The Jerusalem municipality’s insistence that the Naturei Karta move its kosher chicken slaughter house from the crowded Mea Shearim quarter to an industrial suburb in compliance with a city ordinance has prompted an appeal by the anti-Zionist sect to UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. Two Neturei Karta leaders, Uri Blau and Moshe Hirsch, the latter a former resident of New York, urged in a letter to Waldheim that the UN implement without delay its resolution of Nov. 29, 1947 calling for the internationalization of Jerusalem. “Just don’t talk about it, do it,” they wrote.
The internationalization of Jerusalem was part of the UN resolution partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The resolution was never implemented because of the invasion of Palestine by Arab armies on May 15, 1948, the day after Israel declared its independence. The Neturei Karta charged in their letter to Waldheim that “when the Jerusalem municipal court nullified the municipality’s injunction to close down the slaughter house, the municipal health department ordered livestock dealers to withhold their supplies from Mea Shearim dealers, thus snuffing out the lifeline of meat nourishment for thousands of helpless families.”
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