Preemptive disclaimer

[rhu]

The news coming out of Postville IA is disturbing. Agriprocessors may finally be collapsing, and the end of the story looks to be as ugly as what has come before. Horrible mistreatment of employees. Horrible mistreatment of animals. Theft. Tax evasion. And the belief that it's all defensible because it's "in the service of God."

So I feel compelled to say: This is not the Judaism I believe in. What the Rubashkin family is alleged to have done is a chillul Hashem, the public defamation of God's Name.

So when you read the news from Postville, know that many Jews are as disgusted as you are. Many of us have been boycotting Agriprocessors. And the pictures you will see, the words you will read, the practices that you will hear described as "kosher", make us angry and sad.

Though I know that Jews everywhere will be tarred with the broad brush of blame that will attach to the Rubashkins, I hope you, gentle reader, will know better.

Comments

[gingicat]

Isn't all of this stuff actually against Talmudic law anyway?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that didn't stop them.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

Well posted.

I'm glad, though, that they've arrested Rubashkin. Putting all the blame on the workers was not fair at all.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

cf Muslim terrorism, I suppose.

[fauxklore]

Well said.

By the way, it is probably worth reading Stephen Bloom's book about Postville.

[jadelennox]

what you said.

My one small victory in this whole shanda is that I managed to convince one pro-immigrant blogger (whom I like, usually -- I spend a fair amount of time in the anti-nativist blogosphere) that her Photoshopped image of the Rubashkins holding big bags of money was ludicrously anti-Semitic, and she removed the image.

But seriously. I don't know the religions or ethnicities of the owners of any of the other companies which have been raided in the last few hellish years for undocumented migrants. Why can't any article talk about the Rubashkins without mentioning their religion? You know what? There are horrible people in every single religion in the world. I once worked for a dick of a Quaker. It happens.

But unfortunately, the myth of the Jewish business owner exploiting brown people is way too enshrined in the national consciousness. Specifically, enshrined in the consciousness of people who hate both the Jews and the brown people. And is used as a way of making sure those two groups don't work together.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

The other reason it comes up is that the very nature of the Rubashkins' business is Jewish. If they were running an auto parts factory, it would still be a shande, but it wouldn't feed into the stereotypes. If they were running a textile business or a bank, it would resonate with the stereotypes, but the business wouldn't have been an essentially Jewish business.

But they were running the largest supplier of kosher meat in the country. It's hard not to mention that they're Jewish when you're describing Agriprocessors.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

I once worked for a dick of a Quaker.

Richard Nixon?