As for obesity, I used to know a vegetarian who dieted on cake (pareve – so it was vegan, of course) more than anything else and wasn’t exactly slim. I also used to know a self-proclaimed vegan who dropped dead in her early 60s; while not fat, she certainly wasn’t the greatest speciman of health.

On the other hand, my in-laws are both into their 90s; they never met a good piece of meat they didn’t like.

Wow – what a pompous and pathetically prolix attempt to be patronizing and to pander to the pampered, proud and the prosperous.

Look Ben – your trademark smarminess is duly noted and to be expected. What I find curious however is your own double standard – you profess to have an “I do my thing – you do your thing and if we meet it’s beautiful” type of headspace. But beyond Ortho-bashing, what do you offer? It seems it’s your way or the highway – that anyone who dares disagree with you becomes the target of your contempt and derision. That’s hardly a “live and let live” deal – you have your opinion they have theirs – you see this debacle through your prism and experience and they through theirs. Carful now – when you start with the “I’m right, they’re wrong” mentality you end up sounding like just as much of
fundamentalist as they do – Heaven forfend!

More critically howver, as the last letter writer brought up, you’re basically beating a dead horse. But last week, a nice young guy, not much older than your YCT Food Conference shochet – who was shechting locally raised birds for the hundreds of visitors he hosted weekly (how many guests- and I don’t mean friends – have you hosted in the last week?) and whose wife was baking local breads to feed those in need (appx 800 per week) were brutally and savagely murdered – but not a peep from you. But the opportunity to regurgitate last week’s lunch about Rubashkin kicks you into a frenetic high gear. Strange days indeed! Maybe your hyperbolic Palestinian reference runs deeper than even you are aware.

At the same time, it’s important that we be clear-eyed in any soul-searching we take on.

This country routinely makes a show of punishing undocumented workers – while letting the companies that profit from their labor remain in a position to continue illegal practices. If we are seeing a move to holding those with greater power responsible, that’s not a bad thing – even if one of the first cases involves a Jew.

Moreover, the case against Agriprocessors includes over 9,000 incidents of child labor violations. That’s pretty significant, and much more egregious than just “looking the other way” when a potential employee is undocumented.

So yes, if I knew that any food source had those kind of processes, I would boycott it. Just like I didn’t eat that snickers bar my neighbor offered me, filched from her kid’s halloween candy.

So do I respond to this case differently because the alleged perpetrators are Jewish – and because the crime is directly linked to Jewish religious practice? Well, perhaps it’s time to recall the old-school Hebrew National commercials: we answer to a higher authority.

That being said, there is a double standard being applied. I work in HR and know that it is nearly impossible to not hire illegal aliens in certain industries. The documents illegal aliens have are really, really good. Add into that mix low level managers actively helping illegal aliens get hired, and sometimes all I can do is throw my hands up in the air. Likewise, the rules for what can and cannot be deducted from a paycheck are tricky, and easy to violate. I would venture to guess that everyone who reads this blog has had something improper done with their paycheck at least once in their working lives. My husband works for a large company and I can tick off five things that I know their HR department has done improperly just off the top of my head. You would think that large corporations would have more sophisticated HR departments, but the laws are so complex and constantly changing, that it is impossible to be perfect all of the time.

I’m not saying that all this means that Rubashkin’s should be let off the hook. I am saying that other companies should be held to the same standard. Every industry that relies on minimum or low wage workers is hiring illegals. And any company with more than one employee has done something improper with their payroll.

What I really find ridiculous is the customer “outrage.” I guarantee you that if you eat food that you did not grow yourself, you have supported businesses that know or should have known that they hired illegal aliens. Farms, meat packing plants, food processing factories, restaurants. All of them are huge illegal alien magnets. If you are really serious about the issues surrounding the Rubashkin controversy, grow all of your own food. Otherwise your outrage is just talk and no walk.

Also, remember what happened the last time Jews cried out for meat? :–)