You’re Trying to Build a Jewish Life—and Suddenly You Need Stuff
Books. Candlesticks. A prayerbook. A second set of spatulas. A better lamp for Zoom rabbi meetings.
Building a Jewish life is beautiful—but it’s also a lot.
If you’re converting, returning, or starting Jewish life from scratch, you already know that Jewish living isn’t just spiritual—it’s practical. And the reality is, sometimes the right tools really do make it easier: more meaningful, more manageable, more doable.
That’s why Amazon Prime Day (July 8–11, 2025) might be worth paying attention to. It’s not about buying your way into belonging (you can’t do that). It’s about picking up a few helpful things—on sale—that can support the life you’re already trying to live.
In this post, I’ll walk you through:
- What kinds of items are actually useful for conversion candidates and new Jewish homes
- What to avoid so you don’t waste money on guilt or cultural appropriation
- How to shop with intention (not overwhelm)
- And why this isn’t about becoming “Jewish enough”—it’s about building something sustainable
Let’s save your wallet, your energy, and your future self from a cart full of “aspirational” regrets. Here’s what I’d look for on Prime Day—and what I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot challah board.
Transcript below.
This is one time I’ll recommend you at least skim the transcript below because I’ve linked where I can. Right here, I’ll put the links I put in the YouTube description:
🔗 Amazon Finds for Jewish Living (and What I’d Recommend)
Disclaimer: When I say a seller or product “looks legit,” I just mean I didn’t spot any obvious red flags—things like Messianic language, fake ritual items, or cultural appropriation. I haven’t personally bought from every one of these companies, so I can’t vouch for them firsthand. As always, do your own research and trust your instincts. 💙
📚 Books + Learning
- Artscroll Chumash/Torah: https://amzn.to/3Tx1q6p
- Artscroll Siddur: https://amzn.to/4ld35dv
- Koren Siddur: https://amzn.to/44lEkGb
- JPS Tanach: https://amzn.to/3IhtIiY
- To Be a Jew by Hayim Donin: https://amzn.to/4eDR3Y5
- Choosing a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant: https://amzn.to/46yO5Ca
🛍️ Jewish Brands + Trusted Sellers
You can find many of the items listed below at these sellers
- Yair Emanuel Judaica and jewelry (lots of stuff): https://amzn.to/4nCSr1d
- The Kosher Cook (lots of stuff): https://amzn.to/4nyN0Al
- Kosher Casual for Jewish women’s clothing, workout gear, and swimwear (I’ve been wearing their products for almost 20 years – lots of layering supplies): https://amzn.to/3U0LMAl
- Wrapunzel (for Jewish women’s haircovering supplies – I know the owner IRL and she’s amazing): https://amzn.to/44L0518
- The Dreidel Company (looks legit): https://amzn.to/408zEkt
- Zion Judaica (looks legit): https://amzn.to/3TuxzeY
- HolYudaica (looks legit): https://amzn.to/44yw0Bx
🕯️ Judaica + Ritual Items
- Challah board (plain, budget option): https://amzn.to/4eCGGDQ
- Mezuzah cases (looks legit): https://amzn.to/4nEWH0e
- Mezuzah scrolls and cases (looks legit): https://amzn.to/40IQXIO
- Havdalah set (looks legit): https://amzn.to/4nCTIW3
- Tallit (looks legit): https://amzn.to/4lJ7eFO
- Kippot / Yarmulkes (looks legit): https://amzn.to/44yw30b
🍽️ Kosher Kitchen Essentials
- Appliance Timer (the timer I use): https://amzn.to/3U1sFpL
- Kosher kitchen labels (these are the same company I used, but a different design – still going 15 years later): https://amzn.to/4eFP1XA
- Hot water urn (75% of people have this exact one, including me): https://amzn.to/3IhtYys
- Plata (this is the only one I recommend – it’s made with safety and Jewish observance in mind): https://amzn.to/44BNgpH
- Instant Pot: https://amzn.to/3IgwUvf
🧠 Planning + Organization
- Jewish calendar: https://amzn.to/44D8IKO
💍 Jewelry
- Jewelry: https://amzn.to/4kzkM5T
Transcript:
You are trying to build a Jewish life and suddenly you need so much stuff-
your books, your kitchen, your calendar, your mindset. It’s beautiful, but it’s also a lot: time, energy, and especially, money.
When you’re building a Jewish life from scratch,
there are tools, books, and household items that make things easier, more meaningful, and more accessible.
The right tools can make a huge difference.
Amazon Prime Day is July 8th through 11th, 2025,
and this can be a good time to pick up things you need without breaking the bank.
Not everyone wants to use Amazon. That’s totally fine, but I also know it’s a practical reality that most people do.
Life’s complicated.
But it’s also easy to get distracted or overwhelmed by flashy deals that don’t actually serve you.
Hi, I’m Kochava a Jewish convert and the voice behind Building a Jewish Life.com.
I help people navigate conversion with clarity and calm and real life solutions.
So they can build something sustainable and meaningful.
And today I’m gonna walk you through making the best of Amazon Prime Day.
We will cover what categories to prioritize; how to spot fake discounts; what not to buy; how to shop with intention, not overwhelm;
and how to stay focused on your goals instead of getting swept up in all the stuff.
Oh, and yes, you do need a Prime membership to shop.
If you don’t have one, there is a free trial option .
Converts spend so much emotionally. Let’s try to save money where we can.
You don’t need a perfect Jewish setup,
but tools can make things easier.
This isn’t about buying your way into belonging. You can’t do that. It’s about supporting the life you’re already living. All right, let’s talk about what’s useful to buy, not just what’s on sale.
I will drop some links down below to types of products that I would prioritize if I were in your shoes. But I’m not gonna give you specific numbers of sales. I don’t know what is gonna be put on sale. I’m just giving you ideas of things to look for so that you can see if they’re on sale.
The first category is Jewish books and learning supplies that you can buy during Amazon’s Prime Day.
Think getting a Chumash, a Torah, a Tanach, all three of those words can refer to The Torah. The Torah or Chumash will have only the first five books. Tanach will have all of the books. So most people own both a Chumash and a Tanach. So for instance, I personally have an Art Scroll Chumash and a JPS, Jewish Publication Society, Tanach. That’s what works for me. Maybe something similar would work for you.
Introductory books to halakha or holidays. A siddur, a Jewish prayer book.
Memoirs of people who converted. That’s a really fun rabbit hole. I really need to make a roundup of some memoirs, but I haven’t read that many memoirs actually.
So Prime Day is the perfect time to build your library strategically. Do not do the aspirational TBR shelf. I am telling you, as someone who has spent thousands of dollars on Jewish books that I have never read, the aspiration will get you every time. Especially do not buy books in Hebrew when you don’t even know Hebrew yet.
Just don’t do it. I don’t know why I did that.
I was extremely optimistic.
But also think about study supplies you might want: index tabs, highlighters, um,
what are they called? Uh, long COVID Brain Fog,
the little index cards, three by five cards. You, you know what those are? I don’t know that word right now. My brain doesn’t have it. You might also look into getting a journal that you could journal your progress.
Some tips: you can search for the publishers. ArtScroll and Koren, K-O-R-E-N. ArtScroll is art and scroll put together.
Two good books to put on your list: To be a Jew and Choosing a Jewish Life.
Category number two of items you might like to search for on Amazon Prime Day: Shabbat and Holiday Basics.
Candlesticks, a Havdalah set, tablecloths, timers for your lights or a Plata, which could also be called like a hot plate. These aren’t required. But these are things that you will want eventually as part of your Jewish life. They’re pretty basic.
These are some of the earliest purchases that most conversion candidates make.
With timers, make sure that you’re getting appliance timers. You want the big beefy appliance timers if you’re gonna be running things like a plata on it or a water urn or another small appliance.
The other biggest category for people to buy on Amazon Prime day: number three,
kitchen tools for kosher living.
Here’s where a lot of our money goes.
Hot water urn, Instant Pot, slow cooker, which by the way, your Instant Pot can also be a slow cooker. A second or third set of utensils. Cutting boards.
If you’re starting to separate out meat and dairy and parve , you’re going to need more kitchen supplies and you’re gonna need the storage to store those supplies.
Another really fun one that was really important for me in the beginning is labels. They make little stickers that say meat, dairy, and parve, that you can put on your supplies in the kitchen and that will last through the dishwasher. Those labels are life saving. Of course, nowadays I run a mostly pareve kitchen, and let me tell you, it’s way easier.
Really cannot oversell how much easier Jewish life is when you’re vegetarian or vegan. It’s worlds apart.
The one thing you do wanna be careful about.
There are things in your kitchen that it may be better to wait to replace them until after you’ve finished the conversion process. So talk to your rabbi about that.
And of course, nowadays everybody’s got an air fryer.
The fourth category of things you might wanna find on Amazon Prime Day if you’re a conversion candidate is online learning tools. We already mentioned things like index cards and highlighters and tab dividers. But you also might wanna invest in a good set of headphones for listening to shiurim, classes.
A webcam if you’re having meetings with your rabbi and beit din over Zoom.
Even as simple as a desk lamp might be useful to make the lighting better on your side.
Category number five you might wanna look for on Amazon Prime Day if you’re a Jewish conversion candidate is clothing, especially if you’re in the orthodox setting and a woman, you can find a lot of layering supplies to make your current clothing more modest.
Men or women could find head coverings if that’s relevant to you.
Clothing that’s great for Shabbat.
And also a good pair of sneakers for walking to shul on Shabbat.
And the last category of things that you might find useful on Amazon Prime Day number six: tools for organizing your Jewish Life.
This is kind of a catchall category because there’s a lot of organizing you’re gonna do, and that kind of overlaps with the like highlighters and index cards we mentioned earlier. But like a whiteboard might be useful to you if that’s speaks to your learning style. A calendar to help you keep track of the Jewish holidays, a Jewish calendar or a secular calendar or a planner.
Storage bins. Storage bins are going to be your friend. There are things that we don’t use very often that need to be put away. Supplies for a specific holiday, like especially Pesach, Passover. You’re gonna have a lot of boxes of things for Passover. You could also make a Shabbat box that you bring out every Shabbat that keeps all of your Shabbat things in one place.
A rabbit hole that you may or may not want to descend into is by putting “Shabbat Prep” in the search of like TikTok or Instagram. You’ll find a lot of ideas for things you might need to get ready for Shabbat each week.
Maybe you’ll find some inspiration or maybe you’ll just lose your paycheck.
Now what not to buy on Amazon Prime Day when you’re a Jewish conversion candidate.
Fancy Judaica that you don’t know how to use yet. If you don’t know how to use it, don’t buy it.
Anything that pressures you to be perfect.
And third, ritual items from sellers who are not Jewish and could not give a crap about Jewish people.
You would not believe the amount of cultural appropriation there is out there. Fake mezuzahs, fake tzitzit are the two biggest ones. Don’t hate on me for how I pronounce tzitzit. I’m not good at saying that.
It can be very tempting to grab a star of David necklace, magen David necklace, or a “Shabbat set” from a random Amazon seller
because it’s cheap or looks pretty.
But a lot of those items are made by companies with zero connection to Judaism.
Some of them are mass- produced in ways that flatten or misrepresent
jewish ritual or worse,
sold by people who are intentionally profiting off Jewish culture without respecting it.
You will see most of that in Messianic Christians who call themselves Messianic Jews. That’s cultural appropriation, and it’s especially important to avoid if you’re in the process of joining this people in our tradition. Also, because they don’t always make things correctly, and sometimes it matters how they’re made, especially the mezuzahs and the tzitzit.
When in doubt, check the seller.
Look for people who label themselves as Jewish owned or “Judaica” shops. J-U-D-A-I-C-A is Judaica.
Or at least understand that selling Jewish stuff is more than just slapping a magen David on a candle.
So you can check the store name and their About section. If they don’t mention anything about Judaism or Jewish tradition, that’s a red flag. Look at the product titles. If they use generic or clunky names for products.
Like ” Jewish Sabbath ceremony set.” They probably don’t know what they’re selling.
And then look at the reviews. Are the reviews full of Jewish people saying, “this worked great for my Shabbat !” Or is it just a bunch of people saying “this arrived on time”?
You particularly need to be aware of Messianic Judaism, “Judaism” followers selling products that are not actually kosher for Jews. So Messianic Judaism is a much bigger topic than I can cover in this video, but I have strong feelings about it and how they mislead people into believing that they’re Jews so that they can lure Jews into, convert them to Christianity.
And they sell a lot of Jewish stuff, and a lot of it is wrong because they don’t know what they’re doing . They are playacting at Judaism.
So if you see any mentions of Yeshua or Yashuah, Y-E-S-H-U-A or Y-A-H-S-H-U-A This is one of the biggest giveaways. Those names mean Jesus. Jews do not refer to Jesus in that way.
That is Messianic Christian terminology. If you see them combining Hebrew with New Testament references. if you see anything about the Torah and the “New Covenant,” back away, slowly.
You may see them use words like Hebraic roots, messianic Judaism, or “completed Jew.” These are code for Christian groups that mimic Jewish rituals
but center Jesus.
Next, you may see Jewish symbols mixed with doves, fish, or crosses. If there’s a magen David with a cross in it, congratulations, you found the Messianic Jew.
Or a menorah with a Jesus quote underneath. Not Jewish.
The next is the tallit or tallis. You might hear with more Yiddish pronunciation, the prayer shawls that usually men wear during prayer. If you see them written in English or Greek, those probably aren’t Jewish sources.
The atara, the plate that’s across the back of the neck area.
Real talleisim have Hebrew on the atara.
Not surprisingly, if it says “Jesus is Lord” on the atara, not Jewish, it’s cosplay.
You’re gonna wanna look out for sellers with names that kind of give away that it’s probably not Jewish, like anything that has Yeshua, lion of Judah, El Shaddai, Yahweh. Those aren’t terms we use Jewishly very much. So maybe they could be Jewish, but odds are good
they’re not. Look deeper. Similarly, you might see them using other Hebrew words without context.
Like Yahweh from before, which means God, “shofar blessings,” ” holy Torah anointing oil. “
You might also see them writing YHVH, short for “Yud Hey Vav Hey,” which is the unsaid name of God in the Torah. Jews will refer to it as Yud Hey Vav Hey, but we don’t talk about it that often, and we certainly don’t write out YHVH like ever. It just doesn’t come up. So if you see someone doing that, it’s probably a Messianic “Jew.”
Here’s the thing about Prime Day. It’s designed to make you panic buy: limited time, lightning deal, only three left.
But you’re not here to impulse buy your way into Jewish life. You’re here to build a strong foundation.
So make a list before you open the app. Go in with a plan. What do you actually need right now to support where you are in the conversion process? Not where you hope to be in two years.
Because there will be more Amazon Prime days before then.
Not what someone on Reddit says you should have. Your list, your stage.
Set a budget, and honor it.
If you wouldn’t buy it full price, don’t buy it just because it’s 37% off.
That Mezuzah case might be gorgeous. But if you don’t have a place that you can put them up,
that’s future You’s mitzvah and today You’s distraction.
Watch for fake deals.
Some sellers raise the prices before Prime Day just so they can slap on a discounted tag.
If something feels off, or if you just wanna check everything that you’re trying to buy, you can use the browser extension CamelCamelCamel. Yes. Three Camels, all as one word, to check the price history. It’s an amazing plugin to use. Really comes in handy.
And buy things that make your life smoother, not heavier.
A second set of utensils if you’re starting to separate meat and dairy. Great idea. A $200 designer challah board.
You’ll use it twice and then stress anytime someone puts a cup near it.
The lesson: Prime day is great,
but it’s only helpful
if you buy what serves your real life. Not your Instagram life, not your imaginary life, not someone else’s life on TikTok, yours, where you are today.
So here’s some of the things you might wanna save. Plug in appliance timers for Shabbat.
A siddur, a chumash. A Tanach.
A slow cooker, modest clothing basics. Books you actually plan to read. Storage bins.
Headphones for shiurim and online classes. A quality havdalah set that you love. Hot water kettle or urn.
And what you should maybe skip: a full Passover dish set unless you’re hosting like now this year.
Hebrew only texts if you’re not already fluent in Hebrew,
15 books that Reddit says are must have, but they’re not right for your stage.
Designer Judaica that stresses you out to use because you’re afraid it’s gonna get damaged and you’re gonna lose a lot of money. Fancy table linens that you will never wash.
Any item that screams “someday” instead of supporting you right now.
When you’re building a Jewish life from scratch, the right tools really make a difference. And a big sale day is a great time to save money doing that.
But at the end of the day, Prime Day is just a sale. But building a Jewish life… that’s real, sacred work.
Whether you’re converting or starting from square one, let me know in the comments what’s one thing on your Jewish wishlist this Prime Day, or what you plan to get next if it’s not from Prime Day.
Or what’s made your journey easier and that you think other people should check out? I would love to hear that.
If you want more practical, grounded advice to support your journey, from what to buy to how to stay connected to your why.
Follow for more and I’d love to welcome you to join my email list.
My mailing list is full of tools, resources, encouragement, and real talk for folks building a Jewish life that fits. You can sign up at Building a Jewish Life.com. And you’ll also get access to the Resource Library that has printable tools to make your journey easier. You don’t have to figure this out alone anymore.
