COMMENT Goldman's Response To Bernard's Case JACK GOLDMAN from the family at IVIEPaILAIM SUNSET STRIP • 29536 NORTHWESTERN • SOUTHFIELD, MI • 48034 • 357-4000 1986 5747 To All Our Friends, Customers It Relatives A Happy Healthy It Prosperous NEW YEAR From 24 Friday, October 3, 1986 The Milers Family THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Special to The Jewish News abbi Elimelech Goldberg began his article last week (Sept. 26) on the situation of Bernard and Son kosher meat market by insisting that he speaks not as a representa- tive of the Vaad, but as a Young Israel rabbi, yet noth- ing that he says has anything to do with the Young Israel movement. He deals exclu- sively with a travesty of the Vaad, and I'm at a loss to see why he would want to in- volve the Young Israel in this sordid business. If the Vaad has any evi- dence of wrong-doing on the part of Bernard & Son, it should feel duty-bound to bring it forward and press charges to the fullest extent of the law. Rabbi Goldberg states that the Michigan kosher food law is a criminal statute, and therefore it is dropping its case against Mr. Bernard Rayber! That makes absolutely no sense at all! The Vaad is dropping its case because it has no case, it has no evidence, it has no wit- nesses. At the beginning of this imbroglio, the Vaad inti- mated that it had two strong pieces of evidence: the tes- timony of an unimpeachable witness, and the report of a police inspector. The star witness was the Vaad's mashgiach, Mr. Leon Stein- metz; the report was by a Mr. Ed Ritenour. Mr. Steinmetz told me that he recognized in Bernard & Son's shop four treife briskets that Mr. Rayber had brought there from his brother's treife place in Hamtramck. Later, Mr. Steinmetz said he had never been in Mr. Rayber's brother's place, and he had never seen such treife bris- kets. Rabbi Goldberg says that Mr. Steinmetz ended the conversation by telling me that he was not responsible to me and all further infor- mation that I wanted would have to come from the Vaad. This is simply not true. Mr. Steinmetz never said any- thing of the kind. Further: more, in his version of the story, Rabbi Goldberg says that Mr. Rayber admitted the briskets in question were treife, but that they were in- tended for a non-kosher golf club. Mr. Steinmetz never mentioned that to me, and Mr. Rayber denies it categor- ically. Subsequently, several Kosher butchers ascertained that it is imposible to tell apart kosher and non-kosher briskets simply by looking at them. Later, both Rabbi Goldberg and the attorney for the Vaad, Mr. Steven Z. Co- hen, repudiated in conversa- tions with me the testimony of Mr. Steinmetz. So much for the Vaad's star witness. R Mr. Ritenour's report indi- cated that Mr. Rayber paid visits to his brother's wholesale grocery on a reg- ular basis and took boxes from there to his store. Mr. Rayber readily admitted this and explained that what he brought from his brother's place was canned goods, plas- ticware, and wrapping paper, which he sold or used in his store. The report of Mr. Ritenour proved absolutely no wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Rayber. Besides all this, during this entire period of the investiga- tion, the Vaad held keys to Bernard & Son Kosher Meat Market. At any time, they could have come to grab evi- dence of non-kosher foodstuffs. They never did be- cause there was none. "They had no idea what was in those packages." The whole plot against Mr. Rayber was politically moti- vated and had absolutely nothing to do with kashruth At this point, Rabbi Goldberg stoops to an ad honlinem argument. Knowing that the Vaad has committed an unpardonable atrocity in the community, he tries to divert attention from the fact by a personal attack on me and the Metropolitan Kas- hruth Council. Rabbi Goldberg is playing an old song, the numbers game. He claims that the Vaad consists of 25 members who represent the entire Jewish community. A glance at the Yellow Pages of the telephone book, if that is any criterion, indicates that there are six Orthodox synagogues in metropolitan Detroit. Presuming that each synagogue is represented by one rabbi, who are the other 19 phantom rabbis? Who elected them, and whom do they represent? I asked for a list of their names five years ago, at a stormy meeting concerning the eruv. I never got an an- swer. The Vaad is a publicly supported institution. Over the years, they have taken hundreds of thousands of dol- lars from the Jewish commu- nity, and yet, they're always making appeals for more and more money. Where is it all going? They have never opened their books to a public accounting. By contrast, the Metropolitan Kashruth Council has never taken a dime from the Jewish com- munity and its chief execu- tive officer, the writer of this article, derives no income whatsoever from his service to the Jewish community through the council.