Boycott Rubashkan

Shmuel Herzfeld, the clean-shaven Orthodox Rabbi last seen being use as a punching bag by hate-filled head-in-the-sand-Lubovs, had an op-ed in the Times last Friday.

Drawing on the example of Yisroel Salant, a beard-wearing Orthodox Rabbi who once shut down a matzo factory where workers were mistreated, Rabbi Hertzfeld asks if meat from the disgraced Rubashkin plant in Pottsville, Iowa can be relied upon as kosher. His reasoning:

1 - "Children as young as 13 were said to be wielding knives on the killing floor; some teenagers were working 17-hour shifts, six days a week." This behavior is unethical, irresponsible, and not in keeping with Jewish law. It is fair to ask why we should trust that the plant is following other Jewish laws.

2 - "The affidavit filed in the United States District Court of Northern Iowa, for instance, alleges that an employee was physically abused by a rabbi on the floor of the plant. If true, this calls into question the reliability and judgment of the rabbi in charge of making sure the food was kosher"

3 - "Two workers who oversaw the poultry and beef division were recently arrested for helping illegal immigrants falsify documents. If they were willing to break national immigration laws, one could reasonably ask whether they would be likely to show the same lack of concern for Jewish dietary laws."

Though Hertzfeld stops here, I am going to add an indictment of Orthodox Jewish values. It's not uncommon for us to refuse food in houses where the women dress immodestly, or where the shabbos is violated. "How," they will ask, "can we trust this house's kashrus, if the homeowners publicly violate other laws of the Torah?" This thinking is sound and justified but its never carried to its logical conclusion: Orthodox Jews to who don't eat in homes that aren't shabbos observant often demonstrate no such scruples when the homeowner is a convicted white-collar criminal. (I've seen it)

The fact the Rubashkin remains open for business, with no boycott proclaimed, is an example of the same hypocrisy.

If the Pottsvile plant slaughtered and packed on Shabbos, no OJ would touch their meat. The plant reamins open, and continues to make money simply because we don't cherish the Torah laws that protect the rights and dignity of workers in the way that we cherish the Torah laws that guarantee us a day of rest to parade around in our finest and stuff our guts with food.