The shelves at the rear of the Hatzlocha Grocery on Maple Avenue are bare of the beef and poultry products that usually line them.It’s an odd scene for just about any supermarket, but this being a kosher supermarket weeks before the start of the High Holy Days, their absence is that much more noticeable.The store’s owners had to throw out all their chicken and meat products late last week after it was discovered that the shop’s butcher had been stocking the shelves with non-kosher chickens � which had kosher stickers � and they were purchased by many in the deeply religious Orthodox Jewish community.

“The community is very upset,” said Yossi Weinberger, a Monsey resident who occasionally shops at the supermarket. “This is huge…. People are outraged.”

Since the discovery last Wednesday, the store’s owners made phone calls to customers and posted fliers and posters inside and outside the store as well as around the community, warning customers of the non-kosher chicken packaged by Shevach Meats and asking them to throw it out or return it for a full refund.

“Our job was to educate,” said Mordechai Grunsweig, co-owner of the 15-year-old store. “It’s more than a business practice. There’s religion involved here. We feel it’s our duty. We felt it was our obligation from a religious point of view.”

Grunsweig said he discovered that the store’s usual distributor of kosher meats had not made a delivery, but Shevach, which slices and packages the meats for the supermarket, had stocked the shelves with non-kosher meats bearing kosher labels. Shevach rents space in a small building behind the supermarket. No one was in the butcher shop yesterday and no telephone number was listed.

The store promptly ended ties with Shevach, which had done business with the store for more than a decade, Grunsweig said.

“The entire community is affected by this,” he said. “The customers and the owners are victims of this situation. We go to great pains to keep kosher and adhere to kosher regulations. For something like this to be sold to the community is very, very painful.”

The sale of non-kosher chicken has prompted an investigation by local rabbis and the state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets to find out how exactly this happened and for how long, Grunsweig said.

Jessica A. Chittenden, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said the department quarantined 15 cases of the chicken Thursday and sent samples to be tested for salt, a key ingredient in koshering.

“That may or may not tell us anything. The tough thing is you can’t test for kosher,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out who’s at fault and for what. We’re trying to gather all the information at this point.”

The larger issue now is kashering the utensils Jews used to prepare the chicken � a process of purifying them by placing them in boiling water or subjecting them to intense heat. Grunsweig said over the weekend and yesterday people were allowed to bring their utensils to the supermarket and dip them in boiling water.

Rabbi David Eidensohn, an Orthodox rabbi from Monsey, said keeping kosher was a way for Jews to feed their soul and get closer to God.

“Everyone is quite terrified about it,” he said. “Those who have eaten non-kosher food feel they have damaged their souls. Non-kosher food is deleterious.”

TJN