Comments on: Uri L’Tzedek Ends Agriprocessors Boycott

By: Rabbi Shmuel

Rabbi Shmuel — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:08:54 +0000

“It seems that these young rabbinical students may have been naive and never knew what they were really up against — they were probably rudely shocked at the intimidation they got when meeting four Rubashkin reps at that Manhattan dairy restaurant.

Hey Steve – why do you feel the need to create some sort of religious patina with your wholly unnecessary use of “BSD” on your post and then proceed to commit rechilus on a truly basis?

“The Forward notes Rabbi Allen is clearly worried for his safety after the 5W impersonation fraud.”

Don’t you think “worrying for his safety” is a tad extreme by way of reactions to a phony blog post? But it underscores the “thuggish” imagery that Scotty creates at Failed Messiah. Yet despite it’s second hand, innuendo nature you post it as gospel under your little trademark BSD.

Why not just lose the “BSD” affectation and then you may continue to be oiver d’oraisas with impunity. (Or why not just acknowledge that by starting each post with some veneer of halachic credibilty you share more than a passing resemblance to the folks you repeatedly lambast?)

I agree however that the 5W folks should learn how to do truly effective PR from “fearing for his safety” Morris Allen

By: Marisa

Marisa — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:50:32 +0000

Thanks for teaching me the word “sockpuppeting”! PR agencies get paid to spin the news favorably for their clients. It would be naive for a company not to hire a PR Agency after doing something despicable, and it would be incomplete service to their client for the PR agency to ignore the blogosphere. Therefore, the fault still lies with the Management of the company who allowed despicable things to go on in the first place. Kudos to bloggers who are aware that this goes on!

By: Stephen Mendelsohn

Stephen Mendelsohn — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:43:21 +0000

BS”D

This 5W Public Relations story seems to get even more bizzare by the hour. JTA and Failed Messiah have both now traced sockpuppeted posts on their sites to 5W VP and AgriProcessors spokesperson Juda Engelmayer. 5W CEO Ronn Torossian has essentially admitted that a “senior staffer” did it and justified the sockpuppeting, including the Rabbi Allen impersonation fraud, on the need to protect kashrut from haters of Chabad and Orthodoxy. 5W is still on the Agri payroll, which means that Agri implicitly approves of these thuggish tactics.

Failed Messiah wonders whether Torossian may have bullied another of his agency’s clients, Rabbi Avi Weiss, dean of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, into calling off the Uri L’Tzedek boycott.

http://failedmessiah.typepad.c.....wpr-c.html

By: T is for Tomato

T is for Tomato — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:29:19 +0000

The boycott hasn’t ended in my house!

By: Leah Koenig

Leah Koenig — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:15:51 +0000

Stephen, thanks for your comments. It is truly depressing to think that a company might stoop that low. Depressing for the consumer and just to think about how desperate a company must be to go to all that trouble.

Thanks Larry – your point is well taken.

Judi – I think you raise a good point that boycott or not, there are many other questions surrounding Agriprocessors’ business practices/ethics that remain unanswered…

By: judi

judi — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:26:32 +0000

Personally, I haven’t bought anything (or knowingly eaten anything) from this company since that PETA video came to light. And everything that has gone down since has served to bolster my conviction. Add to that the new information that shows that the PR firm that this company hired to scrape the tarnish from its image has managed to make the whole mess appear even dirtier than before. Meat isn’t a necessity. Boycott or no boycott; I don’t want it, I’m not buying it.

By: Larry Lennhoff

Larry Lennhoff — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:10:10 +0000

I also think calling off the boycott is premature, and I’m not ending my personal boycott, which has been going on for over 6 months Agriprocessor’s has consistently shown they only respond to pressure, not good intentions. Now is not the time to let up on the pressure.

By: Stephen Mendelsohn

Stephen Mendelsohn — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:37:25 +0000

BS”D

Uri L’Tzedek may have dropped the boycott because of bullying from Rubashkin hired agents such as 5W Public Relations and pressure from the OU, RCA and other Rubashkin supporters and not really because of any genuine change at AgriProcessors. Failed Messiah is now claiming that 5W PR massively sockpuppeted on his blog, including impersonations of Rabbi Morris Allen of Hechsher Tzedek and tow other critics, and he clearly has the IP address evidence to prove it. There is further evidence of 5W PR sockpuppeting on other blogs on behalf of AgriProcessors ever since the agency was hired by Agri to to improve its tarnished public image.

It seems that these young rabbinical students may have been naive and never knew what they were really up against — they were probably rudely shocked at the intimidation they got when meeting four Rubashkin reps at that Manhattan dairy restaurant. To go from being intimidated to calling off the boycott shortly thereafter does not make any sense except as a means of avoiding such threats. The Forward notes Rabbi Allen is clearly worried for his safety after the 5W impersonation fraud.