Bookstores seem like quiet, mundane places. But Yosef Halper, the owner of Halper’s Books at 87 Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, has a handful of customers who are bibliomaniacs — obsessive collectors of books who shop there almost every day. Halper tells the story of how one such customer met a violent end.

This is an excerpt from a longer documentary on Allenby Street, “Down in the Gutter of Tel Aviv.”

Producer: Shoshi Shmuluvitz

Music: David Shire, Theme from ‘The Conversation’

Photo by Erica Cherup