Kosher Meat Price Hikes Have Devastating Effect on Kashruth Observing Jews

Prices of various cuts of kosher meat rose more than 30 percent during the past week. in outlets where meat was still available, and kosher chickens rose 20 to 25 percent in price throughout greater New York, the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty reported today.

Jerome M. Becker, council president, said a survey, made last Wednesday, also revealed that sources’ of supply of kosher meats and poultry were dwindling rapidly and that kosher butchers were being forced to cut sales drastically and in some cases, to shut down completely. He added that spiraling food costs, which are putting a “fiscal crunch” on all American families, were having a “devastating effect” on kashruth-observing Jews.

He said that on Manhattan’s Lower East Side a government-designated poverty area, where the Coordinating Council sponsors the United Jewish Council of the East Side to serve the needs of the Jewish poor, representative meat prices last Thursday were up on an average of about 30 percent. Steaks jumped from $2 to $3 per pound, chuck rose from $2.40 to $2.80 per pound, and chicken rose from $1to $1.19 per pound. Most other cuts of beef were unavailable, the survey found.

PRICES UP 25-35 PERCENT

Another area of the Jewish poor is the Bronx, where the Coordinating Council conducts communal service programs through its affiliate, the Concourse Jewish Community Council. The survey found that meat prices there we?e up by 25 to 35 percent in all categories, with choicer meat cuts in short supply. Chopped meat rose from $1.50 to $2 per pound last week. In Brooklyn, where many thousands of poor elderly Jews live, the average increase in kosher meat and chicken were reported of 20 to 25 percent.

Sources in the Kew Gardens section of Queens, which has a large population of Orthodox Jews, and in the Far Rockaway section of Queens, reported similar increases in the prices of kosher meats and poultry.

Becker said that the Jew who keeps kosher “is being most adversely affected by the current inflationary spiral. In many cases, the kashruth observing Jew is a senior citizen. These older adults, many of whom subsist on Social Security pensions in pockets of poverty throughout the metropolitan area, can no longer afford even the cheapest cuts of kosher meat at today’s rapidly-escalating prices. They are confronted with the unconscionable choice of abandoning their life-long principles or suffering malnutrition.”

He reported that the Coordinating Council was acting “to alleviate the plight of the hard-core Jewish poor. We are currently in the process of planning programs in conjunction with the newly adopted Title VII Nutrition Act that will assure the daily delivery of hot kosher meals to the aged and infirm Jews of New York who are in the most dire need.”