To buy tallit, tefillin, mezuzah, shofar or other Judaica, why should I purchase online from Israel, when I can easily purchase Judaica at my local synagogue gift shop or Judaica store? Well, here are a few good reasons to buy a tallit, tefillin, mezuzah, shofar, etc. from Israel:
- If you want to buy tallit, tefillin, mezuzah, shofar, or other Judaica items, chances are your local Judaica store does not have real expertise and know-how. Even if they claim to, the reliability of that claim may be questionable.
- You get great value when you buy tallit, tefillin and other Judaica items from Israel because the main cost in producing kosher tallits, mezuzahs, tefillin and shofars is labor, and Israeli labor is less expensive than what you may find locally.
- Many of the scribes in the Land of Israel live in surroundings imbued with piety and holiness. After all, the whole point of putting a mezuzah on your doorpost is to sanctify your home and you lay tefillin to sanctify your mind and heart, so it doesn’t pay to take chances with the sofer who wrote the parchments.
- Israel’s international shipping rates are very low.
- Your tefillin or tallit purchase helps support the Israeli economy and Torah scholars.
The following is a list of places to buy tallit, tefillin, mezuzah, Sefer Torah and shofar products from dealers based in Israel that we recommend based on first-hand knowledge.
HaSOFER.com – Located in downtown Jerusalem and owned by Rabbi Moshe Flumenbaum. Highly reliable kashrus and very fair prices.
- Glass, wood and acrylic mezuzahs
- Michael Kupietsky mezuzahs
- Weatherproof mezuzah cases
- Megillas Esther
- Tefillin gassot at various levels
Ben’s Tallit Shop (that’s us!) – located in the Modi’in area
- Traditional wool tallit by Mishkan Hatchelet and Talitania
- Handwoven tallit selection by Gabrieli, Galilee Silks, Maaseh Oreg and Shilo
- Wedding tallit and bar mitzvah tallit
- Tallit katan, tzitzit, techelet at unbeatable prices
ZaraMart – located in Rishon Letzion and owned by Yermi Haker and Albert Zara (Turkish Jews who speak French, German, Turkish, English, Hebrew and Ladino!) . Israel’s largest kippah supplier.
- Satin kippot
- Brocade kippot
- Velvet kippot
- Hand-crocheted kippot
- Leather kippot
- Eco-suede kippot
- Custom kippot
World of Judaica – located in Tel Aviv. General Judaica items.
- Jewish gift ideas
- Havdalah sets
- Jewish jewelry
- Candlesticks
- Kiddush cups
Oter Israel – located near Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood. (I bought my tefillin there just before I got married 13 years ago, and have gotten great results!)
If you have no plans to be in Jerusalem, several quality tefillin options are available here.
Kol Shofar is located in the Golan Heights and run by shofar craftsman Shimon Kinan. Lovely website, but it doesn’t enable buying shofars online.
Affordable, quality shofars are available for purchase by going to our shofar category, which, unlike other sellers, let’s you see images of the actual shofars we have in stock, rather than images merely for illustrative purposes. We carry ram’s horn shofars, Yemenite shofars and gemsbok shofars.
Makor HaStam (Hebrew website) – located in Bnei Brak. Owners Yissachar Steinharter and Yechiel Yisraelovich have over two decades of experience overseeing the production of top quality sifrei Torah. Ashkenazi Sefer Torah and Sephardic Sefer Torah in various sizes and levels of quality available.
- Sefer Torah