The International STa"M Forum

Just went to one of the wealthiest families in the country to put up mezuzos. They spent thousands purchasing mezuzos from the finest galleries and boutique shops in Israel. As a traditional Orthodox family they asked and were assured everything was kosher. I decided to do a quick inspection and, believe it or not, every single mezuzah but one was a paper print! Very unpleasant explaining to these nice people that they'd been comprehensively defrauded... UPDATE Since writing the above post, I emailed this link to some of the vendors, with an explanatory email as to why their selling counterfeit mezuzos, while possibly not a concern to them, is unacceptable and shocking to some of their clients. I have added some of their names in the labels below, so that people searching for their products may come across this post and be warned . Am I wasting my time? Who knows. But the more people they hear it from the better. At least two of these are very popular Judaica artists and if I...

Based on the other khafs, and the nun right near it. Is this כ in לכם kasher?

this yud in the Shem needs an oketz but first-- does it have proper tzura to make the tikkun in a mezuzah?

one little mistake someone showed it to me it took me some time to find it

Someone asked me to check 4 mezuzos he bought from a very special sofer in Israel. Here's what they looked like....

HaRav Michael Tzadok Elkohen and i visited with R' Friedlander shlit"a at the beis hora'ah in jerusalem today. armed with a bottle of mei klaf, a can of spray klaf, a mezuzah psulah that had been treated with spray klaf and a copy of the ishur for spray klaf from HaRav Yaakov Meir Shtern shlit"a (thank you, R' Alberto). 1. the bottle of spray klaf was presented along with the ishur. it was pointed out by Rav Friedlander first and foremost that the ishur listed on the can of spray klaf (by Rav MOSHE Shtern) is from two different rabbanim (printed ishur provided by R' Alberto in a previous post was given by Rav YAAKOV MEIR Shtern). 2. the mezuzah that had been treated with spray klaf was shown to R' Friedlander along with with a hands-on demonstration of how easily the otiyot were smudged from a simple negiya with a finger (the original tish-tush of otiyot happened simply from rolling the mezuzah). Rav Friedlander and those present were visibly dismayed...

This new stuff called "Spray Klaf."  The claim was that it was Mei Klaf in spray form.  I have been using Mei Klaf(usually with an Eida Chareidit Hekhsher) for years.  I have never seen Mei Klaf do this.  The letters litterally are not davuk to the klaf.  I can erase them with a rubber eraser, and break them by running my fingernail over them.  Here is a picture of a Mezzuzah that I wrote with "Spray Klaf" treated Klaf.  The damage done occurred from simply rolling the Mezzuzah.

This is a very low quality Mezuzah, (I have to check several similar to these) if you see the י of והיה it looks almost like the letter J on an angle. It does not have a Rosh and instead a hook for a body. I assume it is shinui Tzura, I would appreciate your opinion on this.