By COLlive reporter
The online store of Kehot Publication Society, the publishing division of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, crashed on a day considered to be Chabad’s “Black Friday.”
Hei Teves is when Lubavitch Chassidim and followers worldwide flock to bookstores to commemorate the returning of stolen books to Chabad’s library.
While the Kehot showroom on Kingston Avenue in Crown Heights was overcrowded with locals, book enthusiasts from around the world found themselves facing a blank page when visiting KehotOnline.com.
Yitzi Cole, the webmaster of the Kehot website, explained that “an insipid attack on our servers coupled with an overload of requests caused the server to crash.”
In an email sent Monday to customers and COLlive.com, Cole promised that “technicians have been working non-stop to correct the problem and will hopefully have the website stabilized shortly.”
As of Monday afternoon the website is fully operative.
In November 2010 an advertisement of Kehot on a bus stop billboard in Crown Heights was vandalized by unknown perpetrators.
Cole or other Kehot personnel were not reachable for further comment on the matter.
Ronni Ross Amishay of the Kehot marketing Department told COLlive.com Monday that in store sales on Sunday reached an all time high with non- stop lines and 3 open registers.
“It was amazing to see how many people come out on Hei Teves to fulfill a directive of the Rebbe,” she said.
Amishay said sets of books – primarily of the Rebbe and the Frierdiker Rebbe – were the best sellers.
“We have a lot of new merchandise this year which were published in time for Hei Teves and we had shopping carts in store to assist customers.”
The up to 50% off of the Hei Teves sale continues through Wednesday, December 15, 2010.
Please go back to print with the Kesser Shem Tov HaShalem. There is a growing demand for it and it goes out of stock very quickly. Melech Moshiach told the Baal Shem Tov that he will come when “…your teachings have been publicized; and when your wellsprings have been sent to the outside; and …” We need the seforim to assist the publicizing of the Besht’s teachings. Nu?
Sholomke!!!
R.Turk brought his class there and they are in the picture.
GO RABBI TURK!!!
I think Yitzi deserves a raise
I bought the new Samach Vov for only $17.97!
If you bought the book in college lehavdil you would pay about $99.99.
I don’t know how they do it.
Yitz works so hard at Kehot especially when the site crashed due to hundreds of people buying online all at once. He was at work late hours trying his best to rectify the situation and he DID! Great work Yitz I owe you a fab dinner! And YES he is the best outfielder in baseball!
Great to see you!
Yitzy Cole is the best outfielder in the crown heights softball league !!!!!!!! GO YITSY
well its only a day after there massive sale
so it makes sense they’re out of stock….duh!
Having read this article I realized that now would be a good time to get all the seforim I have been waiting to buy. I followed the link to the site and was a little confused when every second book i was looking for was out of stock. I figured it was just that category so i checked others and…. all the same. Either they have to update their online inventory to reflect what they really have in stock, or they have to find someone better at inventory management… If so many OOS (out of
yitzi coles the man!!!!!!
The way the story is written it makes it sound like someone or some people were deliberatily trying to take the site down.
Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great!
It’s most likely the rush of customers that the server couldnt handle.
The Rebbe’s seforim online had the smallest discount of all. Why cant the mammarim and sichos be 30-40% off like the Rebbe Maharash and Rashab?
Either way its amazing that a Kehot does what they do and I ended up buying many seforim.
Thank you Kehot for helping us fulfill a directive of the REBBE!
i was there, and the most beautiful thing, was seeing young lubavitcher kinderlach squealing with delight at getting their own sefer!!! just beautiful.
lahavdil hay teves is the goyish black friday, this is the Rebbes yom tov.