Join us for this new talk on Zoom with author Scott D. Seligman as he tells us about THE GREAT KOSHER MEAT WAR OF 1902. His book tells the story of how immigrant housewives quietly took up positions on the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and caused a riot that shook New York City. They had assembled in the pitch black in squads of five, determined to shut down every kosher butcher shop in New York’s heavily Jewish quarter. For years the women had patronized these butchers, who, like them, were observant Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe, recently arriving in America. But the latest jump in the price of kosher meat had made it unaffordable, and their religious beliefs allowed them no other variety. Convinced that their butchers were gouging them, they saw no choice but to take to the streets.
This account of the protest tells the inspiring story of the women who, certain of the righteousness of their cause, discover their collective power as consumers and find their political voice. With few resources and little experience, but steely determination and a clear understanding of the threat their families faced, these mostly uneducated wives and mothers, some barely conversant in English, organized themselves overnight into a potent fighting force, challenged powerful, vested corporate interests and emerged victorious.
Their first foray into the political and economic arena marked the dawn of Jewish female political activism in America, and it would set a pattern future generations would employ to address injustice whenever and wherever they experienced it.
Scott D. Seligman is an award-winning writer, historian, genealogist, and retired corporate executive. 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 in Taiwan and Chinese in Washington, DC.
Mr. Seligman is the author of The Third Degree: The Triple Murder that Shook Washington and Changed American Criminal Justice (Potomac Books, 2018), which won a gold medal in the 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs); Tong Wars: The Untold Story of Vice, Money and Murder in New York's Chinatown (Viking Books, 2016); The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo (Hong Kong University Press, 2013); Three Tough Chinamen (Earnshaw Books, 2012); the best-selling Chinese Business Etiquette (Hachette, 1999) and Dealing With the Chinese (Warner Books, 1989).
This book can be purchased at:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/164012358X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/potomac-books/9781640123588/
THIS TALK IS LIMITED TO 100 REGISTRANTS!
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United States Events , New York Events , Things To Do In New York, NY, New York Tours , New York Community Tours
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