Submitted in commemoration of the 100th issue of The Daf Hakashrus, and in honor of its editor, Rabbi Yosef Grossman.

In 1840 the first ordained rabbi arrived in the United States. His name was Rabbi Abraham Rice, and he assumed the position as Rov of Congregation Nidchei Yisroel of Baltimore.

Frustrated with the entire structure of Yidishkeit that he found here, he wished to return to Europe. Having studied with Rabbi Avrohom Bing in Wuerzburg and Rabbi Wolf Hamberger in Fuerth, he turned to them for guidance. In a letter to Rabbi Hamberger he wrote:

“…most of the people are eating non-kosher food, are violating the Shabbos in public….and there are thousands who have been assimilated among the non-Jewish population. Under these circumstances, my mind is perplexed and I wonder whether a Jew may live in a land like this!”

Three principles that comprise the foundation of the Jewish nation, namely, eating kosher food, adhering to the Shabbos laws and family purity as reflected in the laws of marriage and divorce, were being compromised. History has shown us, that the destruction of the Jewish people begins with eating non-kosher food, then leads to the desecration of the Shabbos and culminates with intermarriage as the third and final step. The importance of safeguarding these three principles are vital to the every existence and continuity of the Jewish people.

Rabbi Rice found a Jewish establishment that was in chaos. There were no Rabbis and Shochtim. Hence “self styled Reverends” became Shochtim, Mashgichim, and even performed marriages. “Am-HaAratzus”, sheer ignorance of Jewish law, was rampant.

In the late 1800’s more Eastern European Rabbis arrived in America, but they were hindered by the disorganization of the Jewish communities, and each individual Rabbi soon found himself struggling with religious indifference from within his own community members.

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The New York Jewish community, the “trend-setter” for American Jewry, was entirely in disarray. In 1887 the Jewish population in New York was estimated at between 100,000 – 120,000 families, without any central Rabbinic body guiding them.

On May 23rd of 1887 a meeting was called to form an association of Orthodox Congregations and appoint a Chief Rabbi, for the very purpose of setting order to Jewish communal life in America, by implementing standards for Kashrus, Shabbos and marriage/divorce proceedings.
Over 18 congregations soon united to form “the Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations”, and set about on their first task in search of a “Rav Hakollel”, a Chief Rabbi.

By Succos of 1887 they chose the renowned Moreh Tzedek and illustrious preacher of Vilna, Rabbi Yacov Yoseph (known in America as Rabbi Jacob Joseph) to serve as the first Chief Rabbi of New York.

Rabbi Joseph left his beloved Vilna, where he was held in high esteem and treated with fondness and respect as deserving of such a great Torah luminary. He arrived in the port of Hoboken, New Jersey on July 7, 1888, where he was warmly greeted by New York’s prominent Jewish leaders. They were ecstatic with his arrival, and they looked forward to a new beginning for orthodoxy in America under the leadership of Rabbi Joseph.

On July 21st, Shabbos Nachamu, the Chief Rabbi preached his first drasha, in Beis Medrash Hagadol on Norfolk Street, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Four policemen had to accompany him through the large crowds to enter the Shul.

The first program that Rabbi Joseph undertook was to organize New York’s kosher meat business. He felt this was essential, first and foremost in enabling a Torah true Jewish community to exist and flourish in America. Implementing new standards and tightening the supervision of the meat industry entailed a minimal cost; Mashgichim had to be paid. One cent was added to the cost of every bird slaughtered in the slaughterhouses under the supervision of the Chief Rabbi. To these poultry a plumba (lead seal) was affixed which stated in Hebrew “Harav Hakollel R’ Yacov Yoseph”.

Many butchers and shochtim resented the new stricter standards, and some Rabbis feared the loss of Kashrus supervision income. They were joined by the radical press, non-observant writers, who played upon the fears of housewives using the age old cry of “kosher price gouging”, to simultaneously attack organized religion in general. Their aim was to hinder any other projects the Chief Rabbi may have in his plans.

“Korobka”, a tax imposed on kosher meat by the Russian government in order to attack the Jews, became the battle cry! The Chief Rabbi’s opponents played upon old fears still set in their minds of Czarist Russia from where they had fled. The weekly “Der Volksadvokat” featured front page coverage, even printing a poem entitled “Korobka”, which spoke of “Orthodox chickens”…”dancing” whilst “wearing shiny lead plumbas” so “that the Chief Rabbi will live on a fat salary”! Nothing was further from the truth.

Public meetings were staged by so called “religious officials” against Rabbi Joseph. They attacked him personally, and the very position he held as Chief Rabbi, contending that “they” hadn’t chosen nor accepted him as “their” Chief Rabbi, only a few select shuls had.

There was soon an “anti Chief Rabbi” Beth Din, that supervised thirty one butchers! Each week a list of these appeared in “Der Volksadvokat”. The prejudicial attitude that took hold had such a devastating effect, that the major organization supporting the Chief Rabbi, the Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, began to crumble.

By 1889, the Chief Rabbi was merely a figurehead, with diminishing power. In the Spring of 1895 the retail butchers bonded together and rejected entirely the Chief Rabbi’s supervision. The Chief Rabbinate was now left virtually powerless.

Two years later, broken and downhearted, Rabbi Jacob Joseph, who maintained his position as Chief Rabbi with dignity, honesty and integrity to his last day, took ill and remained bedridden until his Petirah on July 28, 1902, at the age of 59.

Though he did not live to see his efforts reap fruition, the seeds that he sowed left their mark on religious life to this very day. No good deed goes unanswered. His Mesiras Nefesh for Yiddishkeit cleared the way for others to come.

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In the year 1900, the famed “Ridbaz”, Rabbi Yacov Dovid Wilowsky, Slutzker Rov, visited America for the first time and observed first hand Rabbi Joseph’s pain and suffering. On September 8th, 1903, he returned to become Chief Rabbi of Chicago, where he immediately embarked upon upgrading the level of Kashrus at Chicago’s four largest meat packaging houses.

The Ridbaz found a shocking situation. The shochtim were hired directly by the slaughterhouse owners, and it was the Shochtim who thereafter voluntarily agreed to accept a Rov as their supervisor! They didn’t accept the Ridbaz as their supervisor, and the Rabbi that they did accept didn’t allow the Ridbaz to inspect the Shechita!

The Ridbaz was left with no other alternative but to ban the meat. The uproar that followed was devastating, and during the summer of 1904, merely one year later, fearing for his very life, the Ridbaz resigned his position and left Chicago!

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In May of 1928, an editorial in the “Hapardes” Torah Journal, compared the Shochet of Eastern Europe to his American counterpart:

“Nothing has been altered more that the position of the Shochet. In the old home his profession was considered a sacred calling, he was a Klei Kodesh. The European Shochet did not view his position as simply a “business”, a way to earn a living, but rather he was completely dedicated to the Torah. Here in America the Shochet considers his vocation a means of attaining a livelihood, simply as another profession. His fondest wish is to join a “Union” so his salary will be increased.

The results: the Shochtim no longer wish to be under Rabbinic influence! In these cities the rabbis are now unable to properly control the kashrus situations!”

Kashruswise, chaos continued to reign in all major Jewish communities across the nation.

In 1929-31 a court case issued against the “Council of Orthodox Rabbis of Massachusetts” by a non-religious butcher, whom the Rabbis would not grant kosher certification, caused a great controversy. The Rabbis ultimately won in court; the Judge upheld the Halachah.

America’s major Jewish communities, New York, Massachusetts, Kansas City, Chicago, Akron Ohio, Youngstown, Buffalo N.Y., St. Louis, Cleveland, Boston, Los Angeles, and even Toronto Canada, experienced at that time great controversies between the Rabbis of the communities and the butchers and Shochtim who were set in their ways and wouldn’t upgrade Kashrus standards.

Rabbi Yehuda Levenberg, Rav Hakollel, Chief Rabbi of Cleveland, wrote in a letter to Rabbi Eliezer Silver of Cincinnati dated September 26, 1932:

“…Non-Jews stand right next to the Shochtim. While the latter ritually slaughtered, the foreman killed the chicken. Time after time the dead chickens are mixed up. Those killed are sold as kosher, while the kosher slaughtered ones are mistakenly considered non-kosher.

The salaries of the Shochtim vary in accordance with their speed. They average about $35.00 per week. One Shochet actually earns over one hundred dollars a week! This Shochet employs his own Rabbi to supervise him!”

The kosher meat industry boomed at the expense of Kashrus!

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But slowly things started to change. The anguish that these great Rabbonim across America endured was not for naught. Slowly, very slowly, things began to move towards the better. St. Louis took a Chief Rabbi, Toronto formed a Vaad HaKashrus; Shochtim began to be paid a salary, not per chicken. The Kehilla hired the Rav HaMachshir, not the Shochtim.

On November 19th, 1930, a landmark resolution prohibiting joint ownership of kosher and non-kosher meat companies was adopted at the semi-annual convention of the Agudas Harabonim, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America and Canada, and was reiterated once again in 1955, under the leadership of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt”l.

In May of 1932, the “Kashrus Association of Greater New York” was established to deal with the standards of Shechita and to control supervision.

But little progress was made in actuality, due to the vested personal interests of meat business proprietors, and some corrupt Shochtim and Rabbonim who turned their attention away from proper Kashrus standards due to monetary gains.

But their were Rabbonim and Shochtim that took a stand. In the summer of 1934, the kosher poultry industry was thrown into a major controversy between the Shochtim and proprietors of the meat industry.

Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia appointed Judge Otto Rosalsky to mediate the dispute that erupted. Rosalsky was an Orthodox Jew, and had an acute understanding of the main issues at hand. The Shochtim claimed that they had to slaughter too fast. The supervising Rabbis did not supervise well enough, and there was no proper identifying mark on the kosher birds slaughtered.

In conjunction with the Kashruth Association of Greater New York, Judge Rosalsky announced:

“All kosher slaughtered poultry offered for sale shall have affixed there to a plumba (lead seal) signifying that it is kosher, the same to be placed thereon by a Mashgiach. The plumba shall be supplied by the Kashruth Association of Greater New York.”

In order to strengthen the implementation of this ruling amongst the Jewish populace, a mass meeting took place at Beth Medrash Hagodol on November 5th, 1934, and a proper ban was pronounced on all those who would not adhere to this ruling.

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In the aftermath of World War II, America experienced an influx of Eastern European Jewry, and their input was felt immediately. Suddenly all the Yeshivos and day schools hired great talmudic scholars as rabbis and teachers. Students of the Yeshivos and day schools now had esteemed rabbis to emulate. Amongst the new arrivals were rabbis who entered Kashrus as well. An immense new “consumer base” evolved. The masses of immigrants formed a strong consumer base that empowered them to slowly upgrade the standard of Shechita.

The newly formed Jewish communities became more and more a marketing tool, enabling the Rabbonim HaMachshirim to demand and receive that which their predecessors were unable to.

The late Rabbi Moshe Leib Levovitz played a major role by implementing the kosher requirements at America’s premier kosher poultry plant, Empire Kosher Poultry, to meet the standards of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt”l, and by hiring European Yeshiva scholars as Shochtim and Mashgichim.

Novardok, Raden, Kaminetz, Mir and Telz Yeshiva scholars, steeped in Torah knowledge and with the “Mussar conscience” needed to be the “Yorei Shomayim” (G-d fearing person) par excellence that is required of a Shochet, accepted these positions.

This had an effect on other groups, that they should likewise upgrade their level of Kashrus standards and Rabbinic personnel.

But there was still a long way to go due to the immense number of Shechitos across America.  During the late forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies, there were small slaughterhouses across America, especially those located far from the main cities and Jewish communities, whose standards were questionable.

Yet, simultaneously, as Jewish communities began to grow and flourish, creating an ever greater viable consumer base, some new Shechitos were formed, some old ones closed, causing a ripple effect upon the entire industry, to upgrade Shechitos of lower standards, and become acceptable to a wider consumer base.

In the past twenty years, beginning in the eighties and nineties, until the very present, Kashrus in America in general, and Shechita in particular, has been immensely enhanced to levels far greater then ever imagined. This great change is due to the attitude of the younger, American born Rabbis now engaged in Kashrus. No longer is a Rav Hamachsir intimidated by the gruffness of a meat purveyor who may threaten his livelihood. The American educated Rov fears not his ability in assuming another position or profession for livelihood if need be. He enters the Rabbinate, and Kashrus, with a sense of mission, and cannot be coerced to lower his standards due to pressure. It is a field he enters by choice, not by default; and he is therefore treated differently than his predecessors. They were perceived to be individuals who could not speak the language of the land and therefore would not be able to acquire any other means of livelihood, and could thus be intimidated.

The OU stands at the forefront of this ongoing revolution, and plays a pivitol role in setting high Kashrus standards for the entire Shechita industry.