COLONIAL MEAT FOR LONDON JEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2053, 13 April 1907, Page 1

COLONIAL MEAT FOR LONDON JEWS.

There is apparently some possibility of a peculiar development of the New Zealand meat export trade, namely, the supply of “koshcr”killed tinned meat to poorer classes of English and alien Jews in London. “Kosher” meat, it may be explained, is meat that has been killed in tho mailer prescribed by Jewish ritual, and subjected as it is to the rigorous inspection of experts, it is probably the soundest meat in the •world. Whether the possibility to which we have referred will ever be translated into reality depends largely, we imagine, upon whether the colony can provide the meat required. There is not a great surplus of tinned meat after local requirements are filled, and the War Office, as we have lately seen, is in the market for a large quantity annually, if the Imperial officer now inspecting the freezing wodks is satisfied as to the method of preparing the meat for export. But if the tinned meat can be supplied, the Jewish community in London seems quite ready to take it. The matter was recently brought before the London ‘Shecheta” Board—the institution which governs,ana Iters pertaining to the killing of meat in tho orthodox Jewish style—when it was stated that an Englist butchering firm desired to import “kosher” tinned meat from New Zealand, and that the Chief Rabbi made it a cpiidition that two “Shochotim” —Jewish slaughterers—should bo sent out to Wellington. In speaking on the subject, the Chief Rabbi emphasised his point that if the importation of meat from New Zealand were to bo large enough to prove a source of benefit to the Hebrew community by providing a supply of cheap “kosher” meat, it would be necessary to send out two experts. The drawback to securing the meat, as was suggested, from Melbourne, seems to be that the person who supervises the sale of “kosher” tinned meat there is not regarded as orthodox, and the London body will not therefore accept the meat as “kosher.” It remains to bo seen what further action the Shecheta Board will take after tho Rev. Van Stavcren, the Rabbi in Wellington, who is now on his way to England, has interviewed them. But if New Zealand tinned meat can be suiiplied at such prices as will place it within the roach of the many thousands of Jewish workers in London, a steady and constantly increasing market would be assured for practically as much as the colony could afford to export.—Christchurch Press.