Helping Out in Postville
Earlier this week, The Jew & The Carrot posted about the raid of Agriprocessors kosher meat processing plant. Thanks to Josh Frankel for this guest post (originally on Jewschool) and an opportunity to help.
The Rubashkin’s raid made big news earlier in the week, and we were angry. We were furious, filled with righteous indignation, ready to destroy the kosher meat industry, to throw out kashrut, to bash Orthodoxy until the last black hat disappeared from Iowa. But, now, it’s time to help.
With hundreds of worker’s arrested, thousands of their family members are now in limbo. They have no money, no income, and no resources. They are frightened to apply for work, frightened to go shopping, and their kids aren’t going to school. Charities in Postville are pitching and do what they can to help these people, and unfortunately not-surprisingly, Agriprocessors isn’t helping out. I don’t often ask people to give tzedakah, and if I do, it’s a casual request. This is different. Anyone who has ever eaten kosher meat in this country has benefited from the hard, poorly compensated work these people have done, and now that they are in desperate need it is our turn to help.
Find out how below the jump.
Ari Hart, one of the leaders of Uri L’Tzedek, has been in contact with people on the ground, and he found this church, St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, which is working very hard with the families in town. However, the church’s resources are stretched thin, and they need donations.
Please, send money to:
St. Bridget’s Hispanic Fund
c/o Sister Mary McCauley
POB 369
Postville, IA 52162
Agriprocessors might be a large, unscrupulous company, but to these people, it represents one thing - Judaism. Please give. Please write a letter thanking them. Please let them know that you care.
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7 Responses to “Helping Out in Postville”
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Charles Says:
May 16th, 2008 at 10:14 amThis is a much more complicated situation than you make it out to be.
First, let it be said that the people who run the plant don’t seem to be shining examples of Jewish values.
They probably also knew that they the workers were illegal.
And they may have been involved in getting the raid to happen.
But raids like these have been happening all over Iowa, and the works also knew that they were working illegally and have to accept some of the consequences.
If there were people making drugs in the plant that is more likely than not done by the management.
That being said, the families need support since they are innocent victims in this.
But don’t pretend that this is being done only at a kosher meat plant and that it is not a general problem in the US food industry.
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Rabbi Shmuel Says:
May 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am“And they may have been involved in getting the raid to happen. ”
Out of curiosity, what basis would you have for that statement? How could it possibly inure to Agri’s benefit to receive a black eye like it got?
“If there were people making drugs in the plant that is more likely than not done by the management”
Again why would that more likely than not be true? BTW I’m sure you read the affidavit accompanying the search warrant - (it’s about 60 pages) what in that would lead you to surmise that if it happened at all, it was management driven? For the record, kosher & organic meat is more expensive than drugs:)
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Charles Says:
May 16th, 2008 at 10:38 amI meant to say that management was probably NOT involved in the drug manufacturing.
And I would like to see the affadavit for the search warrant. That would clarify exactly what happened.
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Rabbi Shmuel Says:
May 16th, 2008 at 1:01 pmthen say what you mean:)
failed messiah has the affidavits in pdf - as an attorny with 25 years experience I read the affidavits carefully - it’s actually not clear how far this thing goes up the foodchain I’m no fan of the Rubes but some of the things look like they’re the work of enterprising moonlighting middle managers (they’re not getting rich either) Ironically the HR person repeatedly refused to hire the undocumented workers - ya gotta love it!
To quote a famous rabbi (Mick Jagger if you must know)”I shouted out who killed the Kennedys, when after all it was you and me” - We all need to take a long hard look at this so-called lifestyle which has immigrants risking their lives to get here to take on jobs where they again risk their lives. What we are exporting as the “American Dream” in reality turns into the American Nightmare for the unsuspecting. The greatest American export is entertainment - if you want to know why ancient Egypt didn’t survive just look at the story of Joesph - they hung the bread guy and reinstated the wine guy - any society which places “wine” (fun and entertainment” over “bread” (basic living necessities) simply cannot sustain itself longterm
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Jennie Says:
May 16th, 2008 at 9:04 pmI found you because I’m googling for ANY Jewish response of this nature — I live in Iowa and these raids which involved the terrorizing of Latino communities and their children feel to me as particularly important to the Jewish community — for they came for use, once, too. DOes anyone know an organized Jewish response group I can support? The one other post I found mentioning this was only concerned with Jewish reputation adn the price of beef. But what’s going on with ICE raids in this country feels a bit too much like 1922 to me to sit by quietly.
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themicah Says:
May 18th, 2008 at 10:49 pmJennie,
I used to live in Iowa, too. I’m sending a check to St. Bridget’s (which I originally saw posted on Jewschool, along with a letter explaining my concern for the way these people have been treated by Agriprocessors.
I also passed this info on to family in Iowa, who I believe passed it on to the federation folks in the Quad Cities. I’m not sure if they’ll be doing anything with it or not.
