In 1921, Louis Behrman opened a small bookstore on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, offering volumes devoted to Jewish religion, customs and culture for a population of immigrants that had swelled to nearly 2 million.

Called Behrman’s Jewish Book Shop, its namesake soon added a publishing component, and among its early titles was the 1925 hardcover: “Bible Stories for Very Little People,” by Elma Ehrlich Levinger. A children’s book author, Levinger focused her work on the struggle to maintain a Jewish identity in America.

Ninety years later, the publishing company, now headquartered in Springfield and called Behrman House, is still mining that theme in the hundreds of book titles it releases for children and adults.

But over the past decade, the business has shifted from an exclusive print publisher into one that offers a variety of digital lesson plans.

Last year, Behrman became one of the first Jewish educational publishers to create its own online learning portal, with classes primarily for religious school students from Reform and Conservative congregations.

Despite its many changes, the company has maintained the same core mission, said its third-generation publisher, David Behrman.

“That is, to teach Jewish tradition to kids,” he said from his office last week.

Behrman House founder Louis Behrman stands behind his wife, Sarah, in an undated photo thought to be from around 1920. The company moved from midtown Manhattan to New Jersey in the 1980s.

Behrman, an attorney who has run the publishing house for more than a decade, views the online learning center as a complement to its extensive print catalog, which still accounts for 85 percent of total sales.

“Technology has educational power that can supplement books nicely,” he said from the company’s 23,000-square-foot warehouse and office, which holds 650 book titles and a small room with computer servers for the online operation.

“More kids are getting their information digitally,” Behrman added. “It’s a chance to reach kids where they are.”

It’s also sound strategy for the future, as the revenue stream for printed religious material drops nationally while school-age populations climb, said Al Greco, a marketing professor at Fordham University School of Business.

“This company has moved into what you would call a stronger growth sector, knowing that traditional printed books will decline, but not disappear,” said Greco, who specializes in the publishing industry. “Behrman knows, as do most publishers, that you have to diversify your portfolio or you could end up out of business.”

Approaching the century mark, Behrman is one of the few remaining Jewish publishers in New Jersey. KTAV Publishing House is another, with offices in New York and New Jersey.

David Behrman, 58, who took over as publisher from his father, Jacob, said the company has used its reputation as a steady source for Jewish education to expand into the digital age. It began a dozen years ago with Hebrew language lessons on compact disk.

Today, Behrman’s online learning center partners with 300 Jewish religious schools in the United States and Canada. The digital lesson plans include Hebrew language courses, but also exploring themes of personal character, heritage and values that are central to Jewish identity, as well as topics like history, religion, art and life in modern Israel.

Some of Behrman House's 600 book titles include guides to the Jewish holidays for children, like this one to mark Yom Kippur, which concluded Saturday night.

The religious school at Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange has used Behrman’s textbooks for decades, said its director, Mindy Schreff. This year, Schreff is also using Behrman’s online Hebrew primer, “Alef Bet Quest,” for her third-grade class. The course is a kind of digital adventure game through Israel, allowing children to practice at home, with their parents’ help, she said.

"They're really at the forefront of technology on anything educational," Schreff said, noting that weekly emails the company sends are stuffed with holiday ideas, history lessons and most recently, discussion suggestions about the Sept. 11 anniversary.

In June, Behrman announced its partnership with an Israeli educational technology firm to create an ideas incubator to design then develop online educational tools. The venture, called jLearningLabs, will create mobile and desktop applications to help explore Jewish learning.

David Behrman and wife, Vicki Weber, run the company, which releases five to 15 titles a year and employs 14 people full-time. Among those are digital developers and an office staff who provide educational support and curriculum advice to educators.

The office retains the feel of a family business, with a framed photograph of Louis Behrman and his wife, Sarah, circa 1920; and a one-page contract with one of the first authors the company ever signed. A diorama shows the Manhattan office of Jacob Behrman, lined with books and complete with pipe and a box of Premium Saltines he favored.

Behrman House has been in New Jersey since 1985, when it left Manhattan for bigger office space in West Orange.

The Springfield headquarters, where the company has been for more than a dozen years, is a squat single-story building next to Route 78. The office is in front and warehouse in back, where the company’s books are stored in boxes. A smaller “pick and pack” room, as Weber calls it, holds some of those titles on bookshelves and in blue plastic bins, ready to be packed and shipped.

The educational assortment includes a title on modern Israel for grade school students, a college level Hebrew prayer book and holiday preparation guides like the one for Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, which concluded Saturday night.

While the next stage for Behrman House may be more about digital education, it’s still all about Jewish education, Weber said.

“There aren’t a lot of places that do what we do.”

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