Just who the most genuine downtown rabbis are is, no doubt, a matter of dispute. I will not attempt to determine, but will quote in substance a statement of Rabbi Weiss as to genuine rabbis, which will include a curious section of the history of the Ghetto. He is a jolly old man, and smokes his pipe in a tenement-house room containing 200 books of the Talmud and allied writings.
"A genuine rabbi," he said, "knows the law, and sits most of the time in his room, ready to impart it. If an old woman comes in with a goose that has been killed, the rabbi can tell her, after she has explained how the animal met its death, whether or not it is _koshur_, whether it may be eaten or not. And on any other point of diet or general moral or physical hygiene the rabbi is ready to explain the law of the Hebrews from the time of Adam until to-day. It is he who settles many of the quarrels of the neighborhood. The poor sweat-shop Jew comes to complain of his "boss," the old woman to tell him her dreams and get his interpretation of them, the young girl to weigh with him questions of amorous etiquette. Our children do not need to go to the Yiddish theatres to learn about "greenhorn" types. They see all sorts of Ghetto Jews in the house of the rabbi, their father.
"I myself was the first genuine rabbi on the east side of New York. I am now sixty-two years old, and came here sixteen years ago--came for pleasure, but my wife followed me, and so I had to stay."
Here the old rabbi smiled cheerfully. "When I came to New York," he proceeded, "I found the Jews here in a very bad way--eating meat that was "thrapho," not allowed, because killed improperly; literally, killed by a brute. The slaughter-houses at that time had no rabbi to see that the meat was properly killed, was _koshur_--all right.
"You can imagine my horror. The slaughter-houses had been employing an orthodox Jew, who, however, was not a rabbi, to see that the meat was properly killed, and he had been doing things all wrong, and the chosen people had been living abominably. I immediately explained the proper way of killing meat, and since then I have regulated several slaughter-houses and make my living in that way. I am also rabbi of a congregation, but it is so small that it doesn't pay. The slaughter-houses are more profitable."