Rioters on the Bimah: Women & The Kosher Meat Boycott

On May 15 1902, women stormed the men’s section of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, stood tall on the bimah, and demanded to be heard. They were members of the group of 3,000 Jewish women who had assembled in the nighttime streets, determined to shut down every kosher butcher shop in New York’s Jewish quarter. The latest increase in the price of kosher meat had made it unaffordable for the women, the keepers of their homes and kitchens. Contemporary newspapers described the event as a modern Jewish Boston Tea Party. Celebrated author and historian Scott Seligman has written the first book-length account of this protest story.

Scott D. Seligman is an award-winning writer, a historian, a genealogist, a retired corporate executive and a career “China hand.” He holds an undergraduate degree in history from Princeton University with high honors in American civilization and a master’s degree from Harvard University.

Fluent in Mandarin, he lived in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China for eight years and reads and writes Chinese. He has worked as a legislative assistant to a member of the U.S. Congress, lobbied the Chinese government on behalf of American business, managed a multinational public relations agency in China, served as spokesperson and communications director for a Fortune 50 company and taught English and Chinese.

In addition to this latest book, The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City, he has written several nonfiction works about early Chinese Americans, including the award-winning The Third Degree: The Triple Murder that Shook Washington and Changed American Criminal Justice and The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo.

Visit his website at www.seligmanonline.com.

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