The International STa"M Forum

Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Rather than opening side to side, someone wants it to open up and down.

Or for a sofer who was very close to Rabbi Eliezer Zirkind

Dear sofrim, a gezunten zummer, recently I was asked by friends who are looking for tefillin  to check out a Judaica store here in Israel that has an advertisement for tefillin for $144. On their website I've already read the following: "Sorry - we will not be able to accept for return or refund: Mezuzahs, Tallitot or Tefillin that have been used - even for one time" meaning, that if you find out that the tefillin is possul, you can't get your  money back. I read about the manager on their website that he is a graduate of very prestigious yeshivos, as well "expert Torah scribe, inspector and proofreader of religious STaM parchments." I was very suspicious, but I did my shlichut. I've called the store. I've talked to the manager, and asked him about the parshios inside. I've asked if I can see photos of the ksav. I was told that he is unable to send my photos, because they get the parshios from different sources and he cannot know where exactly th

Wishing everyone a good Moed and I hope everyone is having a great Pesach. This has probably been evident for some time but I regret to say that I am finding it harder and harder  to keep this forum going.  The forum has been going for about five years and clearly has proven its value with thousands of informative posts archived (many with excellent discussion in the comments) and still averaging close to 300 hits per day.  However I have neglected to add new members for a long time and this has stunted the growth and volume of new posts.  The reason is simply lack of time on my part. I would like to apologize to the many people who have emailed me in recent years to join the forum and I simply have not added them. Nor have I added quite a few newer members to the member list on the side bar. I wish to reiterate that I do not vet who can join - the forum is open to everyone - however in order to add new members I need to clean out the authors list (BlogSpot only allows 100 author

fitzrabin@schoolofstam.com

I'm sure everyone is too busy before Pesach but I get regular emails from around the world as my email address is the only one public on this page. The easy ones I answer right away but some that are more difficult I promise to post here to ask the opinions of our members, but of course I never get around to it.... So just quickly, here is my outstanding list, if anyone can post a reply I'd be much obliged.... 1) The yud below . The left part is a not attached but possibly still a shinuy to a small ches? 2) From a sofer in England : Shalom R. Gutnick, I wanted to post something about two sifrey torah that were stolen from a community in the UK so that people could a) keep an eye out and b) advise how one might go about tracking these down. But there doesn't seem to be an option to post anymore on the page that I could see. I know you periodically clear down infrequent posters. I don't know if the robbers knew exactly what they were stealing as I under