New York City has in recent weeks been treated to a most unedifying spectacle in the wrangling over the Kashruth situation which for years has been nothing short of a disgrace to the city boasting the largest Jewish population in the world. The rabbinate has threatened to proclaim an “issur” prohibiting the consumption of poultry by orthodox Jews because wholesalers, schochtim and the rabbis cannot agree on methods of Kashrush supervision.
Just about every government agency that could possibly intervene in the situation has done so. The AAA, the NRA and its poultry code authority; Mayor LaGuardia, Aldermanic President Deutsch and their appointed mediator, Judge Rosalsky, and their “confidential” investigator, Arthur Simon, who is also executive director of the Kashruth Association; the Kashruth Association, committees and scores of others have tried to clean up the mess. With what result?
Special Assistant United States Attorney Walter Rice publicly charged that this city today is a dumping ground for diseased poultry and that two percent of the poultry sold here as “kosher” is unfit for human consumption.
Mr. Deutsch this week asserted that “those who have paid for kosher poultry for years have been victims of the most brazen frauds possible.”
The history of kashruth supervision in this city has shown that the public authorities, as constituted, have been unable to provide adequate protection. There is a possibility that a special agency, if properly administered, might do better.
In the meanwhile, a plan of supervision has been worked out which has the approval of the authorities, the rabbis and the schochtim. Mr. Deutsch has suggested that this plan approved by Judge Rosalsky be given a three-month trial.
“Now the rabbis are united,” he declared, “and this is the only time to remedy the situation for those who have been paying through the nose. If we’re going to have just the same sort of supervision, the people might as well know it.”
The consuming public, sick of the old swindle, will cooperate in any plan leading to a betterment of the kashruth situation. The plan should be ### a trial.
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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.
