4 ms·

This makes no sense. If not many butchers do kosher slaughter how does putting the existing ones out of business lower the price? If the butchers were colluding

This makes no sense. If not many butchers do kosher slaughter how does putting the existing ones out of business lower the price? If the butchers were colluding to keep prices high why is that accusation never made? This reads like an high school essay shoehorning a point about the power and intelligence of jewish women into an event that as described demonstrates the reverse.

jrochkind1 4y ago
There were in fact very many (rather than "not many") kosher butchers in NYC in 1902, and most of them probably sold almost exclusively to people who would only buy meat from kosher butchers. Kosher butchers weren't really competing with non-kosher butchers, it was an economy of it's own (already charging a premium over butchers at large). According to the OP (and the wikipedia article, of course there is one, perhaps you will find it a less shoehorning source on the event, I agree the article is a bit... boosterish), the boycott worked, and lowered the price of meat? Which seems to be a major problem with your argument that it made no sense as a political tactic and couldn't possibly work... it did work? The wikipedia article provides a bit better context, that it also involved a battle between butchers/retailers and the meat wholesalers who provided the meat ("the meat trusts", which is a great phrase). > On May 11, 1902, around 400 kosher butchers on the East Side of New York organized a boycott of the meat trusts to put pressure on them to lower the cost of meat. However, the trusts were too powerful and the butchers ended their boycott. In response to those unsuccessful attempts, the women of the Lower East Side Jewish community, led by Fanny Levy and Sarah Edelson, held a massive protest.[9] On May 15, 20,000 protesters, mostly women, took to the streets to attack the butcher shops.[10] They smashed shop windows, poured gasoline on the meat, lit it on fire and threw pieces of meat at police officers. By the end of the day, 85 people had been arrested, 75% of them women OK, honestly I have a lot more questions afterreading the wikipedia article. This is an even somewhat stranger event than the OP suggested... the butcher shops wanted lower prices too, but the women rioters smashed the butcher shops... and then it worked, the butcher shops said, great, we're joining the boycott too and not selling the meat until the wholesalers drop their prices... and restaurants joined the boycott too... and eventually the wholesalers lowered their prices, and the butchers passed on the price drop. Oh, and as far as "not many" butchers, note that mention of 400 kosher butchers on the east side of manhattan? I don't know how many butchers there were total in manhattan at the time, but 400 butchers is a lot of butchers. I'm also really loving the image of women throwing burning hunks of gasoline-soaked looted meat at police officers as a weapon. That one paragraph from the wikipedia article has so much to offer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1902_kosher_meat_boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1902_kosher_meat_boycott
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Why would there be gasoline in 1902?
  - noneeeed 4y ago
    Assuming that’s just a good faith error (rather than made up) they probably meant kerosene, which was widely used for lamps. Still seems like a weird thing to do.
  - godzillabrennus 4y ago
    Standard Oil was incorporated in 1870. Why wouldn’t there have been gasoline in 1902?
    - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
      No gasoline-powered vehicles. Oil and the other products they refined is not gasoline. Perhaps there were other devices needing gasoline at that time, but the existence of gasoline would be so rare that these city women would not have access to it. Wikipedia is rife with nonsense sometimes.
      - jrochkind1 4y ago
        Peer comments suggestion that it would make sense if it were kerosene seems right. There was probably plenty of kerosene around for lamps in nyc in 1905 (although piped natural gas lighting was also common), and kerosene would work fine to turn meat into a burning projectile. Or perhaps to intentionally befoul and ruin the meat for sale, as part of the boycott/protest/riot, with the projectile part being secondary. But yeah, unfortunately the wikipedia source for the burning meat projectile claim is to a web page that makes the same claim without really citing it's source (beyond the name of a historian). We'd have to do some research to see if we could find a cited primary source that this claim came from originally, and how it appeared there. I really like the image regardless. It does not seem implausible to me, generally, with kerosene. But it's an enjoyable image either way.
shmerl 4y ago
If they have no one to sell to, they'd lower prices to reasonable instead of quitting. Monopoly game played the other way.

jrochkind1 4y ago

There were in fact very many (rather than "not many") kosher butchers in NYC in 1902, and most of them probably sold almost exclusively to people who would only buy meat from kosher butchers. Kosher butchers weren't really competing with non-kosher butchers, it was an economy of it's own (already charging a premium over butchers at large). According to the OP (and the wikipedia article, of course there is one, perhaps you will find it a less shoehorning source on the event, I agree the article is a bit... boosterish), the boycott worked, and lowered the price of meat? Which seems to be a major problem with your argument that it made no sense as a political tactic and couldn't possibly work... it did work? The wikipedia article provides a bit better context, that it also involved a battle between butchers/retailers and the meat wholesalers who provided the meat ("the meat trusts", which is a great phrase). > On May 11, 1902, around 400 kosher butchers on the East Side of New York organized a boycott of the meat trusts to put pressure on them to lower the cost of meat. However, the trusts were too powerful and the butchers ended their boycott. In response to those unsuccessful attempts, the women of the Lower East Side Jewish community, led by Fanny Levy and Sarah Edelson, held a massive protest.[9] On May 15, 20,000 protesters, mostly women, took to the streets to attack the butcher shops.[10] They smashed shop windows, poured gasoline on the meat, lit it on fire and threw pieces of meat at police officers. By the end of the day, 85 people had been arrested, 75% of them women OK, honestly I have a lot more questions afterreading the wikipedia article. This is an even somewhat stranger event than the OP suggested... the butcher shops wanted lower prices too, but the women rioters smashed the butcher shops... and then it worked, the butcher shops said, great, we're joining the boycott too and not selling the meat until the wholesalers drop their prices... and restaurants joined the boycott too... and eventually the wholesalers lowered their prices, and the butchers passed on the price drop. Oh, and as far as "not many" butchers, note that mention of 400 kosher butchers on the east side of manhattan? I don't know how many butchers there were total in manhattan at the time, but 400 butchers is a lot of butchers. I'm also really loving the image of women throwing burning hunks of gasoline-soaked looted meat at police officers as a weapon. That one paragraph from the wikipedia article has so much to offer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1902_kosher_meat_boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1902_kosher_meat_boycott

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Why would there be gasoline in 1902?
- noneeeed 4y ago
  Assuming that’s just a good faith error (rather than made up) they probably meant kerosene, which was widely used for lamps. Still seems like a weird thing to do.
- godzillabrennus 4y ago
  Standard Oil was incorporated in 1870. Why wouldn’t there have been gasoline in 1902?
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    No gasoline-powered vehicles. Oil and the other products they refined is not gasoline. Perhaps there were other devices needing gasoline at that time, but the existence of gasoline would be so rare that these city women would not have access to it. Wikipedia is rife with nonsense sometimes.
    - jrochkind1 4y ago
      Peer comments suggestion that it would make sense if it were kerosene seems right. There was probably plenty of kerosene around for lamps in nyc in 1905 (although piped natural gas lighting was also common), and kerosene would work fine to turn meat into a burning projectile. Or perhaps to intentionally befoul and ruin the meat for sale, as part of the boycott/protest/riot, with the projectile part being secondary. But yeah, unfortunately the wikipedia source for the burning meat projectile claim is to a web page that makes the same claim without really citing it's source (beyond the name of a historian). We'd have to do some research to see if we could find a cited primary source that this claim came from originally, and how it appeared there. I really like the image regardless. It does not seem implausible to me, generally, with kerosene. But it's an enjoyable image either way.

shmerl 4y ago

If they have no one to sell to, they'd lower prices to reasonable instead of quitting. Monopoly game played the other way.