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Boycotts in Action

by Leah Koenig · May 25th, 2008
Food Justice, Health, Kosher, Meat

In response to a previous post, which asked how readers are personally responding to the Agriprocessors balagan, one reader commented:

“My extended family as well as many members of our synagogue community will not boycott Agriprocessors unless the Rabbinic Assembly(RA),the USCJ, and/or their rabbi say so… Without strong and active leadership from the RA and the USCJ, passive communities like mine will continue to allow the worker-abuse and animal-abuse horrors of Agriporcessors to continue.”

It seems that several Jewish organizations and individuals are starting to provide that much-needed leadership, calling for boycotts on Agriprocessors’ products that go beyond the Conservative Movement’s wishy-washy advisory.  They include:

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, a Modern Orthodox Rabbi in Washington DC.  Read his statement.

The Jewish Labor Committee (well, I’d hope so!)  Read their statement.

Uri L’tzedek, an Orthodox social justice organization.  Read their letter to the Rubashkins.

The OU, maybe.  According to the JTA, “Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of the Orthodox Union’s kosher department, the largest kosher certifier of AgriProcessors, said the O.U. is awaiting the outcome of legal proceedings against the company before coming to any decision. If AgriProcessors is found guilty of criminal charges, he said, the O.U. will withdraw its kosher certification.”

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4 Responses to “Boycotts in Action”

  1. Mordechai Rackover Says:
    May 25th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

    One of my friends points out something very important. I am not sure that I agree but it should be considered…. When you hire someone you need to ask for I.D. and a SSN. If those were provided then the employer has done due diligence and is off the hook. Are you sure that every hotel, restaurant and dry cleaner you frequent doesn’t have illegal workers? Are you willing to boycott them if they do?

    Rav Shmuel is a friend.. but we need to consider carefully what the sociological implications are.

    What if you were getting married on Memorial day? Would you cancel the catering order?

    So i am not gonna buy the meat.. but can all communities afford not to?

    m

  2. Melinda Says:
    May 26th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    Mordechai, there are so many issues around what was going on at Agriprocessors, aside from their apparent use of undocumented workers. Certainly there was the ongoing problem with animal cruelty, but they weren’t doing right by their workers, either, including sexual abuse of immigrant women workers by supervisors. Also, according to press reports some workers were paid in cash and they wore different colored hats, which suggests that the company did know that some of their workers were not in the US legally.

    I’m also pretty bothered by white supremacist groups taking credit for getting ICE to raid Agriprocessors. I think it’s safe to say they probably are no fonder of Jews than they are of brown people. That, of course, has no bearing on the question of whether or not we should boycott but it does cast an ugly light on the raid. http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=72351

    I think that if you’re going to consider the sociological implications of a boycott, you also have to consider the implications of not boycotting.

  3. Hesh Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 11:25 am

    This whole situation is disgusting- what is even more disgusting is that many in the orthodox community are saying things like “everyone does it” or read fast food nation- they are not the only ones- GREAT!!!

    I just wrote a whole post about this and got some great comments and some scary ones as well. Let us not forget the rather disturbing PETA tapes.

    Can I be added to your sites blogroll please- my outdoors site is already there.

    http://frumsatire.net

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