Poultry Ban Widens Split Among Rabbis

The split in the ranks of New York’s orthodox Jewish rabbinate grew wider Friday as the rabbinical ban on unlabeled poultry concluded its second week with about 150 markets under agreement with the Kashruth Association.

Insurgent rabbis supervising poultry markets in the Bronx and on the lower East Side in defiance of the Kashruth Association’s fight for centralized supervision drew the ire of a Beth Din, or rabbinical court, which announced that these rabbis are “separated from the body of orthodox rabbinate” according to the terms of issur, or ban.

OUTLAW VIOLATORS

Specifically, the court considered the cases of Rabbi Benjamin Fleischer, supervising slaughtering on the East Side, and the group of three rabbis headed by Raphael M. Barishansky under contract with the Live Poultry Institute of New York to supervise eleven Bronx wholesale markets.

“These violators of the issur,” the Beth Din announced, “have placed themselves in the category of those against whom the issur was proclaimed.”

COUNCIL VOIDS ISSUR

In the meantime, Rabbi Simon Glazer, president of the Central Council of Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, announced that his organization, sitting as an ecclesiastical court, had declared the issur null and void.

It was contrary to Jewish law, he said, and unprecedented in the history of Judaism because it would enforce a tax on orthodox Jews such as can only be imposed after the approval of the residents of a Jewish community.

Officials of the Kashruth Association made light of the Council’s announcement, saying they regarded the Council as a minor rabbinical organization.

The Rabbinical Committee of the Bronx, which claims a membership of forty-two orthodox rabbis, announced that it is fully supporting the issur.

James Sanua received in 1900 from the Shah of Persia the title of Poet of the Empire.