by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Monday, July 14th, 2008
On a prior post this week, commenter balabusta linked us to a video from the NYT that I’m sorry to say I had missed. The video is disheartening in that it reveals quite a bit that generally has been missing from the whole Agri commentary on the Jewish side of the question. It’s not only our outrage at the workers being treated unfairly by Agri at this point (not to mention being abused, as is clear from the variety of investigations) but the very fact that the racial component is being ignored, but even more clearly that the illegal immigrants are actually being railroaded into pleading guilty for crimes which are almost certainly Agri’s.
While everyone following this story along with us here at Jewschool from the beginning, now years ago, can see that we nearly qualify at apoplectic at the combination of injustice and chillul hashem that’s being done, listening to the words of this translator, who in all his years has not been moved to speak out -until now- makes me sad and angry all over again.
It’s too early for the boycott to be called off. The workers are being charged with social security fraud and aggravated identity theft, the court is using the greater charge to browbeat the workers into pleading guilty for the lesser charge. If they refuse to plead guilty, they are told, instead of five months in prison and then deportation (forever, with no chance to return legally) they will have 6-8months in prison, with the possibility of two years more if they lose. Most of them are the sole economic support for their families and thus are choosing to plead guilty, despite the fact that many of them - according to the translator- clearly have no idea what a social security number is or what it’s used for (and are apparently ashamed of looking ignorant about it, most cannot read or write, and when asked what the number is say they don’t know, the factory people put it there.
In other words, of the crimes of social security fraud and aggravatedidentity theft, it is Agri who should be on trial, not the workers. If Agri wants their boycott lifted, some signs of tshuvah are in order. Confession (to God and to the victim(s), Apology, Restitution and Failure to Repeat the offense when given another chance. In order for us to even think about taking them seriously, they need to admit publicly that it is they, Agri, who are behind these offenses and not allow people who are innocent of these crimes to be tried and deported for them. The workers may be guilty of illegally entering the country, but they are almost certainly not guilty of what they are being accused. There are no signs of tshuvah yet from Rubashkin. Thus we should not be revoking the boycott.
I can’t even begin to say how disgusted I remain with this whole episode, how much harm the American Jewish community’s consumption of excess amounts of meat has done to other people, and that Agri will allow their workers to take the fall for them… well, it’s despicable.
by Danya · Thursday, July 10th, 2008
As we noted a while ago, last summer the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University (nee UJ) published a curriculum/guide on Jewish theology called Walking With God, and had made it available for free download.
Well, now they have a new book out, called Walking With Justice, and it is truly fantastic. (I had some time to sit with it a few weeks ago, and was really impressed.) It features units on social justice in the Prophets and Rabbinic literature, and topical units on things like the environment, business practices, globalism, Israeli society, special-needs folk, and kashrut (which is, of course, extra relevant these days). It should also be noted that one unit was penned by Jewshool’s own Aryeh Cohen.
You can download both books (chapter by chapter, as .pdfs) here.
by Temim Fruchter · Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
The 4th of July has forever been one of those occasions where I wish we could just take giant X-rays of this place, this country – turn the layers inside out, uncover its history. What did this street used to be named? Over whose home was this highway built? From whom was this neighborhood stolen? And at whose expense was this city, this country built? Literally looking at those x-rays might be the most potent way to understand the many fraught and disturbing answers to those questions.
While this is certainly not the same as talking about similar history-layer-uncovering work being done in Israel/Palestine, it still feels connected to me – and I thought that posting about it would be an opportunity to engage some of the comments on my last post (particularly, the questions about what it really means to be an anti-Zionist, which I appreciate, and hope I can continue to address in coming posts). So in that light, I want to mention the work of Zochrot – a group whose goal is just this kind of uncovering, of reminding. As an anti-Imperialist US citizen, and as an anti-Zionist Jew, it’s important to me to be a part of making visible the history that governments, history books and popular discourse try so desperately to erase – both here, in the U.S., and internationally - and this is central to Zochrot’s work.
For me, one big part of being an anti-Zionist is to remember – and to bring into public conversation as much as possible– that what’s happening in Gaza and across Palestinian communities today started the moment the state of Israel was founded. While it is widely accepted to talk in our Jewish communities about 1967 being the year that marks the beginning of Israeli occupation of and military violence against Palestinians, it’s so important to remember that 1948 was the year that more than 500 Palestinian villages were depopulated and/or destroyed, and 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands, communities, and homes, so that a Jewish-majority state could be created.. Israel’s continued violence against and repression of Palestinian communities today is a continuation of the project of 1948 – a Jewish majority state at the ongoing expense of another people.
Zochrot does an excellent job of uncovering the history of the place we call Israel that is so rarely publicized or talked about. They bring tourists and locals to see where Palestinian villages used to stand, what streets used to be named, and what that map of Israel that some of us know like the backs of our hands used to look like. This is a vitally important and creative way to help insure that this history stays a part of the conversation – the colonization of Palestinian land did not start with sieges or with settlements, but with the vision for a Jewish majority state that initially drove them out in 1948. And talking about, staying rooted in this history, and in the ongoing fact that ethnic cleansing is not a Jewish value - for me, this is one big part of what anti-Zionism is about.
by Kung Fu Jew · Friday, June 20th, 2008
Dudes and dudettes, I’m stoked to announce a project that’s been long coming and is now fit for public announcement — Balkan Beat Box is going to play the 13th annual New Generations Benefit, the marquee event for New Israel Fund’s young leadership gang!
All the official bladdy blah aside (see below the fold), I’ve been on the Benefit Committee for this event before and really I cannot stress how empowering and fun this cluster of people and purposes is. It’s 500 folks in their 20s and 30s, totally excited to put a few bucks down for some raffles and auctions, a great party, and (this year) one of the most rockin’ bands from the Israeli scene.
It’s empowering because all the money goes to social change in Israel. If you’re an activist doing social change work in Israel, chances are your org got it’s founding grant from NIF, currently gets NIF money, or gets consulting from NIF’s 100-person training wing, Shatil.
I had the chance to interview the Israel-side staff of Shatil and NIF, who really shocked me with some numbers. What’s stunning is that, I shit you not, nobody in the funding world is supporting grassroots orgs in Israel like NIF. You’d think the OJC could send even half of NIF’s $28 million a year. But they’re not.
Orgs working for the rights of women, gays, minorities, foreign workers, immigrants, and refugees; economic, social and racial equality; the environment; and religious pluralism and freedom. Over 100 a year.
Really, if you give a damn about real Israelis, social pioneers building their country, then this is the event and the cause for you. Sign up for the Benefit Committee. Buy a floor ticket to the show. Buy a bigger ticket to the private party. See you there.
More »
by masthead · Friday, June 20th, 2008
Those who remember the first conference two years ago can recall how incredible it was for a Jewish organization to finally speak out on torture, to offer serious approaches against torture from a Jewish perspective (Rabbi Saul Berman’s amazing session really stands out in my memory).
Once again, Rabbis for Human Rights North America is holding a conference. This one is to be open not just to clergy and students, but to everyone who is concerned about human rights from a Jewish perspective.
Also for a nice change of pace, it’s not to be in New York, but in Washington, D.C.
On International Human Rights Day last year RHR-NA launched a new initiative called K’vod Habriot, which is to be a Jewish Human Rights Network of Rabbis, Communities and Individuals dedicated to the human rights of all. The conference is intended to propel that work forward; at the conference there will be workshops and training and study sessions devoted to how to organize support for human rights in the various Jewish communities.
Some amazing presenters are already lined up, among them:
Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al Quds University
Avram Burg, author and former Speaker of the Knesset
Dr. Arnold Eisen, Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary
Dr. David Gushee, founder of Evangelicals for Human Rights
Imam Yahya Hendi, founder of Imams for Human Rights and Dialogue
Sammie Moshenberg, of the National Council of Jewish Women
Information here:
Register here
or download a registration form here
by Temim Fruchter · Friday, June 20th, 2008
Hi everyone – new Jewschooler here.
Just for context’s sake, my world has always been one of strange co-existent dualities. I have been known to take the same train as a family member to a pro-Israel rally, disembark, hug good-bye-see-you-later, and proceed in two different directions: they, to the rally itself, and I, to the protest on the green across the way.
I come to my identity as a proud, anti-Zionist Jew through this lens – I stick close to my roots and love going home to the gantze mishpocha for Shabbos, Modern Orthodox style, and at the same time, I am fueled forever by my past and by my present with a love for Judaism that is fierce and deep and that has justice at its core.
For these last couple of months, basically spanning the Passover-to-Yom Ha’atzma’ut festival season, there have been lots of public celebrations, media coverage all over the city of Jews-being-proud-of-being-Jewish in the one way most media often solely represents it - on pro-Israel floats, Seders, parades, trips and public forums.
There was another layer of frenetic activity marking this season, too – a side of Jewish New York that most people didn’t - and don’t, generally – see: anti-Zionist Jewish New York. No Time to Celebrate, just one example of the response to the plethora of Israel’s 60th celebrations, is a campaign organized by anti-Zionist Jews from around the U.S. to protest Israeli Independence Day celebrations and to commemorate the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”).
For me, as someone who spent years in and around parades celebrating Israel, it never gets less powerful to remind the community that the anniversary of the Nakba is not a thing to celebrate. And to remind the community that there is a big, vibrant and growing community of Jews who are enraged by Israel’s actions, and by 60 years of occupation and dispossession, the continuing effects of 1948. And finally, to remind the community that there is not – and never has been – consensus on Zionism in the Jewish community. This in and of itself makes me extremely proud to be Jewish.
Read the full No Time to Celebrate campaign statement.
by Shalom Rav · Monday, June 16th, 2008
This, from a recent article in the Forward:
In a move that is being condemned for its effect on the already fragile relations between Israel and its Arab minority, right-wing lawmakers are trying to strip Arabic of its status alongside Hebrew as an official language of the state.
Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, Hebrew and Arabic have been its sole official languages. Later this month, however, a bill to relegate Arabic to the status of “secondary language†and elevate Hebrew to sole “primary language†will have its preliminary reading in the Knesset.
The proponents of the bill…say it is an important move to preserve the Jewish character of the country.
Hmmmm, the last time I checked, Israel’s Declaration of Independence had this to say about the status of it’s citizens:
(The State of Israel) will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.
Here are the Knesset sponsors of the bill, along with their email addresses, in case you’d like to give them some feedback on their efforts to diminish the standing of their state’s own citizens:
Otniel Schneller (Kadima): oschneller {at} knesset.gov(.)il
Yakov Margi (Shas): ymargi {at} knesset.gov(.)il
Limor Livnat (Likud): llivnat {at} knesset.gov(.)il
Yuli Edelstein (Likud): yedelstein {at} knesset.gov(.)il
by Shalom Rav · Friday, June 13th, 2008
So happy to be joining the J-School gang. I’ll be bloggin’ from the wide open spaces of the great Midwest, doing my part to help report on Jewish doings beyond the Upper West Side.
Speaking of which, I spent my afternoon yesterday with 1,000 other demonstrators in front of the Congress Park Hotel on Chicago’s Michigan Ave. - the site of the longest ongoing labor strike in the country. Marking the fifth anniversary of the strike, it was certainly the largest labor demonstration this city has seen in some time.
Some shameful stats: Congress housekeepers currently make $8.83 per hour and are not scheduled to get a raise until 2010. If a housekeeper was “lucky” enough to to work full-time at that wage, he or she would make less than the federal poverty level for a family of three. (By contrast, the standard union wage for a Chicago housekeeper is $13.90 an hour.) Workers also have no access to affordable health insurance benefits and there have been repeated complaints about unsafe and unsanitary working conditions.
It is with no small shame that I add that the Congress is Jewish-owned and operated. (It’s owner, Albert Nasser Shayo is a businessman who lives in Argentina; Shayo’s representative/manager is Shlomo Nahmias, who resides in the hotel with his family.) The Jewish-owned nature of the Congress is palpable and obvious as there are mezuzzot on every room inside the hotel.
I am proud to report, however, that the Jewish presence at the demonstration yesterday was also palpable and obvious. The Jewish Council on Urban Affairs joined the over 1,000 demonstrators who marched in a circle around the hotel over the course of the day. During the program, the crowd heard from a number of labor representatives, local politicians and hotel workers. A bunch of us rabbis (above) also took the stage to pledge the Jewish community’s support of the strike, during which we repeatedly led the crowd in a chant of “What a Shande!” (This and “Si, Se Puerde!” were the two prominent foreign-language chants of the afternoon).
Though Congress workers have been walking the line at the hotel literally every day for the last five years there is, sadly, no end in sight. But as yesterday’s demonstration proved, this effort is mobilizing an increasingly diverse Chicago labor community.
And so the struggle continues. Check out yesterday’s Chicago Trib piece for more on the 5th anniversary doings…
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Thursday, June 12th, 2008
Yes, those scare quotes are there for a reason.
B’tselem has begun a program called “Shooting Back” in which they have given out about 100 video cameras to Palestinians over the past year so that when settlers attack them, they can show footage of the attack, instead of just giving a statement to the Israeli police or army.
According to the BBC news,
“The difference is amazing,” says Oren Yakobovich, who leads the Shooting Back project.
“When they have the camera, they have proof that something happened. They now have something they can work with, to use as a weapon.”
We asked a spokesman from the Susia settlement for a comment on Sunday’s incident. He declined.
This video is being claimed by the BBC to be footage from an elderly shepherd and his wife of four masked men who are beating them for grazing their animals near a settlement (Susia).
I hope that this tool will offer a non-violent way for what’s going on to be brought out into the open and taken seriously. Of course, I know that naysayers will claim that it’s staged, or payback, or heaven knows what, but there’s enough evidence out there that, hopefully, we will start to see the necessity to stop denying the truth: that the violence of the settlers is a problem unchecked and vile.
by BZ · Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
This is a guest post by Jewschool reader “themicah”.
In the wake of the Postville ICE raid, a number of folks (myself included) reached out to our former summer camps to see if we could persuade them to avoid Agriprocessors this summer. In the case of Ramah Wisconsin (my former camp), we learned that all meat for summer 2008 had already been purchased and was from Agriprocessors, but that the camp was evaluating taking ethical concerns into consideration in future summers’ meat purchases, and that they would work on developing programming for this summer to encourage discussion among the camp community about the role of ethical standards in kashrut. This was disappointing, but given the camp’s tight budget, I felt it would be a mistake to push further on the point, and appreciated that they were making a real effort to address the issue (unlike so many organizations).
Over the weekend I was forwarded an update from the Ramah Wisconsin administration, however. Although the Agriprocessors meat was already delivered, upon inspection the camp found that some of it was substandard (too old, from what I understand). They have therefore made arrangements to return the entire order to Agriprocessors and buy a whole new supply of meat for 2008 that comes from a non-Agriprocessors source. The camp is also bringing Rabbi Morris Allen to camp during staff week to teach about the Hechsher Tzedek program, making good on their promise to create dialog on the subject.
Even better, however, is that it’s not just Ramah Wisconsin that is affected. Ramah Wisconsin purchases its meat as part of a group of seven midwestern camps (Chi, Beber, OSRUI, Interlaken, Moshava and Henry Horner being the others) that work together through a purchasing agent to obtain the best deal possible on kosher meat. The update I received suggested that all seven of these camps were dumping Agriprocessors for the 2008 summer. And apparently there are other Jewish camps across the country that work with the same purchasing agent, so there’s a chance this change may spread.
Would it have been better if they had made a stand as soon as the news from Postville broke and torched all their meat on the spot rather than searching for another excuse to get out of their contract? Maybe. But I’m very happy that campers this summer will not be eating meat that was known to have been produced in an environment many of us believe made it treif. And if summer camps across the country start actually demanding Hechsher Tzedek certified meat in future summers, it may create the kind of demand that’s needed for the Hechsher Tzedek program to take root.
So please, get on the phone to your summer camp (or any other institution that buys a lot of kosher meat) and ask what they’re doing about the situation. All it takes is a few phone calls to drive home that there is real demand for food that is ethically produced.
by Aryeh Cohen · Friday, June 6th, 2008
The Senate Intelligence Committee released a report today saying that the Bay of Pigs invasion was stupid the Gulf of Tonkin incident was made up Bush and Cheney lied us into a war.
“In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when, in reality, it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent,” said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the intelligence panel. “Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.”
And, of course, the report “doesn’t call for penalties or a follow-up inquiry.”
Story here
by Rooftopper Rav · Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
Mazal tov to Rabbi Jill Jacobs!! The Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) today passed Rabbi Jacobs’ teshuvah outlining the responsibilties of Jewish employers toward their employees. Check out our friends over at Jspot for a summary of the teshuvah’s conclusions; we’ll post a link to the full text once it’s available. This teshuvah has been several years in the making– yashar koach!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Monday, May 26th, 2008
Week Six, Day One
Chesed of Yesod
Week Six, Day Two
Gevurah of Yesod
So first, before you get the chaser, I want to direct you to the JLC site where there is a statement regarding the current mess:
The JLC has also learned that Agriprocessors is actively waging a campaign of intimidation and harassment against workers who have expressed an interest in exercising their legal right to union representation.
In this atmosphere, it is clear that the recent ICE raid at Agriprocessors, though apparently legal, only buttresses the conviction shared by many undocumented workers that our government is not only indifferent to worker abuse, but works in collusion with management to penalize workers who challenge it…
More »
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Saturday, May 24th, 2008
Week Five, Day Six
Yesod of Hod
Week Five, Day Seven
Malchut of Hod
First I want to repost this comment by Rabbi Morris Allen (one of the spearheads of the Hekhsher Tzedek, you can read his blog about it here)from the comments section of my last post on the Rubashkin travesty, so that those who aren’t necessarily following the comments can see it:
… Th[e] statement [of the Conservative Movement on asking people to evaluate whether they should continue to purchase Rubashkin's meat] came out from the leadership of the Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue. Hekhsher Tzedek remains very committed to affixing a hekhsher on products certifying that both ritual and ethical standards have been met in the production of kosher food. On Tuesday we will be reviewing our objective and verifiable standards which have been produced for us by KLD analytics. When these are in place, we will then have the opportunity to clearly begin identifying producers and products that meet our standards. While it is easy to condemn the “mild†nature of this statement, the Conservative movement is alone in the Jewish community publicly calling for the avoidance of products that might be produced in Jewishly unethical ways. I hope that informed Jews begin to demand that a Hekhsher Tzedek appear on the products we are to consume, and that Jews regardless of organizational or theological orientation wholeheartedly support the one effort that has been working tirelessly to address these issues in a thorough and thoughtful fashion. For additional information please go to rabbimorrisallen2.blogspot.com Shabbat shalom
I want to offer kudos to those working on the problem, both in general (hekhsher tzedek) and in specific (the leaders of the Conservative Movement in offering this statement). As one commenter has pointed out, this is the only movement from which we are hearing anything, however substantial: the Reconstructionists have been silent, presumably for the same reason offered by the Reform (They don’t encourage their followers to keep kashrut). The Orthodox have also been -except for notable individuals- silent as well, or worse (it is, after all, Orthodox institutions offering hasgachah to Rubashkin to start with).
And I want to say that I continue to have hopes that the Conservative Movement will move itself forward and do great things. It is, nonetheless, difficult for me to see how slowly things are proceeding. In some ways, this parallels the brouhaha of not very long ago, in which the Conservative movement dragged itself through a painful process of dealing with homosexuality, More »
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Friday, May 23rd, 2008
My bad, the Conservative movement has come out with a new statement that, um, well, I’m not sure exactly what it suggests: I think it says that I might perhaps maybe consider taking into account the halachot on obligations to workers, treatment of other human beings, dina d’malchuta dina and the like and consider maybe perhaps possibly not buying Rubashkin’s. If I want to.
Seriously:
In a joint statement released Thursday evening, the movement’s Rabbinical Association and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism declared themselves “shocked and appalled†at working conditions at AgriProcessors, which is under federal investigation for employing illegal aliens. The groups asked their members “to evaluate whether it is appropriate to consume Rubashkin products until this situation is addressed.â€
Well, I am being a little harsh.
I had such high hopes for Hekhsher Tzedek, and even though we haven’t really seen much on that happen in the last year and a half I still do. I just really want to see the Conservative movement stand up and do something to show their seriousness. Of course, specific rabbis are absolutely taking stands on this, including advising their congregants not to buy Rubashkin’s brands and not allowing it in their synagogues. And this is true for both Conservative and Orthodox rabbis.
So maybe the truth is that the boycott will have to be, for the institutions, puk chazei; go out and see - that the movement will have to be grassroots, led by local leaders who really deserve the name by showing their communities what it means to take a serious moral stand on something. It may simply be that institutions aren’t really set up to make moral stands.
So perhaps it’s time for the leaders of movements simply to follow. So I’m going to echo Josh Frankel’s excellent suggestions (Please read for yourself) and repeat this part myself: don’t buy from Rubashkin brands until they straighten up their act. I want to see them put standards in place to protect their workers: find a way to make legal all those people whom they’ve brought in illegally, since they deliberately sought out illegal workers so that they could be treated with less care and paid less; unionize their entire operation - no arguments; fire the abusers and replace them with people who receive training in the ethical halachot and to understand that if it isn’t all followed the meat is no good - and this should absolutely include the mashgichim.
When they’ve done tshuvah (repented) by apologizing to both their consumers and their employees, made reparation to their employees, and fixed the problems that led to the abuse in the first place, then we should forgive them and go back to buying from them. But not until then.
Here is the full text of the Conservative movement’s statement: More »
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?
