News Brief

A committee of five orthodox rabbis will meet a committee of five conservative rabbis to come to a definite agreement on the kashruth tangle which has been tying up kosher regulation in the City of New York. The meeting will probably take place today or tomorrow.

This decision was reached yesterday after a long conference which was sponsored by the Mayor’s sub-committee on kashruth regulation, and which began Tuesday night at the Jewish Center, 131 West Eighty-sixth street, lasting until yesterday morning.

The sub-committee, which is headed by William Weiss, listened to a half-dozen “schemes” for regulating kosher dealers and slaughters. The plans were presented by the Kashruth Association of Greater New York, Benjamin Koenigsberg, Rabbi Moses Hyamson and R. Becker.

SIMON SPEAKER

Arthur Simon, special investigator for the Health Department, representing the city administration, said in connection with a point in the Kashruth Association plan which would delimit membership to orthodox individuals: “The City administration will not countenance a Kashruth Association unless all the various Jewish bodies unite. No organization will be recognized without inclusion of both orthodox and conservative elements.”

Rabbi Nachman H. Ebin, president of the Kashruth Association, outlined the proposals of the association which would in effect set up a general kashruth board, confine membership to orthodox persons, would pay salaries to members, use the surplus funds for Talmud Torah and Yeshiva charities and levy a general tax on the Jewish community.

Louis J. Moss, president of the United Synagogue of America, assailed the plan which he described as “savoring of the political” and as “setting up a hierarchy in the kashruth question.”

“Don’t let us commit the unpardonable sin,” he admonished, “of driving away more Jews from the observance of kashruth.”

He urged that Mayor LaGuardia be advised that if the present laws on kosher foods were to be enforced there would be no need for “any plan at all, or any kashruth association.”

Rabbi Alexander Basel, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, representing the conservative rabbis, differed with Moss’s statements to the effect that the Kashruth Association plan would never be acceptable. Rabbi Basel declared that his group had already decided to cooperate with the orthodox organization, provided the conservatives were recognized.

David S. Andron, representing the Kosher Butchers of Greater New York, which is said to have a membership of 5,000, demanded that his group be represented in any deliberation on the amount of fees to be charged by a kashruth authority.