a Judaica store, I’m like a child in a toy store.
I’m usually one to buy lots of yarmulkas, CD’s, books and other tzochke’s. It takes a lot of self-control for me not to buy out the entire store (okay, I’m exaggerating here a bit).
But seriously, I’m a mom of five grown sons and a grandmother of five (bli ayin horah) adorable grandsons. This one needs a yarmulka, that one needs some new reading material, and then there are all the gifts I have to buy for this or that upsherin, bar mitzvah or Shabbos invitation.I mean, come on? The local Judaica store is the best gift shop ever.
Nowadays, we have online Judaica shops and lots of them. You can simply sit at your computer and buy endless amount of Judaica products from kiddush cups, to menorahs, to Pesach ke’aros. I remember when I was a little child growing up in Brooklyn before there were online businesses. I recall going to my local Judaica store, which we called “seforim stores” in those days because they sold books and seforim primarily. But if we wanted any non-seforim items, we went there too, because everything Jewish was sold at these
“seforim” stores. Like challah covers and challah boards, and Jewish records. Yes, records. Remember those?
In those days, we had records (not CD’s) and tapes (called “cassettes”). I remember buying a record and going home, sitting on the carpet while playing the coveted record from beginning to end. I’d peruse the back of the record cover and imbibe everything that was written there. I love music.
I recall the time when yarmulkas were solid colors and flannel or velvet. You could get the kids’ name embroidered on it, but none of this “first letter” of name written on it, or sparkly stuff. There was jewelry with a girl’s name engraved and siddurim with the name engraved on it as well.
I remember when the only Jewish novels were by Marcus Lehmann. None of the other novelists and writers existed in the Jewish publishing world. Games and toys were bought at toy stores, and Memory was a game by Milton-Bradley, and not by a Jewish owned company. No such thing as “Torah Slides and Ladders” or “Mitzvah Memory.”
I also distinctly recall that if we wanted to stay up late to read on a Friday night, we would leave the light on in the closet. Now we simply turn on the Shabbos Lamp. So, from fancy yarmulkas to convenient Shabbos Lamps, there’s so much out there in the Judaica business world. I say take advantage of it all and do your shopping for your children and grandchildren.
So have fun and do some shopping on-line. Your kids and grandkids will thank you.
