Brooklyn Orthodox Jews Sell Large Number Of Amazon Goods: Report

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A surprisingly large bloc of Amazon retailers live in a single Brooklyn zip code where Orthodox Jewish entrepreneurs are using the website to balance modernity, economy and faith, according to a new report.

Borough Park is home to 7 percent of Amazon's third-party sellers, independent retailers who use the website as an online marketplace and make up 58 percent of the trillion dollar company's sales, BuzzFeed reported Wednesday.

And many of those retailers are members of the Orthodox community whose businesses make up 15 percent of marketplace sellers, BuzzFeed reported.

In Brooklyn, the community of Orthodox Amazon sellers thrives through word-of-mouth and educational meet-ups in Borough Park and Crown Heights that draw hundreds and sometimes thousands of people.

Retailer Yisroel, 46, told BuzzFeed he only learned to turn on a computer when he was 35. He started working from his dining room table about two years ago after a friend showed him how and now operates his grocery retail business from an 1,800-square-foot warehouse.

“Amazon is a blessing especially to our community because it’s something where you don’t need a regular business education,” Yisroel, identified by his Hebrew name, reportedly said. “You can start out at your house and build up a business like that.”

Several sources told BuzzFeed the Amazon platform has become attractive to Orthodox Jews such as Yisroel because it allows them to enter the modern marketplace without formal degrees or sacrifice of their principals.

“Living with that tension is what they have to do,” University of California's Center for Jewish Studies director Nathaniel Deutsch told BuzzFeed News. "To some extent, we all have to — it’s just very extreme in these communities.”

Read the full Buzzfeed report here.