Joseph Rosenberger

Joseph Rosenberger (יוסף בן משה הלוי) (died November 2/3, 1996) was an Austrian Jewish garment worker who, by founding the first shatnes laboratory in America, single-handedly introduced shatnes-checking in the United States. The lab he founded still exists at 203 Lee Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Biography

Refugee Rosenberger arrived in the United States in 1940 after having spent 5 months in the Dachau concentration camp. From the time he arrived in America until 1944, he lived in a refugee home sponsored by the Zeirei Agudah at 616 Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Rosenberger was approached by Mordechai Neumann to find out how to best check garments for shatnes, a biblically forbidden mixture of wool and linen according to Jewish law. Rosenberger sought out garment dealers in both Williamsburg and the Lower East Side of Manhattan but found that there was both little knowledge and little interest in this area of Jewish law.

Williamsburg shatnes laboratory and beyond The Williamsburg shatnes lab at 203 Lee Avenue on the corner of Heyward Street. The upper sign states "Shatnes Laboratory of Mitzvot" and the phone number. In 1941, Rosenberger opened the first shatnes laboratory in North America in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

In his later years, Rosenberger had various assistants at his laboratory among them Yoel Schockett and Aron Drebin, who both later opened laboratories of their own. Schockett currently leads a shatnes laboratory in Lakewood, New Jersey and Drebin currently leads a shatnes laboratory in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn.