had merely announced agreement with the principle behind the issur as a basis for negotiation with the Kashruth Association.
He accused the Association of “treachery and beguilements.”
“I was promised that no person, particularly rabbis, would be present when I conferred with Judge Rosalsky,” he declared. “Instead I found a multitude of rabbis who tried to beguile me into supporting the issur before I could give the matter due reflection.”
“I do not consider myself bound and openly disclaim any negotiations with the Kashruth Association,” he asserted.
He said he would make no agreement forcing him to “betray the market men whose markets I am supervising and the shochtim who trust me.”
He asserted that “extreme pressure” was brought to bear by the rabbinate to force him to preside at the pronouncement of the issur in his synagogue last week. He said he wept on the platform while the ceremonies were in progress because he thought of all the people who, he said, would suffer from the issur.
Eleven Bronx wholesale poultry markets yesterday were under supervision of three insurgent rabbis who bolted the Kashruth Association and defied its ban on unlabeled poultry to sign a contract for supervision including no tagging provision, with the Live Poultry Institute of New York, organization of Bronx wholesalers.
Consummation of the agreement was first announced late Tuesday night to almost a 1,000 Bronx kosher butchers and market owners attending a mass meeting at the Hunts Point Palace. The contract was wildly acclaimed by the butchers, who resolved to boycott poultry bearing the leg-bands of Kashruth Association supervision.
When Rabbi Israel Mofshovitz, one of the four who signed the agreement, arose to speak, an unidentified man in the audience shouted, “You’re selling your soul” He was seized by enraged butchers, pummeled and forcibly ejected from the hall. He refused to give his name.
The rabbis who signed the agreement, besides Rabbi Mofshovitz, are Rabbis Judah Hahn and Raphael M. Barishansky, at whose home negotiations heading to the agreement were carried on.
The butchers adopted a resolution to deal only with the market owners under the supervision of these rabbis.
Charles Cohen, president of the Federation of Kosher Butchers, declared, “The rabbis should come to us to learn about Kashruth.” He asserted that rabbis are trying to “make a business of Torah” and denounced the system of attaching leg-bands to fowl as a “racket.”
Rabbi Barishansky announced the agreement signed provides poultry markets must remain closed on Saturdays and non-kosher chickens discovered by supervisors must be destroyed.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
