The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902

Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City

By: Scott D. Seligman

Narrated by: Peter Lerman

2020-21 Reader Views Literary Award, Gold Medal Winner

2021 Independent Publisher Book Award, Gold Medal Winner

In the wee hours of May 15, 1902, three thousand Jewish women quietly took up positions on the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Convinced by the latest jump in the price of kosher meat that they were being gouged, they assembled in squads of five, intent on shutting down every kosher butcher shop in New York’s Jewish quarter.

What was conceived as a nonviolent effort did not remain so for long. Customers who crossed the picket lines were heckled and assaulted and their parcels of meat hurled into the gutters. Butchers who remained open were attacked, their windows smashed, stock ruined, equipment destroyed. Brutal blows from police nightsticks sent women to local hospitals and to court.

The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902 tells the twin stories of mostly uneducated women immigrants who discovered their collective consumer power and of the Beef Trust, the midwestern cartel that conspired to keep meat prices high despite efforts by the U.S. government to curtail its nefarious practices. With few resources and little experience but steely determination, this group of women organized themselves into a potent fighting force and successfully challenged powerful, vested corporate interests and set a pattern for future generations to follow.

The book is published by Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2020 Scott D. Seligman (P)2024 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"A highly readable and enjoyable account of this little-known episode in American history. Highly recommended." (Library Journal)

“A master class in historical storytelling. . . . A welcome contribution to Jewish historical literature..” (American Jewish Archives Journal)

"A milestone in the history of Jewish-American women." (New York Almanack)

Compelling story of activist citizenry, well done!

Scott Seligman's true story shows the power of corporate combination - what we now call trusts or monopolies - to distort a market and exact millions upon millions of extra dollars for essential food (a lot of money in those days) from hard working and struggling immigrants who they presumed to be powerless. The women in the community decide to band together and fight back exerting the lawful (and, usually peaceful) means available to them. The immigrant women were poorly educated, had little command of the English language and struggled everyday to manage the household, mind the children and put food on the table. Husbands were working in factories and sweatshops for a couple of dollars a day, 12 or more hours a day. Families were living in miserable, run down unheated tenements - sleeping five or six in a room. Still, the women who began by feeling powerless found the power they needed by locking arms and insisting their voices be heard and their exploitation be addressed by their government. It's an inspiring story, read with care, compassion and understanding by narrator Peter Lerman. (He even manages to do a good job with the Yiddish and Hebrew words and names woven into the text!) Excellent job all around.