Jason Aronson and Buisness Ethics

8^th of Av, 5767. Rebuild the temple, fill the city of Zion.

Dear friends, Jews, Righteous Gentiles, no matter how much, and countrymen ( except for Romans who can go hang yourselves.)

I received the following comment from a famous character from the Bible that I decided to respond to at length.

I enjoyed it, esp the Shteinzalts stuff. Perhaps you should ask him about his friends at Jason Aronson... why no one gets paid...

you fan...
Korach

Dear Korach.

I hope you don’t mind me turning your comment into a blog entry, but it gave me a few thoughts. Rav Adin Shilta is indeed a joy, for what greater joy could there be that pure Torah? I am not sure if he has any friends at Jason Aronson publishers (JA). I spoke to Rav Shteinsaltz about him. The Rav said that, “he is a real person, you can talk to him.” The point being he is not some demon cloistered in his corner of hell, but a human being that can be gotten to. The Rav, who published a number of his books in English through JA in the Kurtzwiell days (now I don’t know who publishes the Rav’s English books. I think he uses a few different publishers.) told me, “JA sends me a check once in a while.” Great, the rich and famous get paid, but the regular rabble gets shafted.

What I really want to know is, how succesfully are the lawsuits against him? Who succeeded in getting paid and how much did he have to pay his lawyer for the privilige of getting to JA honor his word?

Like so many others, I too was taken for a ride by JA. It takes the Berdichever to say something good about him, so in that spirit I will say that they do great layout, published by book in under a year from when I submitted the manuscript, and even paid me a few dollars in the first half year. For the next five years they completely forgot about me. I called JA personally and asked him why he doesnt pay me or most other authors who signed a contract with him, and he stammered something about having to check with his bookkeeper. Three years ago he sold all of his judaica contracts to Rowman Littlefield, ostensibly to raise money to pay his poor authors. It’s a decent bluff. RL is pretty honest, but they don’t seem to strive for excellence in their Judaica division, and the whole reason I make such a judgment is because for the past three years they don’t find it fiscally worthwhile to pay for a corrected, retranslated edition of the Mei HaShiloach. In all fairness I have never opened any other Judaica book that they publish, so on what basis can I judge their overall excellence. But still, I think it is high time to revamp the Living Waters. If only someone else could do the work for me, I am currently occupied with the Introduction to Chassidus and Kabbalah or the Radziner Rebbe. (Hakdama l’Beis Yaakov.) Maybe you want to take a stab at it, Korach?

Be well,

Betzalel

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