Posts
since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
The JTA discusses the onsite methamphetamine lab in the Agriprocessors kosher slaughtering plant in Postville, Iowa in Breaking News - JTA, Jewish & Israel News while the Desmoisnes Register has provided complete, updated coverage (including photos and videos) of this ongoing story. The social conflicts associated with the Agriprocessors plant were chronicled in a 2000 best seller entitled "Postville" by Stephen G. Bloom.
Problems and tensions associated with kosher slaughter are nothing new. In Germany before Hitler not only did Jews dominate the wholesale cattle, slaughtering, and meat packing industries, but they engaged in business practices that in the United States would constitute middle market restraint of trade to the anger especially of non-Jewish butchers, who correctly believed that a Jewish cartel was trying to drive them out of business. Tensions were particularly high in Saxony, which did not actually have a large Jewish population, and Saxon non-Jewish butchers became central players in German anti-Semitic politics.
Similar Jewish practices in Polish territories tended to be protected by Polish magnates. Misbehavior in kosher slaughtering occasionally became of concern to Polish Muslims, who were members of the Polish gentry or Szlachta, and generally depended on Jewish butchers for halal meat at least until the end of WW1. Similar situations have been common in other places where Muslims have depended on Jewish businesses for halal meat as has been the case in the USA, where the halal meat business has generally been a component of the kosher industry.
My wife Karin Friedemann investigated halal meat packing and was not impressed with the quality. She developed some suggestions to improve the situation in Reforming the Halal Food Economy, which was distributed under her pen name Maria Hussain.
The following article appended below is a sermon on Postville from a conservative Rabbi named Abrahamson. Because it is about to vanish from the web, I have saved it here. It contains a lot of navel-gazing. While Abrahamson does mention that "[Bloom] frequently describes the Orthodox Jews' racism--that anti-goyim prejudice that makes many of us wince--but his own prejudices are more evident than he comprehends," the Rabbi like the vast majority of American Jews shows no awareness
- that Jewish prejudice against gentiles is hardly confined to Hassidim,
- that far too many American Jews are among the principle inciters of Islamophobic and Arabophobic prejudice, and
- that far too many American Jews are making massive efforts to conceal the mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide in which a significant number of Jews participated in planning or in undertaking in Eastern Europe or in the Middle East.
Postville: A Portrait of Whose Culture Clash?
Erev Yom Kippur 5765. September 24, 2004.
A woman sits down on a train, in a pair of seats facing another pair of seats. Sitting opposite her is a man with a long beard, a white shirt, a black suit, and a large-brimmed black hat.
The woman takes one look at the man, snorts contemptuously, and declares: "You Orthodox Jews make me sick. Don't you know this is the twenty-first century? Don't you realize how ridiculous you look? You look like you just got off the boat--a hundred years ago! You make the rest of us modern Jews look bad--you're an embarrassment to the rest of the Jews! You Orthodox Jews make me sick!"
The man looks puzzled, and then gently answers the woman: "Madam, you must be mistaken. I'm not Jewish. I'm Amish."
"And isn't it wonderful," the woman responds, "how you people maintain your beautiful traditions!"
It's an old joke--one that came to mind three years or so when I first read Stephen Bloom's Postville and that came to mind when I re-read the book in recent days.
The full title of Stephen Bloom's book is Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America. I don't recall how long it was a best-seller, but even if it's no longer the new sensation among book clubs, it's an important book. If you haven't already done so, I urge you to read it--and, hopefully, within the next month.
Stephen Bloom is a journalist who teaches journalism at the University of Iowa, and who chronicled the impact of the Rubashkin slaughterhouse and meat-packing business that opened in Postville, Iowa, in the late 1980s.
Initially, the thriving business brought jobs and financial benefit to the Postville community. In time, though, it appeared that the culture clash--between the midwestern Protestant farming community of Postville and the Orthodox Jewish community that transplanted itself in Postville--had created far more problems than benefits. In time, the culture clash between these two separate communities living in the same community became a legal and political battle. Stephen Bloom's book is an interesting, engagingly written account of this struggle.
Stephen Bloom is a Jew--as if you couldn't guess from his name. He is, from his own description, "a Jew through and through, from my curly brown hair and robust nose to the synapses in my brain and the corpuscles of my blood." It is both as a journalist and as a Jew that he came to Postville, lived among the non-Jews and the Jews of Postville, and got to know both communities as well as he could.
His portrayal of the communities and their struggles is a "warts-and-all" portrayal, and on the surface, he is equally critical of both. As I read the bo ok, though, I found myself squirming when I came to uncomplimentary descriptions of the Orthodox Jews of Postville, their interactions--and lack of interactions--with the non-Jewish community, their business dealings, and their religious and family lives. I found myself uncomfortable sometimes, a little angry other times, defensive still other times, at some of the portrayals of Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Judaism--because, after all, I knew that plenty of non-Jews have read the book and will read the book, and I'm not comfortable with non-Jews reading too much negative stuff about Jews and Judaism--or, to put it another way, to give anti-Semites (the extreme ones as well as the subtle ones) more to resent, disapprove of, and feel smug about.
There is a biblical prohibition known as hillul hashem--the phrase literally means desecration of God's name--and hillul hashem is defined by Jewish law as doing or saying anything that reflects negatively on Jews and Judaism. There are those who feel that parts of Bloom's book constitute hillul hashem, pure and simple. But at my moments of greatest defensiveness, I'd say to myself: "Oh, come on! Does every critical comment or negative portrayal of Jews amount to anti-Semitism? Should we be so defensive this day and age that we can't abide a book like Postville, because of the frantic Cwhat-will-the-goyim-say?" paranoia of generations past?
Indeed, there are many Jews--Orthodox Jews and undoubtedly non-Orthodox Jews--who were quite offended by Bloom's book, by his disloyalty to the Jewish people, demonstrated by his "washing Jewish dirty laundry in public." But when I held my own discomfort up to the light of rationality, I had to conclude that we needn't be outraged by Stephen Bloom's book. After all, it's not The Protocols of the Elders of Zion!
To be sure, there were parts of the book that made me squirm uncomfortably even the second time I read the book--including some eyebrow-raising passages regarding some leaders of the Twin Cities Lubavitcher community--but I don't consider Stephen Bloom a "traitor to his people" because he wrote critically about the Jews of Postville. And even if his conclusions about which side he was "rooting for" regarding the political battles in Postville differs from the side I would have found myself "rooting for," I don't particularly begrudge him his conclusions.
But Postville is not simply a portrait of a culture clash in an Iowa community; it's not only a chronology of a political struggle. It's not only a portrait of Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Judaism that I find to be uninformed, harshly judgmental, and slanted. It is all of those things. But it's also a very sad portrait of a particular Jew--one whose Hebrew name is Shlomo, and whose English name is Stephen Bloom.
One gets a sense of Stephen Bloom's Jewish pride--even if he inappropriately bifurcates Jewishness as "religious culture," one hand, and "devotion to faith," on the other hand. I understand and identify with Bloom's Jewish defensiveness--for example, in a passage of the book in which a Cub Scout meeting turns hurtful and infuriating for him when the scoutmaster asserts, "All of us in this room have been taught to believe in God and Jesus…" And I kvelled a little at Bloom's description of the moment that, as a guest at a Shabbos dinner in Postville, his first bite of gefilte fish transported him back to his grandmother's Shabbos table on West 89th Street in New York City.
But mostly, I was disappointed at the portrait of Stephen Bloom the Jew that emerged from Postville. While he does write, "More than ever in my life, especially with [my nine-year-old son] Mikey, it seemed essential to nurture our Jewish souls, the sense of who we are, how we think, where we come from," Bloom seems particularly closed to exploring the richness, the beauty, the compelling nature of Judaism in his life. He is smugly dismissive of the spiritual shallowness that he experienced in a Reform synagogue in Iowa. But his most scathing portrait comes from his description of his experience of Jewish life among the Orthodox of Postville. He may think he's painting a biting portrait of the Lubavitchers' religious lifestyle, but in fact, he's painting a tragic portrait of his own Jewish shallowness and closed-mindedness.
Most telling is his description of the Shabbat that he and his son Mikey spend with an Orthodox family in Postville. He gets the details right in his description: the beautifully set dining table, the impeccably dressed hostess and her children, the delicious Shabbat meal that's served. But he gets none of the ta'am, the flavor, of the Shabbat. He's been privileged to be invited to a twenty-five hour immersion in a traditional Shabbat observance. But he doesn't get it. The recurrent theme of the Shabbat is his host's obsession with Mikey's yarmulke and its tendency to slip off the nine-year-old's head--and his often-repeated, frantic bellowing, "Moishe, your kippah !" Bloom notices his host's disgust at Mikey's Batman pillowcase--which the host contemptuously dismisses as "goyisher chazzerai"--but he seems oblivious to his own contempt for his Orthodox hosts' Jewish commitments and Jewish values. Bloom shares with us his furtively scribbling notes late Friday night--"I was breaking the rules of the Sabbath, but they weren't my rules, nor were they the rules my host had asked that I follow"--and he dismisses commitment to traditional observance and halakhah as "primitive ritual." He criticizes his Orthodox host's "ethnocentric I-told-you-so rule-dominated cosmos" and dismisses his host's and hostess's relationship as "primitive and unacceptable," but I don't think he realizes the terrible picture he presents of his own cosmic view and his own Jewish values. He frequently describes the Orthodox Jews' racism--that anti-goyim prejudice that makes many of us wince--but his own prejudices are more evident than he comprehends.
Tragically, the Jews whom Stephen Bloom studies and describes are as foreign to him as that Amish man on the train.
Well, enough "Bloom-bashing." It's easy for us to l ook at Stephen Bloom and see his narrowness and shallowness, his lack of receptivity. But what about the rest of us?
How many of us look at our Orthodox neighbors, acquaintances, or relatives as "meshugah-frum?" (You know, by the way, the definition of "meshugah frum": anyone who's stricter than I am…) How many of us are outraged when Jews to the right of us delegitimize our approach to Judaism--but at the same time, in our thoughts if not in our words and deeds, delegitimize their approach to Judaism as too antiquated for our tastes, or not enlightened enough for our standards?
And what about observant Conservative Jews? How many members of Conservative synagogues look at some of their fellow congregants with the same smug disdain with which Stephen Bloom views the Jews of Postville?
"He's really not shaving during sh'loshim? Isn't that…Orthodox?"
Or: "She's really grilling the waiter about whether the soup is completely meatless? Isn't that…Orthodox?"
Or: "He really wears tzitzis under his shirt? What is he…Orthodox?"
Or: "They're really insistent on not driving at all on Shabbos? Isn't that…Orthodox?"
You know that there are many reasons that I am proud to call myself a Conservative Jew, and many of you are as well. Some of the reasons that you and I are non-Orthodox Jews have to do less with religious laziness and more with issues of egalitarianism, pluralism, modernity, and intellectual integrity. But shame on any of us who, as we consider ourselves non-Orthodox Jews, somehow slips into being anti-Orthodox Jews. And shame on any of us who closes himself or herself off from recognizing the spiritual richness and depth of other people's approaches to Judaism--Jews to our right and Jews to our left.
Stephen Bloom's book has a lot to teach us--and I think it especially has a lot to teach us about our own Jewish horizons, our own view of other Jews, our own view of our own Judaism.
Initially, the thriving business brought jobs and financial benefit to the Postville community. In time, though, it appeared that the culture clash--between the midwestern Protestant farming community of Postville and the Orthodox Jewish community that transplanted itself in Postville--had created far more problems than benefits. In time, the culture clash between these two separate communities living in the same community became a legal and political battle. Stephen Bloom's book is an interesting, engagingly written account of this struggle.
Stephen Bloom is a Jew--as if you couldn't guess from his name. He is, from his own description, "a Jew through and through, from my curly brown hair and robust nose to the synapses in my brain and the corpuscles of my blood." It is both as a journalist and as a Jew that he came to Postville, lived among the non-Jews and the Jews of Postville, and got to know both communities as well as he could.
His portrayal of the communities and their struggles is a "warts-and-all" portrayal, and on the surface, he is equally critical of both. As I read the bo ok, though, I found myself squirming when I came to uncomplimentary descriptions of the Orthodox Jews of Postville, their interactions--and lack of interactions--with the non-Jewish community, their business dealings, and their religious and family lives. I found myself uncomfortable sometimes, a little angry other times, defensive still other times, at some of the portrayals of Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Judaism--because, after all, I knew that plenty of non-Jews have read the book and will read the book, and I'm not comfortable with non-Jews reading too much negative stuff about Jews and Judaism--or, to put it another way, to give anti-Semites (the extreme ones as well as the subtle ones) more to resent, disapprove of, and feel smug about.
There is a biblical prohibition known as hillul hashem--the phrase literally means desecration of God's name--and hillul hashem is defined by Jewish law as doing or saying anything that reflects negatively on Jews and Judaism. There are those who feel that parts of Bloom's book constitute hillul hashem, pure and simple. But at my moments of greatest defensiveness, I'd say to myself: "Oh, come on! Does every critical comment or negative portrayal of Jews amount to anti-Semitism? Should we be so defensive this day and age that we can't abide a book like Postville, because of the frantic Cwhat-will-the-goyim-say?" paranoia of generations past?
Indeed, there are many Jews--Orthodox Jews and undoubtedly non-Orthodox Jews--who were quite offended by Bloom's book, by his disloyalty to the Jewish people, demonstrated by his "washing Jewish dirty laundry in public." But when I held my own discomfort up to the light of rationality, I had to conclude that we needn't be outraged by Stephen Bloom's book. After all, it's not The Protocols of the Elders of Zion!
To be sure, there were parts of the book that made me squirm uncomfortably even the second time I read the book--including some eyebrow-raising passages regarding some leaders of the Twin Cities Lubavitcher community--but I don't consider Stephen Bloom a "traitor to his people" because he wrote critically about the Jews of Postville. And even if his conclusions about which side he was "rooting for" regarding the political battles in Postville differs from the side I would have found myself "rooting for," I don't particularly begrudge him his conclusions.
But Postville is not simply a portrait of a culture clash in an Iowa community; it's not only a chronology of a political struggle. It's not only a portrait of Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Judaism that I find to be uninformed, harshly judgmental, and slanted. It is all of those things. But it's also a very sad portrait of a particular Jew--one whose Hebrew name is Shlomo, and whose English name is Stephen Bloom.
One gets a sense of Stephen Bloom's Jewish pride--even if he inappropriately bifurcates Jewishness as "religious culture," one hand, and "devotion to faith," on the other hand. I understand and identify with Bloom's Jewish defensiveness--for example, in a passage of the book in which a Cub Scout meeting turns hurtful and infuriating for him when the scoutmaster asserts, "All of us in this room have been taught to believe in God and Jesus…" And I kvelled a little at Bloom's description of the moment that, as a guest at a Shabbos dinner in Postville, his first bite of gefilte fish transported him back to his grandmother's Shabbos table on West 89th Street in New York City.
But mostly, I was disappointed at the portrait of Stephen Bloom the Jew that emerged from Postville. While he does write, "More than ever in my life, especially with [my nine-year-old son] Mikey, it seemed essential to nurture our Jewish souls, the sense of who we are, how we think, where we come from," Bloom seems particularly closed to exploring the richness, the beauty, the compelling nature of Judaism in his life. He is smugly dismissive of the spiritual shallowness that he experienced in a Reform synagogue in Iowa. But his most scathing portrait comes from his description of his experience of Jewish life among the Orthodox of Postville. He may think he's painting a biting portrait of the Lubavitchers' religious lifestyle, but in fact, he's painting a tragic portrait of his own Jewish shallowness and closed-mindedness.
Most telling is his description of the Shabbat that he and his son Mikey spend with an Orthodox family in Postville. He gets the details right in his description: the beautifully set dining table, the impeccably dressed hostess and her children, the delicious Shabbat meal that's served. But he gets none of the ta'am, the flavor, of the Shabbat. He's been privileged to be invited to a twenty-five hour immersion in a traditional Shabbat observance. But he doesn't get it. The recurrent theme of the Shabbat is his host's obsession with Mikey's yarmulke and its tendency to slip off the nine-year-old's head--and his often-repeated, frantic bellowing, "Moishe, your kippah !" Bloom notices his host's disgust at Mikey's Batman pillowcase--which the host contemptuously dismisses as "goyisher chazzerai"--but he seems oblivious to his own contempt for his Orthodox hosts' Jewish commitments and Jewish values. Bloom shares with us his furtively scribbling notes late Friday night--"I was breaking the rules of the Sabbath, but they weren't my rules, nor were they the rules my host had asked that I follow"--and he dismisses commitment to traditional observance and halakhah as "primitive ritual." He criticizes his Orthodox host's "ethnocentric I-told-you-so rule-dominated cosmos" and dismisses his host's and hostess's relationship as "primitive and unacceptable," but I don't think he realizes the terrible picture he presents of his own cosmic view and his own Jewish values. He frequently describes the Orthodox Jews' racism--that anti-goyim prejudice that makes many of us wince--but his own prejudices are more evident than he comprehends.
Tragically, the Jews whom Stephen Bloom studies and describes are as foreign to him as that Amish man on the train.
Well, enough "Bloom-bashing." It's easy for us to l ook at Stephen Bloom and see his narrowness and shallowness, his lack of receptivity. But what about the rest of us?
How many of us look at our Orthodox neighbors, acquaintances, or relatives as "meshugah-frum?" (You know, by the way, the definition of "meshugah frum": anyone who's stricter than I am…) How many of us are outraged when Jews to the right of us delegitimize our approach to Judaism--but at the same time, in our thoughts if not in our words and deeds, delegitimize their approach to Judaism as too antiquated for our tastes, or not enlightened enough for our standards?
And what about observant Conservative Jews? How many members of Conservative synagogues look at some of their fellow congregants with the same smug disdain with which Stephen Bloom views the Jews of Postville?
"He's really not shaving during sh'loshim? Isn't that…Orthodox?"
Or: "She's really grilling the waiter about whether the soup is completely meatless? Isn't that…Orthodox?"
Or: "He really wears tzitzis under his shirt? What is he…Orthodox?"
Or: "They're really insistent on not driving at all on Shabbos? Isn't that…Orthodox?"
You know that there are many reasons that I am proud to call myself a Conservative Jew, and many of you are as well. Some of the reasons that you and I are non-Orthodox Jews have to do less with religious laziness and more with issues of egalitarianism, pluralism, modernity, and intellectual integrity. But shame on any of us who, as we consider ourselves non-Orthodox Jews, somehow slips into being anti-Orthodox Jews. And shame on any of us who closes himself or herself off from recognizing the spiritual richness and depth of other people's approaches to Judaism--Jews to our right and Jews to our left.
Stephen Bloom's book has a lot to teach us--and I think it especially has a lot to teach us about our own Jewish horizons, our own view of other Jews, our own view of our own Judaism.
In a month, I hope many of you will go to Postville, Iowa, with us. Our Adult Education Committee is planning an interesting and enjoyable day trip to Postville. No, we're not going just to "gawk at the frummies." (We can do that right here on 28th Street!) But we will have an opportunity to learn about the ongoing Clash of Cultures in Heartland America--and, hopefully, to learn about the progress that's been made in minimizing that clash. We learn a little about dairy farming, and a little about kosher meat production. And perhaps we'll learn a little more about the inner dynamics of other Jews' neshomehs--and, hopefully, about our own.
Rabbi David L. Abramson
Sphere: Related Content
