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Digest This: A Flood of Hearsay around Agriprocessors

by Leah Koenig · June 20th, 2008
Agriprocessors, Food Safety, Kosher, Leftovers, Meat

Two of the most interesting stories that came out of Postville this week show two very different sides of the kosher meat industry, and particularly Agriprocessors.

chabadnik.jpgFlood Relief. As you might have read (or experienced) there has been a LOT of rain and flooding in the Midwest over the last couple of weeks. According to Chabad.org Iowa’s Jewish community – including the Rubashkins – has been spared a lot of the most destructive flooding and is stepping in to help other Iowans. The company donated 1,000 pounds of meat to residents saying:

“Agriprocessors is proud to serve the greater good,” said Juda Engelmayer, a spokesman for the Postville, Iowa-based Agriprocessors, the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the United States. “The people need our help right now.”

I’m glad to hear that the Jewish community is pitching in to help their neighbors. Still, whether or not donating 1,000 pounds of meat makes up for Agriprocessors’ other “less honorable” business practices is up for debate. (hat tip to Arieh Lebowitz)

The OU Weighs In. In other news, Ben Harris over at the JTA wrote on The Telegraph that Rabbi Seth Mandell – the head Mashgiach (kosher supervisor) at the OU – has been spending time calming people down about the fate of Agriprocessors.

Rabbi Mandel apparently told a bunch of Connecticut Rabbis that many of the articles written about Agriprocessers – before the raid and after – were “Loshen Harah” (slanderous gossip) by people hoping to damage the Rubashkin name (ahem, PETA?). He also apparently wanted to “clear up any and all issues regarding Rubashkin meat” and confirm that the OU stands firmly behind Agriprocessors’ kashrut certification.

I was surprised to read this news coming from Rabbi Mandel. The OU’s public stance on Agriprocessors since the raid has been rather cool – they have suggested that if the allegations about Agriprocessors were proven, they would pull their kashrut certification (though not because the meat itself wasn’t kosher).

Besides, this was the same Rabbi Seth Mandel who was the mashgiach at the humane goat shechita (kosher slaugthering) at last year’s food conference!

And it was the same Mandel who said at the conference, “You have to understand, the Torah did not envision us to eat as much meat as we do. Rambam in the Mishneh Torah says that Jews should eat meat at most two times a week, and if Jews decided to do that, all the problems of kosher slaughter would be solved!”

Sure a guy has to know his audience and tailor his message to it, but those words just didn’t seem like ones that would come out of his mouth.

Then, today Harris wrote an update that said:

“In an email yesterday, Mandel writes that his conversation in Hartford was private and that the rabbis assured him his comments would not be publicized. The Samuels email “did not represent what I said,” he wrote. Mandel says he never said that “any and all” of the allegations are slanderous, merely that people should reserve judgment until the facts are established.”

Regardless of what Mandel did or did not say, this story strongly indicates that a significant portion of the Jewish community is fairly desperate to get “ethically-blind-kosher-meat-eating-as-usual” back on track. Whether or not the OU ultimately bends to that pressure remains to be seen.

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14 Responses to “Digest This: A Flood of Hearsay around Agriprocessors”

  1. Stephen Mendelsohn Says:
    June 20th, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    BS”D

    This meeting took place in my area, and Rabbi Seth Nadel of the Young Israel of West Hartford will be discussing these issues this Shabbat before mincha. I am sure that we will be able to find out more accurate information as to exactly what what transpired. As to Rabbi Mandel’s assertion that the meeting was entirely private; my sense locally here in the Hartford area is that it was intended in part to help local Orthodox rabbis convey the OU’s position to their congregations.

    Failed Messiah questions Rabbi Mandel’s credibility regarding AgriProcessors, asserting that Rabbi Mandel claimed that what Temple Grandin asserted was a meat hook in an animal’s throat in the 2007 PETA video of the Gordon, Nebraska slaughterhouse was not a meat hook. Right now, we have two rabbis who disagree as to who said what, and we really do not know who to believe.

    So was this meeting really private, or did a boastful pro-Rubashkin rabbi’s injudicious e-mail wind up causing another rabbi controversy? And who leaked Rabbi Samuels’ e-mail, assuming it may not have been intended for the press?

  2. Stephen Mendelsohn Says:
    June 21st, 2008 at 11:00 pm

    BS”D

    Rabbi Nadel had me over for Shabbat lunch in addition to his drasha and I am thankful to him for helping to clear the air here. He gave an interesting discussion of the halachic issues surrounding the AgriProcessors controversy before mincha.

    As Ben Harris’ quote of Rabbi Mandel notes, the conversation was supposed to be private. In addition to the above comments, Rabbi Mandel also suggested that when AgriProcessors had issues in the past, the company fixed them and did teshuvah. Now, I would disagree and view the company’s actions as damage control, not teshuvah (there has never been a confession of wrongdoing, nor a commitment to never repeat the mistakes, and Temple Grandin was brought in more as a one-time publicity stunt to distract from worker-oppression and price fixing issues, rather than an ongoing system of unannounced animal-welfare audits). But it is clear that Rabbi Samuels’ comments were unauthorized and an attempt to spin Rabbi Mandel’s views to promote the Lubavitch line.

    The Chabad rabbis in Greater Hartford (Rabbi Samuels is from the Chabad House in Simsbury) are not happy with the rav hamachshir of the Hartford Kashrut Commission, Rabbi Yitzchok Adler, for discoraging the use of Agri meats for the past two years, including at his shul, Beth David.

    As for how Ben Harris of JTA got this e-mail, his parents are members of the Young Israel of West Hartford, who probably got it through the shul listserv and forwarded it to their son. Who put it on the shul listserv I do not know. The lesson here is that we all need to be careful with our e-mails. This is the internet version of “loose lips sink ships.”

  3. Shmarya Says:
    June 22nd, 2008 at 4:52 am

    Halakhicly, nothing said in front of three or more people is private.

    Further, the idea that the information being discussed could or should halakhicly kept quiet is questionable, to say the least.

    The public has the right to know.

  4. shev Says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 9:11 am

    You are quoting something Rabbi Mandel “apparently” said, regarding lashon hara, which is first of all hearsay, and second of all, hard to criticise. The mitzvah to not speak lashon hara is a vital one in our community. Above all, the Torah values Truth – so our job is to figure out how to separate fact from opinion.

    You also quote Rabbi Mandel as saying that the OU stands behind their kashrut certification – again, not exactly a surprise. The halachah holds that someone is innocent until proven guilty – until that time, of course the OU is going to go public and say the meat is kosher. No large corporation is going to admit error until it is certainly true.

    An article that includes the line “Regardless of what Mandel did or did not say…” when it is basing itself precisely on what Mandel did or did not say, is falling into that trap of blurring information with opinion.

  5. Leah Koenig Says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 9:36 am

    Shev – You are correct, by their nature blogs do have a tendency to blur information with opinion (so does all journalism, by the way – whether or not we like to admit it). I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, necessarily.

    In the end, each individual will make his/her own decisions about Agriprocessors – and those decisions will be as much based on information as on opinion and what they want to believe. The point of my post above, was not to comment specifically on Rabbi Mandel’s words, but on what this whole situation around them indicates – that, as I wrote:

    “a significant portion of the Jewish community is fairly desperate to get “ethically-blind-kosher-meat-eating-as-usual” back on track.”

    And that, in my opinion, is a shame.

  6. shev Says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 11:51 am

    Humankind really is amazing.

    Agriprocessors has experienced hideous publicity, yet most people I’ve spoken to (quite a few) just don’t care, and could the meat keep coming, please?

    Of course I agree with your bottom line, Leah. Please keep on informing and educating us masses with content-driven opinion!

  7. Shmarya Says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 pm

    Please.

    The JTA just released Mandel’s own email where he says, “There is no question that much of what is said is loshon hora and r’chilus…”

    You might also look at this and this.

  8. lilian Says:
    June 24th, 2008 at 9:02 am

    The fact people may continue to purchase Rubashkin’s meat does not make them ethically blind or ambiguous- it makes them conscious of the media’s ability to overexaggerate what it desires to emphasize and skeptical to what it is that they are hearing. Just because there are unproven allegations against Agriprocessors does not mean that people have to run away from them. As far as we know, they have done nothing wrong- the immigrants had fake work information that Agriprocessors was not legally supposed investigate. There is no proof that there was any other kind of fraudulent activity, and there is certainly no evidence that the meat is not kosher. Why would a religious family want to feed their fellow nation unkosher meat? I know- it makes no sense! In fact, why would we believe half of the things that show up in the media, and how easy is it to speak loshon harah and tarnish another person’s name?Extremely.

    It is not fair to not give the Rubashkins the benefit of the doubt. I have been eating their meat for years, and it has been fantastic. I have always gone by the saying- believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see- and I have yet to call myself ethically blind.

  9. Stephen Mendelsohn Says:
    June 24th, 2008 at 10:06 am

    BS”D

    Lilian — Unproven? What does one call 18 minors arrested working at the plant in the May 12 Federal raid, some as young as 13? How many bar-mitzvah age kids look like adults? There are plenty of “facts on the ground” here (remember all of the PETA videos of extreme animal cruelty, or the Rubashkins’ behavior in the Cherry Hill Textiles case?) that make it impossible to excuse AgriProcessors with the claim of dan l’kaf z’chut. The lashon ha-ra here is mostly to’elet (for a purpose) — we need to know whether this company is ethically kosher to buy from, otherwise we may be aiding and abetting an aveirah. If Agri wants to regain the trust of the Jewish community, it needs to stop hiding behind halachic walls and do genuine teshuva — admit any and all behavior not consistent with US law or halacha and begin to acquire a track record of compliance.

  10. Devora Kimelman-Block Says:
    June 24th, 2008 at 3:26 pm

    Two bits of proven truth:
    1) The Rubashkin family just settled a major OSHA violation. They have admitted that in the past 3 years there were safety concerns at the plant by so doing.
    2) Rubashkin’s arguement (while in court) for not allowing workers to unionize was that they shouldn’t be allowed to join a union because they were illegal.

  11. Rabbi Shmuel Says:
    June 25th, 2008 at 6:07 am

    DKB – As to your “proven truths” did they admit wrongdoing in the OSHA matter or is that an inference you are drawing? Typically when faced with a violation of that sort with monetary penalties at stake, a company may simply find it more cost effective to settle than to proceed (have you saeen how much lawyers earn these days?). BTW the “settlement” was for pennies on the dollar which makes me – as an attorney – question the strrength of the prosecutor’s case.
    As to #2 I will concede that it bordered on legal malpractice for them to make that assertion in their opposition papers (but by the same token it could be claimed that they alleged the illegal status of the workers as a strategic tactic to combat the unionization) doesn’t make it a “proven fact” people can plead in the alternative – eg “I didn’t kill him – I was in LA at the time but even if I did – it was self defense. (For the record, I pobably wouldn’t have aserted that as a defense but hey, there are all types:)

  12. Devora Kimelman-Block Says:
    June 25th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    Perhaps you don’t like the term “proven”. If Rubashkin’s publically admits to something, that is proof enough for me.

    Two more bits (don’t have to do with worker treatment):
    1) The Postville public water desalinazation process has to be overhauled because of the huge amount of unprocessed environmental waste Rubashkins is dumping into the public water system.
    2) The PETA video of extreme animal cruelty speaks for itself.

  13. Rabbi Shmuel Says:
    June 25th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

    Devorah, why don’t you just use the entire union laundry list – you know, when these things started coming out, first environmental violations, then alleged cruelty (and differing minds have differing opinions of the PETA video, myself included no stranger to cattle or shechita) then alleged employment violations, then alleged anti-trust violations, I said to my wife “color me paranoid, but it almost looks like a conspiracy”

    Then I saw that Agri was in fact the subject of a corporate campaign design to besmear and beat them into submission. That doesn’t give them a clean bill of health in my book by any stretch of the imagination, but there certainly are forces, each with their own little hidden agendae afoot.

    on the merits – “1) The Postville public water desalinazation process has to be overhauled because of the huge amount of unprocessed environmental waste Rubashkins is dumping into the public water system.”

    you’re presenting this as a news – how recently did this happen? Since then what has happened?

    You and I agree that their model is not sustainable. But it’s less than honest to say there are not other forces at play. that’s all

  14. Devora Kimelman-Block Says:
    June 26th, 2008 at 10:28 am

    My goal is to create and promote a sustainable food system. (See my website: http://www.kolfoods.com/why). Rubashkins is certainly not the only problem (although according to the meatpackers union, they are one of the worst in the industry). We need to get rid of unethical systems nationally. We also need to get rid of confinement factory farms which are urgently problematic on many levels. There are plenty of ethical, sustainable alternatives that are also high producing.

    Most importantly, we need to eat a lot less meat. It should not be an assumed part of our daily breakfast, lunch and dinner. It should be a once a week treat – which was the case until very recent history. Leah is correct that the outcry from kosher consumers that they won’t have access to their (unsustainable, unethical) meat is very disturbing. If we aren’t going to be vegetarians, we should at a minimum make sure that the meat we are eating is sustainable and ethical.

    (BTW: Grassfed meat is also really delicious – talk about making meat a treat.)

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