Tag #138438 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

My maternal grandfather was Mendel Berkovits. He was from Maramarossziget originally. He was a well-situated man, he had a going kosher butchery. But he didn’t work, because he had two Christian assistants. It’s an interesting fact that in every larger Jewish store the owners couldn’t manage by themselves, they hired help or apprentices who usually were Hungarians. In Lapos, next to each kosher slaughter house there was a treyf one, as well. In the ritual butcheries one could only buy kosher meat, respectively the upper part, the forepart of the cattle. We ate the brisket, the ribs, called leiterl in Yiddish. Jews were not allowed to eat the back end, so it was sold in the other butcheries, where the Christians used to buy. Thus Christians got to eat the better part. My grandfather used to buy cattle, took it to the slaughter house, where it was slaughtered by the shochet. The Jews bought from him the forepart, while the Christians the back end. In order to be allowed to sell it, the shochet had to cut out the veins from the forepart. The back part had so many veins it was impossible to release all the blood from them, that’s why Jews were not allowed to eat it. There was a special Jewish man, the controller, the so-called meshgiah in Hebrew. If one sent the Christian servant to buy meat, this was packed in a sheet of paper, roped, sealed with sealing-wax and signed in Hebrew by the meshgiah, to prevent the Christian servant to touch it with a piece of pork or bacon.