AUDETTE Holiday Shopping Made Easy! The Great Book Bind JESSICA STEINBERG SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS 1997 .42, I TO In Stock Now! • . ........ Priced From '29,995' Well Equipped 7100 Orchard Lake Rd. • WEST BLOOMFIELD, MICHIGAN 48322 • Telephone: (810) 851-7200 EARN HIGHER YIELDS! 4.75 Apy VISIT ONE OF OUR LOCATIONS NEAR YOU! BERKLEY • (810) 546-2590 BIRMINGHAM • (810) 646-8787 CLAWSON • (810) 435-2840 CC bank &trust LLJ UJ ROCHESTER • (810) 656-5760 52 ip i change fpace o clatiers Finest Line of Italian Clothing for Men and Women! 20% Off with this ad 1045 OR had Lake Rd • Karl Lake 810-332-1811 SOUTHFIELD • (810) 948-8799 W. BLOOMFIELD • (810) 855-6644 "We create solutions."® ANNUAL PERCENTAGE YIELD EFFECTIVE AS OF 12/6/96. RATES SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT 41; NOTICE. 'MONEY MARKET: S2,500 MINIMUM BALANCE REQUIRED. STATEMENT FEES MAY REDUCE EARNINGS IF MINIMUM BALANCE IS NOT MAINTAINED. W r Municipal Bonds Listing Receive Weekly Report MONEY MARKET* Sterling- FREE CLASSIFIED GET RESULTS! Call The Jewish News 354-5959 n an August talk show on Is- rael Radio, Michelle's Maga- zines owner Joe Ezekiel stirred up some local controversy af- ter "Boker Tov Israel" interview- er Amos Arbel commented that EH Steimatzky, president of the Steimatzky bookstore chain, must be hopping with anger about Mr. Ezekiel's success. Mr. Ezekiel — whose three Jerusalem stores dwarf in com- parison with Steimatzky's 120 outlets and $50 million in esti- mated annual sales — snidely responded: "Let him jump," which, of course, sounds a lot bet- ter — and arrogant — in the He- brew sheyikfotz li. Two days later, Mr. Steimatzky's public relations network did just that. De- manding to tell their side of the sto- ry, the company said that Ezekiel told nothing but lies and that his maga- zines were surplus issues brought in six months after publication. The in- cident quickly re- ceded, and Mr. Steimatzky, an un- touchable Don in the book retailing and distribution in- dustry, went unscathed. However, underdogs like Ezekiel remain bitter about their inability to break what they call the Steimatzky monopoly. "I sell 20,000 magazines in a month," Ezekiel says, gesturing to his well-stocked shelves. "But when I want to open a new shop, wherever I go they say, 'Sorry but we've got Steirnatzky.' A con- tractor builds a new mall and he know he wants the Body Shop and Steimatzky. So my concept is out-of-the-way locations that can be reached by car, but we [also] need to be more central, and my plan is the Jerusalem flagship store. Of course, if EH Steimatzky hears of the location, he'll be there." The familiar green-and-white Steimatzky signs can be found on scores of stores throughout the country that sell annually 5,000,000 books and 7,000,000 newspapers and magazines to more than 1,000,000 customers per month. In short, Mr. Steimatzky is the country's closest approximation to the U.S. market's Barnes and Noble superstore chain, with more than 1,000 sources world- wide supplying it with books and magazines in more than seven languages, in addition to CDs, greeting cards, games, videos, puzzles and bookmarks. Each week, Steimatzky's, which also functions as the sole contact for overseas publishers and distributor to other local book retailers, receives 25 tons of imported material, which is not surprising given the 35,000 foreign titles stocked by the store. And yet, in addition to dis- gruntled retailers like Mr. Ezekiel, some government offi- cials and ordinary customers also resent the Steimatzky empire's market sway. An informal survey taken out- side one of its stores in downtown Jerusalem showed that tourists, native Israelis and re- cently-arrived immi- grants have a variety of complaints about c: Steimatzky. While they found the prices reasonable, some tourists com- mented that they had to try all three stores within a five-block radius in order to find a particular book. Some Israeli cus- tomers said they had no complaints about the Hebrew selection and inven- tory but added that they usual- ly purchase through the publisher for a discount, a com- mon Israeli practice. Most of the Anglos surveyed said they felt that Mr. Steimatzky's prices are too high and the selection of English-lan- guage titles is too skimpy. Eri Steimatzky — the 54-year- old, bespectacled owner of the empire established by his father in 1925 with two stores, one in Jerusalem the other in Haifa — scoffs at any criticism and insists that he does not maintain sole control of the Israeli book mar- ket. "We're not alone in the field here; in fact, ours account for few- er than 50 percent of the books sold in Israel," he says. Could be, but the company's growth rate has been phenome- nal; Steimatzky's current 10 dozen outlets have mushroomed from a mere four stores in the 1960s. "No, there's no other major chain," Mr. Steimatzky now con- cedes, "but there are other stores that are competing with us." BOOK BIND page 54