Musclebound jaws, accustomed to their daily stint of beigel-crushing, were being used instead today for shrill cries of protest.
The beigel sellers were on a strike, which already had been going on for a week, and which was causing an unprecedented demand for teething rings among parents who ordinarily trusted to the steely crusted beigel to cut their offsprings’ first molars.
While the bakers went on baking beigels, the sellers were determined to keep the product out of Warsaw homes. Children pressed into emergency service as salesmen by the bakers were pounced upon by the strikers and their wares were scattered over the streets.
The recalcitrant sellers even went so far as to pour gasoline on some of the beigels being peddled by scabs.
Some of the more enthusiastic strikers, instead of clutching stones in their hands to make their fists harder, went forth to the fray with a week-old beigel concealed in each palm.
Police made many arrests.
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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.
