“Never seen a camel on the NY Thruway”
In the category of “don’t always believe what you read on the internet”, the following comments were attributed to Rav Moishe’s son-in-law, Rav Tendler, on the occasions of Rav Moishe’s 25th yahrtzeit.
Eating non-glatt kosher meat is not the only controversial stance Rav Moshe took. More famously, Rav Moshe ruled that all milk in the United States certified by the government as coming from a cow or other kosher animal is considered Chalav Yisrael. People still debate what Rav Moshe’s “true” opinion on the topic is, but, according to Ravi Tendler, “He meant exactly what he said. What he said was that we only drink Chalav Yisrael, but milk in America is Chalav Yisrael because the halacha says, ‘Im ein tamei b’edro’ – if the farmer does not have any non-kosher animals on his farm, then you don’t have to watch him. All you have to do is stay outside the farm to make sure no one comes in with a camel or a donkey.” , Rav Moshe argues that one may rely on government supervision to ensure that milk is kosher, but Rabbi Tendler said that in personal conversations, his father-in-law often stressed that dairy farmers in America simply do not have camels and other non-kosher animals on their premises. “He used to say to me, ‘We go to the Catskill Mountains on vacation; I never saw a camel. I never saw anybody milking a camel.’ We spoke about this very often and really in a kind of light mood. He didn’t understand what [his opponents] didn’t understand [and why they were attacking him].”
Everyone in Rav Moshe’s house drank regular milk, Rabbi Tendler said, and the only reason Rav Moshe himself did not do so is because he did not want “to be mattir neder” – to formally change his lifelong practice, dating to the first 40 years of his life in Europe, of drinking “traditional” Chalav Yisrael”