by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
Week Five, Day Three
Tiferet of Hod
Week Five, Day Four
Netzach of Hod
So much for Hekhsher Tzedek. Apparently politics wins out over justice.
In a not very surprising move, the Conservative Movement has decided not to boycott Rubashkin.
Calls this week by activist rabbis for a limited boycott have been muted out of concern that a boycott could be actionable and might discourage Jews from keeping kosher because kosher meat would be harder to access.
Actionable? Are you kidding? Seriously, what would be pure enough to get something started? Let’s see, we have major violations of Dina d’malchuta dina, loads of other, amazingly varied halachic violations that have now gone on for years – and in theory have actually spurred the Conservative movement to the unusual action of attempting to actually do something (follow-through apparently being a little slow, ahem). The moral and halachic violations range from abuse of workers’ labor to sexual abuse; apparently there are allegations of the drug methamphetamine being produced at the site, and that rabbinic supervisors, specifically have abused plant workers. Not to mention child labor violations, identity theft, illegal weapons sales, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few.
So, what would be enough to get the Jewish world to move? Can anyone possibly believe that they are totally innocent? That poor old Rubashkin’s is being railroaded? I mean, reality check: When is the Jewish community going to get off its collective Butt?
If for no other reason, we should be boycotting because this will make people look at us and say, if that’s what Jews do, I want no part of it. Note to the Conservative movement: This includes your followers whom you are trying so valiantly to get to keep kosher. IMO, more people will quit keeping kosher over your spinelessness than over the lack of available kosher meat. The folks who keep kosher now aren’t going to stop for this reason. Not to mention that all those young folks you’re trying to attract: they’re leaving because they look and see that something is seriously wrong here. As a Jew, I am embarrassed and ashamed about the lack of response from all the movements, but CJ, your Hekhsher Tzedek plans give you a special responsibility. Live up to it. Stand up for something, already.
And, Hey, Orthodoxy, you have a chance here to outmoral the left: get up and do something, will you? Somebody? Anybody? Before all the holiness drains out of the world?
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Monday, May 19th, 2008
Week Five, Day two
Gevurah of Hod
According to the latest news, yes, there’s more, if you can stand it. The Des Moines Register reports that there was sexual abuse and an expectation of sexual favors, according to the workers,
If a worker wanted, say, a promotion or a shift change, “they’d be brought into a room with three or four men and it was like, ‘Which one do you want? Which one are you going to serve?’†said McCauley in an interview today with Des Moines Register editors and reporters.
To be fair, it should have been obvious that somethignlike this would be revealed – with all the other garbage going on behindthe scenes, this particular form of abusing the powerless should have been an obvious add-on feature.
RadioIowa mentions that America’s Voice, a group pushing for immigration reform, is asking Congress to investigate the owners of the Postville plant.
Mark Lauritsen, international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) says reading the information on the Postville raid shows “shameful” action by the plant’s owners. Lauritsen says what’s ultimately shameful is that nearly 400 “hardworking men and women” are in detention, while the people who exploited them are free to roam the streets and start the cycle over again.
Lauriston says Agriproccessors has gotten away with the labor violations for too long. Lauritsen says: “There is not one other meatpacker operator in this country that has the same sustained long record of law violations as Agriprocessors, not one. They’re acting like a renegade in an already tough industry. It’s not good for the industry, it’s not good for the workers who work in it.” Sharry and Lauritson say the national strategy of ‘attrition through enforcement’ remains an ineffective solution to the immigration issue.
I hope they’re successful, but after all this time, who knows – it’s not like there haven’t already been tons of investigation worthy crimes over the past several years, with a pattern of disregard for the law. Again, our only quesiotn should be, where the hell is the Jewish community, and why didn’t we insist on OU’s hashgachah (supervision) being pulled with much greater force. Our lack of courage and refusal to go without meat is a chillul hashem – an embarrassment to God’s name.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Sunday, May 18th, 2008
Week Five, Day One
Chesed of Hod
Since the most recent debacle at Rubashkin’s, documented widely, with a focus on the huge immigration raid detaining nearly 400 of the slaughterhouse’s 968 employees and sending many of the remaining into hiding (and not to mention so many other violations of so many varieties of American law and halachah that the mind boggles), the Postville Plant has reopened on essentially a skeleton crew.
SInce, according to the Forward, it is producing less than half its usual output, and Agriprocessors produces more than half of glatt kosher beef in the USA and the greatest share of glatt kosher poultry, and Postville produces 85% of that beef, instead of American Jews wondering how we’ve come to such a pass; that after several years of people reporting violation after violation of Jewish law, human rights, and American law, how is it that the Orthodox Union hasn’t revoked its supervision; how is it that there isn’t an outcry against such practices, against the kosher meat industry from within the Jewish community – and for that matter – why haven’t we been more carefully examining the actual kashrut of let us say, the organization behind the meat (cf. Rabbi David Berger, author of The Rebbe the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference)?
How is it that we are actually even thinking about whether or not we’ll get enough meat?
At the Hazon food conference late last year, Rabbi Yehuda ben Chemhoun, a prominent shochet of 27 years, and Rabbi Seth Mandel, the senior mashgiach at the Orthodox Union, both spoke of how they limited their own intake of meat, and Rabbi Mandel said plainly that he felt that the kosher meat industry in this country was broken, at least in part because people were expecting to eat too much meat. Instead of meat being something to have occasionally, for shabbat and holidays, people -because of its easy availability- are eating meat every day, sometimes at every meal. And this is sick: it is sick beause it leads us to an industry of waste and cruelty, and to health problems from over indulgence and also to health problems from eating the flesh of animals being treated badly throughout their lives – and through their deaths.
Although I rarely eat meat, I am not a veg. But how can we continue to support an industry that causes this much pain not only to animals, but to human beings. Our sages argue about what the purpose of our kashrut restrictions of meat and shechita are: some say it is because animals feel emotionally as we do, and it is wrong to be cruel to them; some say that it is because we are to learn from the example of our care with animals that all the more so we need to take care of other human beings, to teach compassion.
What Rubashkin’s has revealed is that it cares about neither. So, the only question left is: how long will we allow it to continue, and what will we decide to do now?
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Week two, Day three
Tiferet of Gevurah
PETA is offering a 1 million Dollar reward to the first scientist to to produce and bring to market in vitro meat.
I give them full points for consistency. Of course, it doesn’t solve the problems of the use of resources to produce meat. It also raises all kinds of questions (and to be honest, although I’ve occasionally had a burger, the idea of meat produced by humans creeps me out especially knowing all the really awful stuff behind and alongside Genetically modified food- which currently is mostly herbiferous).
But of course, the really great questions have already been asked by Jewish Star Trek fans, who pondered the matter via the replicator: Could one eat a kosher cheeseburger? Who would be qualified to supervise the meat, since in theory there might still be animals around that people schechted? Would it be kosher to eat pork produced this way? How about human flesh? The questions are endless.
If it was liver, do you still have to broil it within an inch of destruction?
PETA: You have challenged us; now we challenge you to answer these question for us!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Thursday, March 6th, 2008
The Forward reports on the not terribly new news that it is now possible to eat a kosher cheeseburger by putting parve soycheese on a burger (or, also, of course, although not at a meat restaurant, by putting real cheese on a soyburger, or even soycheese on a soy burger). SO what’s the news exactly? Well, apparently a real meat kosher restaurant has begun offering said real meat with fake cheese burger at its location. The Forward excitedly noted that in the original New York Post article, Jackie Mason, the comedian, is nauseated by the prospect of eating a cheeseburger. Rabbi Basil Herring, the executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America is also not thrilled at the prospect, although his complaint is at least not ridiculous. He’s worried about marit ayin – that some young kid might walk into the restaurant and see people eating cheese on a burger and think that it’s Kosher.
I will note that, while Marit ayin is a legitimate problem, there are ways one could take care of this quite easily. For example, posting a giant sign everywhere in the restaurant saying something like, “This is a meat-serving kosher establishment. No dairy products of any kind are served here. ‘Cheese’ in the ‘cheeseburgers’ is completely pareve and contains no dairy ingredients.
Tanchuma Shmini 12, Hullin 109b:
“God said to Moshe: Warn Israel not to eat bad things, and they
shouldn’t mislead you by saying that God forbade Israel to eat good
things. God said that everything I have forbidden to you, I have
permitted something else in its place… I forbid pork, and permit the
tongue of the fish known as shibbuta which has a similar taste to pork… And why? To give a good reward to Israel for keeping my mitzvot.”
But not only that! The Yerushalmi Kiddushin 4:12 says:
“In the future, we will all have to answer to God for all that our eyes saw of God’s wonderful world but did not partake of.â€
Dude, it’s kosher! If the kid isn’t old enough to read, she’s not old enough to be by herself in a restaurant without parental oversight to explain what soycheese is.
So, Jackie, Rashi quotes Sifra Kedoshim,11: 22 on Leviticus 20:26 (And I have distinguished you from the [other] peoples to be mine), saying,
“Rabbi Eleazar ben Azaria says: How do we know that a person should not say: ‘I am disgusted with pig meat, it is impossible for me to eat’ but rather he should say: ‘I can, but what can I do? My Father in Heaven has decreed upon me (that it’s not permitted). The verse says: “And I have distinguished you from the other peoples to be mine,” that your separation from them should be for My Name’s sake— he separates himself from sin and so accepts on himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.”
On the other hand, who the hell thinks Jackie Mason ought to be cited as a source of halakhic – or any other- advice?
By the way, I just can’t help myself here, does anyone else think Al Lewis (grandpa Munster), Jackie Mason, separated at birth? Although I hear the late Al Lewis was a fabulous and lovely guy.
by Rooftopper Rav [➚] · Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
I’m too tired to really comment, but here’s the update on the egg roll strike story from two weeks ago:
Yesterday’s The World reported that Israeli sushi restaurants planned to go on a “sushi strike” today in phase two of their protest against Israel’s plan to eliminate work permits for foreign chefs. (Okay, really their plan is to challenge the new Israeli policy in court, but this is more fun, if totally counterproductive.)
Best line in the story comes from the Israeli owner of Sakura, a Japanese restaurant in Jerusalem: [Israelis just want to be normal.] “Being normal means you can eat sushi whenever you want…kosher or not kosher…”
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Okay, in the realm of the totally trivial:
Hasbro is trolling for business for their new international edition of Monopoly. To do this, they have instituted a vote in which people may go their website and vote for which cities they wish to appear. I have received umpteen mails about this that I should vote for Jerusalem to appear, and that seemed reasonable to me, as it is an important international city in many ways. So one day when I was being a slacker and not working on what I should have been I went over and voted for Jerusalem, Israel.
However, if you go over there now what you will find is not “Jerusalem, Israel” but simply “Jerusalem” a format in distinction to that of any other city: lacking a country.
If you believe that Hasbro should cease to opine on political matters, you may tell them so here, a URL that I include because it’s a pain to find any way to email them directly.
by Rooftopper Rav [➚] · Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
After years of trying to attract foreign [read: Asian] workers to Israel, the country seems to be reversing policy… at least when it comes to Asian restaurants. Today’s Ha’aretz reports that in an attempt to create more jobs for native Israelis, Israel’s government plans to decrease the number of work permits it issues to Asian chefs by about 50% next year and then stop issuing the permits altogether the following year. In response, Asian restaurants across Israel have declared a “spring roll strike,” to be followed by sushi and noodle strikes in coming weeks. Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Labor lawyer Shoshana Strauss was quoted in Ha’aretz with the brilliant line, “Everyone can make Chinese food it’s not impossible to learn.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. On a purely culinary level this is absurd. Israel’s Asian food already tends toward the awful. So awful, in fact, that senior Chinese Embassy official Xuan Chan broke with diplomatic protocol a few years ago and publicly called Israeli Chinese restaurants “disgusting.” (Thai, Chinese, and to a lesser extent Japanese food in Israel seems to mean sauteed meat and veggies or noodles with either a fluorescent pink or yellow sugary sauce dumped on top. Sushi is definitely better, but could be better.) If Asian chefs are currently cooking in Israel’s Asian restaurants– which I’m skeptical about, at least in half of the Asian places I’ve been to– they’re cooking to perceived local tastes, not to Asian standards. I’m doubtful that Israeli chefs would do better. I’m also somewhat skeptical that there are 900 (the number of Asian chef permits currently issued by the government) Israelis who’d be thrilled to jump into an Asian cooking job retraining program, should the government dream one up, which is also highly unlikely, but who knows.
Anyone else want to comment on Israeli labor policy vis-a-vis foreign and Palestinian workers?
Asian restaurants across the country went on a one-day spring roll strike on Tuesday in protest over government plans to rid kitchens of foreign chefs, and said sushi and noodles would be the next items off the menu.
The restaurants are angry at the state’s plans to purge Japanese, Chinese and Thai eateries of Asian cooks and replace them with Israelis as part of a broader program to cut the number of foreigners working in Israel.
The Ethnic Restaurant Organization said the country’s 300 Asian restaurants refused to serve spring or egg rolls – among their most popular dishes – on Tuesday, and planned a follow-up strike in two weeks for sushi and noodles.
“Today there is no egg roll and in two weeks time there will be no sushi and noodles,” Arnon Volosky, head of the organization, told Reuters.
More »
by Aliza [➚] · Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
In a move heard loudly around the environmental world, the Israeli government has reached a deal with Project Better Place and Renault-Nissan for the three partners to create an electric car infrastructure throughout the holy land by 2011. Israel is cited as the perfect site for such a project due to its small size and the fact that electric cars currently can not go long distances without being recharged. The tax incentives and system are expected to make the electric car cheaper than using fuel for most drivers, given the increasing cost of fuel.
Using the pre-paid cellphone system as model, Renault-Nissan will build battery recharging stations around the country, and the government will provide tax incentives to purchasers. One of the impetuses behind the project, Idan Ofer, of Project Better Place, hopes this can be a model that will eventually go international. “If Israel will ever produce a Nokia, it will be this,†he told the NYTimes.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Sunday, January 20th, 2008
And how often do I get to post from my favorite blog, Consumerist, on Jewschool? I’m gonna grab this baby and run with it:
We all know that people have been -for quite some time- acting under the mistaken notion that kosher = healthy. I seem to recall some major war in Poland between two different rabbis and their organizations over who got to oversee Polish vodka production because people there were convinced that kosher meant better product.
Now, Chinese exporters are betting that kosher certification can convince foreign consumers that their wares are safe. It’s just another marketing tool for them, of course.
Consumerist quotes the San Jose Mercury News:
Many Chinese companies were unfamiliar with the concept: One furniture maker asked for kosher certification, drawing a polite rebuff. Another facility asked to get certified as kosher even though it was smoking eel on site, a kosher no-no. The company was turned down; it is now building a separate, kosher-only facility.
And many companies weren’t ready for the grilling the rabbis gave them on their first visits to their plants, seeing it as a sign of distrust. “In China, everything works on relationships,” said Grunberg of the Orthodox Union, which certifies more than 400,000 products worldwide.
The News, also notes that according to the OU, Kosher certifications by rabbis have doubled to more than 300 in China in the past two years. Originally, it was apparently to get access to the kosher market, $11.5 billion U.S a year, but after the rash of problems with contaminated pet food, toothpaste, seafood and the like, Chinese exporters have turned to kashrut certification in order to assure people that their product is safe.
There might be some benefit to having kashrut oversight: since 2001, the Orthodox Union has required makers of products it certifies as kosher to place a code on their packages identifying the plant where it was made so the product can be traced in a recall. However, since September of this year, all Chinese food exports have been required to have this code by Chinese regulators.
It doesn’t especially bother me, really, though, I must admit. While I don’t think that hashgacha is likely to make the products safer (or at least not much) at least there’s the possibility that there will be more interesting products at my local cheapo grocery that I can buy. I can’t tell you how excited I was when I found some very tasty red bean flavored steamed buns with a nice OU on them!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
As usual, Failed Messiah has scooped an interesting tidbit on Rubashkin. Seems that a few days ago, NLRB heard an appeal from Rubashkin and found against them that if one’s employees vote to unionize, one cannot claim that undocumented aliens are prohibited from unionizing because they do not qualify as “employees†protected by the National Labor Relations Act, and thus refuse to bargain with them or recognize the vote.
Since the NLRB under the recent administrations has acted more and more partisanly – i.e. finding almost uniformly against labor, or handing out slaps on the wrists so light the companies have to scratch after because the contact tickles, I can only say, the case must have been unbelievably chutzpadik, which a few words from Circuit Judge Tatel seems to confirm, “Because the company’s argument ignores both the Act’s plain language and binding Supreme Court precedent, we deny its petition for review.…”
See FM for more: good work, dude!
Every day in every way, Rubashkin finds new ways to improve! Congrats on your award for Worst Ongoing Scandal; it’s nothing if not well deserved!
by shamirpower [➚] · Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
One of Lilith Magazine’s EcoUshpiztin, Betsy Teustch (yes, ZT‘s mommy) celebrates one year of her new blog, Money Changes Things. Here are a few highlights of her anneversary post:
Ten Kid Gifts Least Likely to Become Landfill
Easy ways for getting rid of catalogs and eliminating junk mail credit card offers
who knew you could microwave popcorn on the cheap in your own reusable bag !!!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Sunday, December 9th, 2007
…Also, the goats.
We all have a huge amount to say about the goats. I’m not sure that this was planned, but in some ways, this topic has nearly taken over the Hazon Food Conference. And I do not think that this is necessarily a bad thing. The questions that have arisen throughout the past years, regarding the ethics of eating meat – especially kosher meat produced in factory farms, slaughtered in places like Agriprocessors, where the heart of kashrut seems to have bled right out are questions which are just right for the people of this new Jewish sustainable food movement to address.
And while there is a lot going on at this conference, your intrepid livebloggers (YehuditBrachah, KungFu Jew and KRG) have set aside an entire post to talk about the shchita and the conversations surrounding it.
Thursday night, the first night of the conference, Nigel Savage of Hazon started out by explaining how it came about that it was decided to shecht a goat this year at the food conference. Last year during the conference, Nigel asked meat eaters if they would still eat meat if they had to participate in the death of the animal: some said yes, others: no; he then asked the veggies if they would eat meat if they were part of its slaughtering: again, some said no, but others, yes. From this arose the idea to try to humanely schecht a goat at the Hazon Food conference.
That is how Nigel introduced the first panel of the conference: a panel including a shochet, Rabbi Yehuda ben Chemhoun, Rabbi Seth Mandel of the Orthodox Union, who oversees all American slaughterhouses, the shepherd who raised the goats Aitan Mizrahi, the woman who continued to shepherd them when the shepherd separated them from their dams (he is a dairy farmer, and this is how female goats are kept giving milk) Rachel Gall, Dr. Shamu Sadeh of Adamah and Simon Feil.
More »
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Friday, November 23rd, 2007
The latest from the Forward: United Food and Commercial Workers are now entering the fray over Rubashkin’s skeezy practices in their plants. As the Forward reported, “Activists with United Food and Commercial Workers stood outside kosher supermarkets and Trader Joe’s stores around the country last Wednesday, distributing fliers that purported to be a ‘Kosher Food Safety Alert.’ The fliers cited controversial reports — many of them published in the Forward — about food-safety issues at the Postville, Iowa, slaughterhouse.” They also made automated phone calls to households in Orthodox neighborhoods and placed full-page advertisements in Jewish newspapers.
Most of these will be violations that if you read Jewschool or Failed Messiah’s excellent coverage, you will already know about – the bribery, the unsafe food handling practices, and of course the mistreatment of non-Jewish workers, prompting the Conservative Movement’s creation (at least in theory) of the Hechsher Tzedek. I want to emphasize a citation from Failed Messiah’s post on the topic which comes from the USDA’s inspector:
There were also at least five instances in which AgriProcessors was cited for not taking the required measures to fend off Mad Cow disease. In one instance, an inspector says he asked for a suspicious cow to be taken off the line and later discovered that the cow had been slaughtered with the rest of the animals. The inspector says he informed someone at the company of the “very serious noncompliance that had occurred.â€
I emphasize these words because, of course, Agriprocessor’s response, published on its Web site and in Yeshiva World News, was simply to deny, deny deny. “Concerns about Mad Cow disease are simply wrong,†the letter said. “We have never had product from any suspect animals leave our plant.†they claim.
Astonishingly, according to KosherToday,a trade publication that has defended AgriProcessors, none of this has hurt Agriprocessor sales. In fact, they claim that to the contrary, “The net effect of the onslaught against Agri was that sales of its products in some stores have risen by as much as 30% and it has opened an unprecedented number of new accounts.†More »
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
Another addendum
According to the JPost, a group of religious Orthodox rabbis affiliated with the group Tzohar, a group working for coexistence with secular Israelis (a mighty good idea; we’ll see if they’re any better than the other lot), announced on Tuesday that they will be issuing alternative kashrut certificates to restaurants and stores who buy produce depending on the heter mechira.
The Jpost article cites three rabbis affiliated with Tzohar
“If local rabbis refuse to recognize fruits and vegetables grown by Jewish farmers during the shmita year as kosher, then we will,” said Rabbi Rafi Freuerstein, chairman of the Tzohar organization.
“We believe it is important to strengthen Jewish farmers and Jewish agriculture and provide reasonably-priced produce to the Jewish nation,” he said.
“The Chief Rabbinate is not fulfilling its function as a rabbinic authority for the entire Jewish nation,” said Rabbi David Stav, a member of Tzohar, during a press conference Tuesday. “Rather, it has been taken over by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and Lithuanian haredi interests. We are trying to save the Chief Rabbinate from itself.”
The chief rabbinate, predictably, has attacked Tzohar as “undermining state-recognized rabbinic authority and risking a break between religion and state.”
Yawn.
In fact:
“If the rabbinate is dismantled as a result of internal fighting, we risk losing national recognition for rabbinic authority,” said Rabbi Ratzon Arussi, chief rabbi of Kiryat Ono and a member of the Chief Rabbinate’s governing council.
Rabbi Moshe Rauchverger, another council member, said that Tzohar threatened to break the rabbinate’s monopoly over religious services and open it up to Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism.
“If Tzohar starts providing kosher supervision, what is to stop Reform and Conservative from doing the same?” said Rauchverger.
Yes, indeed, what? More »
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
Just in case anyone missed it, it seems that Moshe and Sholom Rubashkin were arrested last week, believe it or not, NOT for violations at their AgriProcessors slaughterhouses, but after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges stemming from incidents at a closed textile plant they own.
According to JTA
The U.S. attorney in Philadelphia charged Moshe Rubashkin with leaving hazardous waste at the Montex textile plant in Allentown, Pa., and charged his son Sholom with misleading an investigation into a fire at the plant, according to the Forward. …The current charge is that he left drums of hazardous waste in the mill after it closed in 2001. A fire broke out there in 2005 that allegedly was exacerbated by the hazardous waste.
Granted, this is technically not a kosher slaughter house story, but it seems to me that what we’re looking at now is a matter of time. The JTA artcle refers to him as a “community leader” in Crown Heights, so it is unsurprising to me that the community continues to support him and make him out to be a victim, but this is now clearly a matter of someone who engages in unethical practices across the board. He had even served 15 months in prison for writing bad checks from the Montex plant.
There is nothing good in supporting someone in their criminal and unethical behavior, Jew or not; and if the commandments of our law aren’t enough to separate ourselves from such behavior, then surely we should be considering that someone who engages in these kinds of practices considers themselves better than others, and is not going to be limited by practicing on non-Jews. After all, as Failed Messiah points out in his excellent ongiong expose of this saga, the last major problem at AgriProcessors was the Rubashkins’ failure to follow food-safety procedures, including safeguards against Mad Cow disease – at lest five incidents of this, where food safety inspectors asked cows to be removed, only to find out later that they were slaughtered anyway. In other words, they don’t care if their customers get sick and die. So much for loving your fellow.
For a full story on the arrest see here
Sheesh. It’s getting to the point that Rubashkin needs its own category.
For a history see:
See: öÄéÌåÉï áÌÀîÄùÑÀôÌÈè úÌÄôÌÈãÆä åÀùÑÈáÆéäÈ áÌÄöÀãÈ÷Èä, Where’s the beef now? Kashrut update on Rubashkin’s, Another beef with kashrut in the news, and Kashrut Brouhaha Has Legs; Agriprocessors: Still trayfin’ it up,
and Failed Messiah
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Wednesday, August 29th, 2007
Even that icy-cold water couldn’t wash the nareishkeit out of her head.
Madonna as a revitalizer for Sfat. Well, I suppose at least they haven’t started bottling the water from the mikveh, or selling the gravedust, yet, but…
Madonna reportedly is thinking well into the future.
“The valley of Rosh Pina is the entrance to where the Messiah will come to Safed,” said Lotan, the Tzahar region’s tourism director, “and Madonna is negotiating to purchase a house there not far from where we are.”
EEeeergh.
by zt [➚] · Sunday, July 8th, 2007
Reading an article called Eco-Kosher Movement Aims To Heed Tradition, Conscience in the Washington Post earlier today led me to do some thinking about how several different food related issues tie together. The idea of eco-kashrut, like so many great recent innovations, dates back to the 1970s when Reb Zalman began thinking and talking about it. This was not long after he had moved away from Habad and was one of those targeted when Ramah purged several innovative thinkers who had been working there (I am always looking to learn more about this, if you know anything about it…). Zalman’s idea, as i understand it, was to consider ecological impacts, footprint minimizing, workers rights, tzar baalei hayim (animal rights), and related issues when considering which foods ought be eaten. It did not take long for the theory to gain traction in the Renewal world, though it didn’t move much beyond that for several decades.
Lately, as the WaPo article reiterated, a coalition has formed in the Conservative movement to look into the idea of eco-kashrut and the concept of a tzedek hecsher. Jewschool’s own Kung Fu Jew works with Hazon on their joint which deals with a lot of related issues and developments. As that conversation geared up, Y-Love dropped an argument in favor of the orthodox kashrut establishment getting their act together on worker justice and animal treatment issues:
An article on Eco-Kashrus (kosher certification requiring environmental concerns be implemented) was relegated to almost irrelevance in Kashrus magazine. Laws of bal tashchis, of “not destroying” the environment (“fruit trees” are referenced in the verse) are discussed in the Code of Jewish Law, right there in the second volume, not too far after laws of forbidden meat and dairy mixtures. Is there not even room for a debate of the validity of these holy laws when it comes to kosher certification?
And the workers. I have an extremely hard time understanding how blatant Choshen Mishpat (fourth volume of the Code of Jewish Law) violations are allowed to go on in light of numerous exhortations of the Sages in the Talmud (Bava Metzia) to treat workers well, pay wages on time, etc. Even calling someone an insulting word is forbidden by Choshen Mishpat 228.
While I share Y-Love’s anger at how blatantly the koshernostra has failed to take these issues seriously, i am excited to see the possibility of a competition to push these issues into the fore. If the Conservative yidden do launch some sort of tzedek hechsher it would certainly put a lot of pressure on the OU to prevent future Postvilles. Kol Ra’ash Gadol gave a fuller account of the Postville incident about 6 months ago, but in brief a kosher slaughterhouse was caught mistreating undocumented workers, threatening them with deportation, and heinously mistreating animals. Many of the facts were exposed by PETA in a video.
The tzedek hechsher would certify products as acceptable in six areas:
- fair wages and benefits
- health and safety
- training
- corporate transparency
- animal welfare
- environmental impact
I bet I’m not the only person who finds the prospect of such a thing exciting. The details would be tough to work out precisely–is it permissible for a company union bust as long as it pays better than prevailing wages?–but the promise is really appealing. I have often been headed to a party, stopped to buy beer, and wondered which companies are worker and enviro friendly. Luckily now that some of the big unionized domestic producers (like Bud) have spread into beers which actually taste good, there are lots of options available but why should we have to do so much research. How many people would buy items with justice hechshers when they had the chance? Companies who do the right thing should be recognized for it and prosper. What’s more, this would be a great opportunity to partner with coop america and other orgs that have been doing green andorganic certification for years. This is the sort of initiative that could begin to win back young jews being pulled in lots of directions. Creating a serious ethical voice on these issues would be a huge step forward. Let’s hope that the progress over the next couple years is faster and broader than the progress through the last three decades.
x-posted: divinityisinthedetails.blogspot.com/
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