A September 1915 editorial in the Yiddish press condemned the inflated prices for so-called “Korfu esrogim” set by what the authors referred to as the “esrog trust”
Gentlemen of the jury,
I suppose most of you would naturally say, “Well, what difference does it make whether a man brings over Corfu citrons or Palestine citrons? There ought to be no such difference made, and I don’t see that a man is being charged with anything wrong in bringing over Corfu citrons instead of Palestine citrons, when I don’t see there is any difference between them.”
Again, I call your attention to the fact that the question is how would this article strike the people who are reading it — would it impute moral wrong to the people who it was intended should read it? If it does, what you think about it would not make any difference; it is, how would these people [religious Jews] reasonably feel? Would it hurt this man’s reputation in the very trade where he is working, in the very community where he is living? It might not be any wrong for me to say of the businessmen on this jury that I don’t believe they can figure out the size of an iron girder to hold up a large wall, but if I publish that concerning an architect in an architectural journal, it would constitute a libel on the architect.
You have to consider all the time the way in which the article would naturally and reasonably appeal to the people to whom it was addressed.
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