At some auction houses, rare Jewish books have sold for double or triple the price experts expected — or even higher. A 1920s Passover Haggadah from Vienna that sells for $100 at a Brooklyn shop fetched $5,500 at auction in 2021.
Genazym, the hottest auction house in the market, has sold some 1,900 books, manuscripts and other collectible documents since 2017, for about $26 million plus commission, roughly $12 million above total starting prices.
“Genazym has come on like a freight train into the world of Jewish auctions. Some of the prices realized are far beyond what this market has seen before,” said David Wachtel, the former Judaica consultant for Sotheby’s auction house.
At a time when traditional libraries are cutting back on buying Jewish texts, the auction house is tapping into an emerging luxury market among Orthodox Jews — and fueling the rise of religious texts as both a status symbol and investment vehicle.
