Twenty-five Jewish butchers with whom he is acquainted have lately been paying graft to supervisors of the New York City Department of Public Markets, declared Oscar Glassberg, a Brooklyn kosher butcher, in his testimony before Commissioner of Accounts James A. Higgins. Mr. Glassberg, whose original charges of graft in the Markets Department had started the investigation, gave the names of these twenty-five butchers to Commissioner Higgins, who said he would question them.
In 1927, Glassberg declared, his shop was inspected by three supervisors of the Markets Department who accused him of selling non-kosher meat for kosher, although, according to him, the meat on which their complaint was based was part of a kosher animal. He stated that after the supervisors left a delicatessen dealer of Brooklyn, Sol Levine, told him that he was “playing with fire,” Levine saying that he was paying $10 a month to a supervisor for having a kosher sign in his window when he was selling non-kosher products.
After another visit from the supervisors two month later, said Glassberg, he got a summons for alleged violation of the kosher law, since he had refused to pay graft. This case, as well as subsequent charges brought by supervisors against him, were dismissed in court, said Glassberg, who maintained that the charges were brought against him only for the purpose of persecuting him, in revenge for his refusal to pay graft.
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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.
