at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, Tuesday night, which had been called in an attempt at rapprochement between the groups on the question of rabbinical supervision, but ended in disorder with rabbis heatedly denouncing the wholesalers and the latter calling the rabbis “racketeers.”
The bone of contention at the meeting was the question of plombes, or tags. The wholesalers expressed themselves as willing to submit to rabbinical supervision, but said that plombes would entail an unbearable expense which would ruin the poultry industry.
The six executives of the Kashruth Association present argued that there can be no adequate supervision without an identifying mark on each chicken. It is estimated that rabbinical supervision will entail a tax of one cent per fowl.
The debate became more heated as Rabbi Israel Dushovitz, president of the Orthodox Rabbinical Board, accused the wholesalers of trying to circumvent Kashruth. Finally, the wholesalers, after failing to gain a one-week postponement, walked out in a body.
The provision for plombes was a part of a decision handed down by Judge Otto Rosalsky August 20 in mediation of a threatened shochtim strike.
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