The Sceptic Blog

1.  There is a lovely family kosher butcher’s shop on Brent Street called Nissim.  They are fine upstanding people, who serve good quality food at reasonable prices, and whose behaviour is as kosher as the meat that they serve.

2.  And they are likely to be put out of business any month now.

3.  A chain of kosher butchers who already have branches in Golders Green and elsewhere are about to open up a new shop within a few yards of Nissims.  They have economy of scale advantages, and will doubtless dent or destroy the Nissim’s business.

4.  The Rabbis should prevent this, and could.  The Biblical precept of not disturbing your neighbours’ boundaries is given extensive ramifications in Jewish business ethics, and no Beth Din ought to grant a licence to a shop that is about to destroy someone else’s business, unless it is clearly shown that the existing business is exploiting its monopoly.

5. But the Rabbis won’t act.  Years ago a Rabbinic representative of the London Beth Din told me that they do not consider it practicable to apply or enforce the din of hasogas gvul (your neighbour’s borders), primarily because they are not the only Beth Din in London.  So people can always get licensed somewhere else.

6.  If the Rabbis are in disarray and unable to give practical expression to the values of the Torah, we must take matters into our own hands.  Let us see a customer boycott of any shop opening within a few yards of an existing business, and let’s all shop at Nissims harder than ever.