Declaring that the Kosher food industry in the larger cities has become infested with racketeering and criminality, Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, president of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary, told the organization meeting in annual convention here Tuesday that “The unspeakable abuses which prevail in the Kosher food industry must overwhelm any self-respecting Jew with a sense of shame.” The assembly which is the thirty-third in the organization’s history is being attended by more than 150 rabbis from 75 American and Canadian cities and will continue through Thursday at the Seminary, 331 West 123rd Street.
Dr. Kaplan urged the assembly to give its cooperation to any communal effort which holds out the promise of putting an end to Kosher food racketeering. He recommended that the assembly “declare itself as opposing the monopolistic tendency of any group to control the regulating of Kashruth and that it demand that such regulation be part of a general effort to organize Jewish communal life.”
Dr. Kaplan deplored the “canker of speculation and private greed” spreading in Palestine which, he declared, “must be saved from the dangerous aftermath of real estate booms” and recommended that the assembly transmit to the next World Zionist Congress a proposal to devise ways and means of controlling the economic development of Palestine in conformity with the purposes of social idealism which animated the movement in its prime.
“Zionism should be made a part of Jewish striving,” said Dr. Kaplan. “Especially the Zionist Organization in this country is in need of being reconstituted so that it should henceforth consist in the main of representatives of all religious, cultural and educational institutions whose membership look to the restoration of Palestine as the symbol of Jewish reawakening throughout the world.”
Louis J. Moss, president of the United Synagogue of America, urged the Rabbis to bring religion home to the people in a practical way.
Asserting that “the failure of the rabbi to recognize this responsibility is at the root of many of our difficulties,” Mr. Moss requested the Rabbis to participate wholeheartedly in everyday questions affecting the welfare of humanity.
Mr. Moss said that the increased interest in religion that was predicted as a result of the depression, had not materialized. “Interest in religion,” he said, “is no greater than before. Attendance at our services has not increased. We are face to face with a real problem.”
Mr. Moss blamed the unsettlement in Jewish religious life, in part, which he said was caused by the failure to authoritatively reconcile Jewish ritual, practices and observances with present-day knowledge and experience, for the attitude of the Jewish people.
Assuring the Assembly of the cooperation of the United Synagogue, Mr. Moss said: “Your organization and the one over which I preside have a common interest and are actuated by a common aim.”
Rabbi Eugene Kohn, chairman of the Convention Committee, read a letter from Dr. Cyrus Adler, who greeted the Assembly and said: “You know that the Jewish communities in Eastern and Central Europe are harassed as they have not been before in many years, and that there has arisen in Germany an unparalleled situation, unparalleled in my opinion even in the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.
“Now it is of course the simplest thing for Jews in America to do what is called ‘expressing themselves.’ At the present time at least, great as are our difficulties, our concern should not be for ourselves, but for those of our brethren who are in these civilized lands of darkness.”
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.
