For When the "War on Christmas" Just Feels Too Goyish
Oy the chutspah, it hurts my head.
With all the grace of the Menendez Brothers begging the mercy of the court as orphans, the infamous Rubashkin clan (“The largest corporate suppliers of the desecration of God’s name in America, with the lowest prices around! Ten chilulei-hashem for 20 bucks. But for you? $19.95!”) and their cronies are at it again.
Voila: The “War On Kosher” petition site. My family’s neighborhood in Brooklyn had been coated in big black flyers with the WOK website’s address when I went home for Thanksgiving & Shabbos last week. The signs blared “Lo ta’amod al dam achicha” — Don’t stand by as your brother’s blood is spilled, and “Ve’ahavta lere’acha kamocha” — Love your neighbor as yourself. What a treat, I thought – usually one would have to go all the way across the borough to Satmar-cum-hipster Williamsburg for that kind of irony!
I’m sort of astonished to discover that there are still Jews out there who missed the three-ring circus of scandal at Agriprocessors/Rubashkins, who are moved by the following appeal (extracted from the email jungle by our Jewschool secret agents):
An open letter from:
Hindy Light (Rubashkin)
Imagine if I were to tell you that there was a well to do family that was going through a financial crisis. That they were on the verge of losing everything they worked their whole lives for c’v. That within the next few days a judge could decide to take away their business, their homes….c’v. Imagine if I were to tell you that a family that once lived a life of comfort was now collecting funds to pay for their father’s legal fees. Imagine if I were to tell you that there were tens of families who are about to lose their livelihood and become sudden paupers. Wouldn’t you be horrified and do everything you can to help them? Well now – STOP IMAGINING!
This is happening right now! Right in front of your eyes. Not to any family. It’s happening to MY family and as jews it is happening to yours as well!
I am begging each and every one of you to go to www.waronkosher.com and sign the petition. But please don’t just sign it. Send it out as a chain email. Let’s use our ability to help someone in need. This petition can only help if there are at least 15,000 signatures – YOU can make it happen. Please SPREAD the word!
May we hear besuros tovos [CW?: good news] now!
Hindy Light (Rubashkin)
I’m sorry, Hindy, but you broke it, you buy it. If La Famiglia Rubashkin can no longer afford their rock-and-roll lifestyle, it’s not my problem. They wouldn’t be in this position if they had actually followed the Choshen Mishpat & the Federal Law codes and built their “kosher” fleish empire on honor, honesty, and service instead of on fraud, abuse, and greed.
For anyone who still can’t stop watching the trainwreck:
+ The indefatigable Shmarya Rosenberg is still covering new developments in the story at Failed Messiah.
+ and “FightinBack” at Daily Kos has the entire sordid tale organized by date back to 1983.
+ EDIT: Added link: “The Fall of the House of Rubashkin” from The Village Voice.
The only sympathy I feel is for teh workers, who were SCR**** ** by their employer, and the town, whose income certaily depended in part on the plant. OTOH, if they really had any feelings for other than themselves, they would have fixed the problems more than three years ago, when reports started coming out, and their repose was deny deny deny.
Heck, even if they had had enough brains to think ahead for themselves.
The email from Hindy really angered me. Yes, we should all support one another and help our neighbours when they’re in need. But that does not extend to bailouts when they repeatedly broke multiple laws! That she’s playing innocent is despicable.
They have an entertaining Facebook Group too.
Is there a summary anywhere of what’s happened in the past month or two at Agriprocessors? Jewschool hasn’t been covering it as closely as y’all used to, I don’t have the attention span to piece together a narrative from failedmessiah, and that dailykos link is a good history of the whole story but doesn’t focus on the recent stuff.
As far as I can tell: The plant stopped producing red meat, some important people in the Rubashkin family got arrested and are being held for trial, the plant shut down entirely under bankruptcy protection, it may or may not be starting back up, workers may or may not be getting paid, there may or may not be meat and/or poultry shortages in areas of the country that aren’t big Jewish centers. Yes/no/maybe?