Joseph Rosenberger

Joseph Rosenberger (יוסף בן משה הלוי) (died November 2/3, 1996)[1] was an Austrian Jewish garment worker who, by founding the first shatnes laboratory in America, single-handedly introduced shatnes-checking in the United States.

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.

[6] 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.

[3] Tress also introduced Rosenberger to Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, spiritual leader of the West Side Institutional Synagogue, who had many congregants involved in the garment industry, including Alex Levy, owner of Crawford Clothes.