“Announcing His Excellency, the Polish Trade Ministry’s special ambassador for the solution of piscatorial emergencies.”
Words to this effect today introduced a diffident and embarrassed little man to a committee comprised of members of the Warsaw rabbinate.
“Quick!” the gentleman shouted. “Are they kosher or treife?”
He held forth his two hands, a live, wriggling object clutched in each.
One of the rabbis bent forward and adjusted his eye glasses. Then he clucked softly and turned to a colleague.
“They’re fish,” he said.
His fellow members of the rabbinate moved forward with dignified, measured tread—for a better view.
“Yes,” they said to each other, “they’re fish. But see here, my good man, this is no place to sell fish. If you’ll sit out in the ante room until after our meeting is over, we’ll talk to you then.”
ARE THEY OR AREN’T THEY?
“But look!” wailed the special ambassador, as he went through a series of contortions in a brave and, in the end, successful effort to hang onto his finny charges. “I’m not trying to sell these things! All I want to know is, are they kosher or treife? This one in my right hand is Exhibit A. Call him ‘A’ for short. The other one is Exhibit B. Please! If you don’t make up your minds soon, my wife won’t let me in the house tonight.”
The chief rabbi’s face lit up in a smile of sympathetic understanding.
“Oh,” he said, “he wants to know whether they’re kosher or treife. Why didn’t you say so? Just sit down and make yourself comfortable for an hour or two and we’ll call in our kashruth experts.” He turned to the other rabbis. “Gentlemen,” he said, “the meeting will now come to order. First we will hear the fifty-six page report of the ways and means committee.”
GROANS PERSUADE RABBIS
The visitor groaned in despair.
“Gentlemen,” he pleaded, “I don’t want to seem discourteous, but I can’t hold these things much longer. Couldn’t you call in your experts before you hear the report of the ways and means committee?”
The chief rabbi pondered the suggestion.
“Decidedly irregular,” he said finally, “but I can see the gentleman’s point. Send for our two kashruth experts, please.”
The experts arrived. The Trade Ministry’s special envoy laid his card and his fish on the table.
“It’s this way,” he explained. “Things are becoming terrible in the fish business. Lately somebody has started a whispering campaign to the effect that fish belonging to the same species as ‘A’ and ‘B’., here, are treife. The Jews in Warsaw won’t buy, and the peddlers are being forced to go back where they came from, taking their fish with them.”
FISH INDUSTRY SAVED
“That,” suggested one of the kashruth experts, “isn’t so bad as it might be. Suppose they just left the fish in Warsaw? Then you’d have a real problem. However, {SPAN}###s{/SPAN} have a look at these fish.”
The experts went into conference. Finally they emerged with their decision.
“Gentlemen,” they said, “these fish are kosher.”
The special envoy from the Trade Ministry beamed his gratitude.
“You’ve performed a great service to the Polish fish industry,” he declared, his face wreathed in smiles. “And now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a walk around the corner to the public baths.”
He prepared to take his departure. The chief rabbi called him back.
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” he asked gently, pointing meaningly at “A” and “B.”
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.
