A kindergarten at a Chabad home in Manhattan’s Yorkville received an endless flood of boxes of toys from Amazon, containing expensive puzzles and water slides, even though none of the staff ordered the toys. Staff members wondered if it was a scam, others feared the packages were part of an anti-Semitic hoax.
Amazon company sent to the Chabad Kindergarten in Manhattan USA hundreds of toys that the Kindergarten did not order.
The gifts arrived for the first time at the “Alf Beit” Kindergarten on East 92nd Street every two days since June, and over the past few months, the volume and size of the gifts have increased.
By August, Amazon couriers dropped off numerous boxes each day, each containing at least 50 puzzles or several waterslides decorated with the American flag. The garden estimated it received about 1,000 items in total.
Amazon sends Jewish preschool hundreds of toys it didn’t order https://t.co/otn872EoI0 pic.twitter.com/rz6p5l3DIO
— New York Post (@nypost) September 10, 2022
“I walked in here one morning and there were about 30 boxes,” Deborah Landsman, assistant manager, told The New York Post. Rabbi Uriel Wigler, of the Chabad House on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, said the community was wary at first. Team members wondered if it was a scam, others feared the packages were part of an anti-Semitic hoax.
“It’s strange,” the rabbi told the New York Post, noting that someone threatened to send “German ovens” into their building a year ago. “We got a call about 1000 German ovens – and now we’re getting love.” The toys are marketed under the Ninostar brand, some of them are currently sold on Amazon by a Tel Aviv importer, the puzzles, made of wood, are priced at around $16. A small water slide sells for $51, and the large one for $87.
Still, the unexpected bounty was more of a curse than a blessing. A mountain of Amazon boxes crowded the hallway used to store strollers and the school’s security staff. In addition, the 65 children enrolled in the kindergarten are too young to use the slides safely.
The day before school started, Rabbi Wigler and a couple of volunteers carried dozens of boxes to donate to the nursery down the block. Ibeliz Itman, the director of the kindergarten, said they plan to give the toys to the parents. Shortly after The New York Post contacted the company, Amazon began investigating the shipments, an Amazon spokesman said. “Within hours, we flagged these shipments and prevented everything else from being sent to the school from this seller,” Amazon spokesman Brendan Baribu said.