A Jewish publisher receiving its very own ZIP code is a story in itself. Considering the publisher’s trajectory from a small post‑Holocaust operation makes the story even more remarkable.
The publisher is Kehot Publication Society, the official publishing division of Chabad-Lubavitch. Founded in 1941 by the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson, it originally published only several titles per year in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English. Today, Kehot boasts an active catalog of over 2,750 titles in eight languages, distributed across the globe.
Here is the story of how that happened.
THE START OF A TRANSFORMATION
In 1940, when the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe arrived in New York, admirers explained that passionate, proactive Jewish life was for the old country. Here in “the Golden Country,” bare ritual observance sufficed, and even that was in decline.
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak remained convinced that by sharing the “Torah of the heart,” a Jewish soul in America could soar to the heights of any in history. As one of his early activities, he founded Kehot to publish prayer books, curricula, and Chassidic teachings in a language that American Jews understood and felt.
In 1942, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok appointed his son‑in‑law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson – who became the seventh Rebbe in 1951 – as director and editor‑in‑chief. Over the following years, the future Rebbe invested countless hours to publish an ever‑expanding list of titles.
FROM THE BASICS TO THE MOST PROFOUND
In the early years of Kehot, the Rebbe spearheaded the publication of Jewish essentials, which were so desperately needed in the aftermath of the destruction of Jewish life in Europe. These included prayer books, holiday literature in French and in English, educational literature for children, and fundamental works of Halacha – Jewish law and Chassidic philosophy and mysticism.
The Rebbe also initiated mammoth projects to print and distribute previously unpublished works of the Rebbes of Chabad. Up until that point, most of the teachings authored by the Rebbes had remained in manuscript form, with a select few informally published by mimeograph and even fewer typeset and published in an organized fashion.
Under the leadership of the seventh Rebbe, a team of scholars studied the voluminous manuscripts of each Rebbe and published the priceless teachings contained within. Slowly but surely, a full catalog of each Rebbe was published, from the 35-plus titles of the first Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, to the hundreds of titles by the seventh Rebbe, in our generation.
In addition to the titles in their original Hebrew and Yiddish, Kehot strives to make these teachings as accessible as possible, with English translations and titles. Thanks to their efforts, the English reader now has access to a wide range of titles, ranging from halachic works to esoteric Chassidic teachings.
WORLDWIDE REACH
In addition to publishing and maintaining the catalogs of seven Chabad Rebbes, Kehot also works closely with Chabad centers across the world to maintain their libraries of prayer books and Chumashim, as well as provide them with their vast corpus of Jewish literature.
Before each holiday, Kehot supplies the Chabad centers in over 100 countries with books and publications for the upcoming occasion. Before the High Holy Days, many thousands of machzorim – High Holiday prayer books are printed and shipped. Before Purim, it is various editions of Megilas Esther – the biblical text which retells the story of the holiday. And before Pesach, Haggadahs in no less than eight languages allow Passover Seders to run smoothly wherever they are located on the map. As soon as each holiday concludes, Kehot immediately begins preparing for the coming year, ensuring they have enough of the relevant titles for each date on the calendar.
With branches in Israel, France, Argentina, and other locations, Kehot also features a growing library of titles in Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Dutch, German. There are even a select number of Kehot titles that were published in Farsi and Arabic, for the Jewish communities of the Middle East.
100,000 SQUARE FEET OF JEWISH BOOKS
As the number of Kehot’s offerings grew, so did their need for more space. Headquartered in Brooklyn, NY, where each inch comes at a premium, Kehot was limited to what they could keep in stock. Third‑party warehouses and their current 16,000‑square‑foot were hardly enough to store the 150,000 books printed per year.
“We are at capacity,” Rabbi Mendel Laine, director of sales at Kehot, told Chabad.org for an article about the publishing house. “Up until this point, we’ve sometimes had to limit our orders when we go to print based on purely physical constraints.”
To allow them to continue their unprecedented growth, Kehot purchased a 100,000‑square‑foot facility in Scranton, PA, in collaboration with Lahak Hanachos, which translates and publishes the talks of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe.
The new facility once housed an online high school that was the largest high school by enrollment in the United States. The school once sent and received so much mail that it received its own ZIP code, which remains to this day. With the purchase of the building by Kehot, the publishing house becomes the first Jewish publisher to have their own ZIP code.
“Our growth in recent years made this move absolutely necessary,” said Rabbi Yosef B. Friedman, director of Kehot. “We’re not just relocating; we’re setting the stage for the next phase of growth in Jewish publishing.”
