It’s Hanukkah in the summer.
A preschool at a Yorkville Chabad center has received an endless deluge of cardboard Amazon boxes containing pricey puzzles and water slides — despite no one on staff ordering the toys.
The mystery presents first arrived at Alef Bet Preschool on East 92nd Street every couple of days in June, and over the coming months, the volume and size of the gifts ramped up. By August, deliverymen were dropping off several 27-pound boxes daily each holding at least 50 puzzles or a few water slides decorated with the American flag. The preschool estimated that it received maybe 1,000 items altogether.
“I came in here one morning and there were like 30 boxes,” said Deborah Landesman, assistant director. “That’s when the rabbi wrote to us, ‘Who ordered slides?’”
Rabbi Uriel Vigler, co-founder of the Chabad Israel Center of the Upper East Side, which oversees the preschool, said that the congregation was wary at first. Members of the staff wondered if it was a scam to juice the vendor’s ratings; others feared the packages were part of an anti-Semitic prank.
“It’s uncanny,” the rabbi said, noting that someone threatened to send “German ovens” to their building a year ago. “We got a call about 1000 German ovens — and now we are receiving love.”
The toys are marketed under the brand Ninostar, some of which are currently sold on Amazon by a Tel Aviv-based importer called AA Media. The puzzles, which are made of wood and feature glowing space scenes and unicorns, were priced at roughly $16. A small waterslide sells for $51, and the large for $87.
Still, the unexpected bounty was more a curse than a blessing. A mountain of Amazon boxes crowded the center’s tight, faux-leaf-lined vestibule, which is used to store strollers and for the school’s security team. The 65 children enrolled at the school also are too young to use the puzzles or slides safely.
“If they wanted to send us really useful things that’d be great,” educational director Malkie Jacob said wishfully.
The day before school started, Vigler and a pair of volunteers hauled dozens of boxes to donate to the Eisman Day Nursery School down the block.
Ivelize Eatman, 54, director of the nursery school, said that they plan on passing on the toys to parents. The nursery could also possibly use the slides in the summertime, a boon since it doesn’t receive public funding during the season.
“We’re always looking for donations that we can use,” Eatman said.
AA Media did not respond to requests for comment. Amazon said that it believes the seller was trying to donate the toys to the preschool.
Shortly after being contacted by The Post, the company began investigating the shipments, an Amazon spokesperson said.
“Within hours, we flagged these deliveries and have stopped any others from being sent to the school from this seller,” said spokesperson Branden Baribeau.
The rabbi said the school will continue to donate whatever unordered toys come their way, with at least 16 packages arriving since Wednesday.
“Everything happens from God,” Vigler said. “So if it’s God who wants it, we will pass on the good.”
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