JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Not the usual doctor you find at the Kotel

By Ami Eden · May 28, 2008

Now visiting the Western Wall as part of Migdal Ohr's NBA Legends Goodwill Tour to Israel, from the University of Massachusetts, at 6'6, number 6, Dr. J, Julius Errrrrrrrrrrrrrving...

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Did the OU push Sholom Rubashkin out?

By Ben Harris · May 28, 2008

That's what the Jewish Star is claiming:

It is at the insistence of the Orthodox Union that Sholom Rubashkin is to be replaced as chief executive officer of Agriprocessors, the kosher meatpacking giant his father, Aaron Rubashkin, founded, The Jewish Starhas learned.

"We have said that if there were criminal culpability that we would withdraw our supervision," said Rabbinic Administrator Rabbi Menachem Genack in an interview Tuesday. "The OU spoke to the company to say that we would suggest –– for lots of reasons –– that they should look for professional management."

It's not entirely clear from the quote whether Genack himself is taking credit for ousting Sholom, or whether that's the Jewish Star's assertion. But the real question is whether Sholom Rubashkin is still "having a great time."

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Human rights lows in Geneva - Part II

By Uriel Heilman · May 28, 2008

Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, now a candidate for the post of U.N. high commissioner for human rights in Geneva, is defending his record as president of the U.N. Human Rights Council during 2006-'07.

In a May 19 post, The Telegraph reported that U.N. Watch said de Alba "oversaw the massive erosion of what was already a problematic institution" and "oversaw the singling out of Israel as a permanent agenda item at the Human Rights Council."

De Alba defended himself in an email to JTA, blaming the council's record on its members:

While fully respecting the views of all stakeholders with regards to the way in which I conducted the Presidency of the Human Rights Council, I would like to make the following precisions: the decisions adopted by the Council throughout its first year of work (and indeed during its existence) are the result of collective decisions, and therefore the responsibility of all its Members.

The Human Rights Council has been able to address urgent situations through the holding of Special Sessions, not only with regards to the situation on the Middle East, but also on Darfur, Myanmar, and, currently the concerns raised by the World food crisis.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, says this is "grossly misleading." He counts four special sessions on Israel, one on Darfur, one on Myanmar and one on food (for those keeping count). Since the creation of the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2006, Neuer counts 19 condemnatory resolutions on Israel, four on Myanmar and one on North Korea.

That's none for Sudan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other places where rape victims are punished with lashes (Saudi Arabia), honor killings are unofficially sanctioned (Jordan) and citizens can be killed by their government simply for being born black (Sudan).

You can read de Alba's full response to JTA here:

Mr. Heilman,

I thank you for your e-mail of 19 May, which I respond with pleasure since I agree with you on the importance of running both sides of the argument. Such balance is particularly relevant to the issues that you raise, given the scarce and sometimes incomplete information that is disseminated about the Human Rights Council, specially by some quarters.

Regarding your first question, my name has been put forward by the Mexican Government to the Secretary General for his consideration to the post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. We do not see this as a candidature in the traditional sense, and we fully respect the prerrogative of the Secretary General to designate the High Commissioner, a designation which should be confirmed by the UN General Assembly. Regarding the process of selection, I believe it is not appropriate for anyone other than the Office of the Secretary General to provide any information or comment on its development.

As for your second question, while fully respecting the views of all stakeholders with regards to the way in which I conducted the Presidency of the Human Rights Council, I would like to make the following precisions: the decisions adopted by the Council throughout its first year of work (and indeed during its existence) are the result of collective decisions, and therefore the responsibility of all its Members. With respect to the particular issues that you mention, related to the institution building process of the Council, my responsibility as President was to reach an agreement to reform and improve the entire human rights mechanisms, meeting the consensus of all Members of the Human Rights Council. This necessitated intense dialogue and cooperation among Members and Observers of the Council, as well as NGOs and National Human Rights Institutions, all of which participated actively in order to bridge divergences of views which could have put the human rights system at risk.

Thus, the final result reflects a collective work, and, the fact that it was reached by consensus has been acknowledged as a major achievement in the human rights field. I think there is a misunderstanding with regards to the position of certain countries, as none requested to vote on the package before its adoption. A request to take action on the package, presented a day after its approval, was rejected by the Council with a vote of 46 against and one in favour.

I am aware that the Institution Building package is not a perfect one, but you should be aware that in the process of institution building, the possibility of voting issue by issue would have seriously damaged the already existing mechanisms of human rights protection, and certainly it would have limited the capacity of the Council to implement its mandate of universally protecting and promoting human rights.

I would finally like to point out that the current work of the Council is in fact largely based on the institutional agreements reached on June 18, 2007, and the developments so far have been quite positive. All Members of the Human Rights Council, without exception, have been engaged with a high level of responsibility in implementing those agreements. One of the major reforms has been the creation of the Universal Periodic Review Mechanism (UPR), under which all Member States of the UN, including those cited in your e-mail, will be reviewed, on an equal footing, with regards to the fulfillment of their human rights obligations.

Let me also highlight that the Human Rights Council has been able to address urgent situations through the holding of Special Sessions, not only with regards to the situation on the Middle East, but also on Darfur, Myanmar, and, currently the concerns raised by the World food crisis.

I hope you find these elements useful, and I remain available should you have any further questions or comments.

Sincerely, Luis Alfonso de Alba

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The News Shticker: Indiana Jones a Nazi?!

By Daniel Sieradski · May 28, 2008

• 23/6, the news and humor site, "collected the most racist, and/or uninformed comments about Barack Obama and put them in a quiz," asking you to identify "Who said it, the rural white, or the old Jew?"
• Following his denial of entry last week, Israel has officially barred Norman Finkelstein from entering the country for 10 years.
• Video has surfaced of last month's violent attack on two Palestinian teenagers perpetrated by a gang of Israeli youth.
• The Knesset is contemplating an Internet censorship bill that will empower the Israeli government to block access to websites it deems inappropriate. Some fear that will include foreign news sites that portray the country unflatteringly.
• Self-described "good Jewish boy" Michael Sophocles has been fired from The Apprentice.
• The Jewish Journal's God Blog has an interesting piece on the Jews' tolerance for alcohol, or lack thereof.
• Indiana Jones' character based on a Nazi? Who knew?!
• Faith Off, a new game show on the UK's Islam Channel, seeks to "promote good relations and mutual respect between Britain's religious communities" by pitting them against each other in a trivia challenge.
• "A new national study of more than 948 Americans revealed that a man wearing a kufi, headwear typically worn by Muslim men, is viewed significantly different than the same man wearing a Jewish yarmulke and no headwear."
• And finally, via Jewschool, even the LOLcats are anti-Israel these days... Awww... It's too cute to be offensive! See also: The ever uproarious Cats that look like Hitler.

1 Comment | Share This | Shticker |

Sholom and me

By Ben Harris · May 28, 2008

Late last week, Agriprocessors' owner Aaron Rubashkin announced that he would be replacing his son Sholom as company CEO. This was not totally unexpected. A source close to the family told me he had recommended turning the plant over to professional management and that Aaron had seemed open to the idea. But during my five days in Postville last week, Sholom was still very much in charge and the one person I was eager to interview above all others.

I made a request with his spokesperson, and dropped by the plant asking to see him, but to no avail. So on Tuesday afternoon, I drove out to the Rubashkin homestead. Sholom's house is perched quite literally at the edge of town. The family backyard looks out on – what else? – a cornfield. In any American suburb, it would be considered a modest abode, but it's nearly luxurious by Postville standards. A Hasidic boy who looked to be about 18 answered the door and over his shoulder, in the foyer, was an enormous portrait of the Lubavitcher rebbe. "Ahh a reporter," he said when I identified myself, his lips curled into the barest smirk.

He asked for a business card, and as I fussed in my pockets for one, Sholom's wife appeared, holding a telephone to her ear. She was talking to Sholom who was – where else? – at the plant. "He looks like a very nice boy," she told him as she gave me the once over. "He even put on a yarmulke."

I was instructed to drive over to the plant, where Sholom would meet me. Agriprocessors is situated at Postville's western edge, its silver water tower stenciled with the company name in black looming over a collage of ramshackle buildings and gravel drives. It was after six, and the plant was unusually quiet. Slaughter normally runs around the clock – six days a week except for Shabbat – but since the raid manpower has been short, and as a golden Iowa sunset illuminated the silver metal of the water tower, the plant was eerily quiet.

Sholom greeted me in a small hallway at the plant's entrance. He was sporting a scraggly black beard flecked with grey, filthy black pants, black shoes and a blue Iowa's Best Beef fleece jacket.

"What can I do for you?" he asked smiling.

I wanted to ask him about the allegations concerning working conditions at the plant, I told him. Sholom smiled and told me he had a spokesperson. He had only come out to meet me as a courtesy, because I had come out to the house. Had I put on teffilin, the phylacteries Jews wear during morning prayers, he asked me. Yes, I lied, hoping to convince him of my piety, and thus my trustworthiness.

"Then my work is done," he said.

D'oh!

We jousted some more – me asking questions, Sholom mentioning his spokesperson, all the time smiling, enjoying the game. After a while, he began edging back towards the security gate and I realized our time was up. I turned and headed back towards the parking lot when I heard a Brooklyn accent calling my name.

"Give me your business card," Sholom told me as he trotted out to me.

I pulled one from my pocket and handed it to him. He asked if I had spoken to Menachem Lubinsky, who runs a kosher foods Web site and consults for the company. I had, I told him, and I had spoken with his Kansas City representative, but neither of the men were addressing the claims that Agriprocessors workers themselves were making against their former employer – that they had been made to work 12 and 14 hour shifts, that the company had employed 15 year-olds, that it had tolerated an atmosphere of sexual harassment and that it had shorted workers on their paychecks. I gestured to my notebook, telling him it was full of claims against him. I wanted to hear his side, I said.

No you don't, Sholom countered. You just want to say you spoke to Sholom Rubashkin so you can write what you're going write, "just like that guy from the Forward."

I sensed an opening. "Well I'm not that guy from the Forward," I began. "I came here to hear from you. It's your name on the package. It's your reputation that is being damaged. This is your opportunity to speak to the Jewish community."

Sholom took a step back and stared intently at my card, holding it in both his hands, considering the point. "I'm not a talker," he protested, and for a moment he seemed like a young Moses begging God to pick someone else. "I'm not good with words." He didn't know what my agenda is, he said. Better to talk to Lubinsky and if I didn't get what I needed from him, I should call him back.

He turned back towards the plant. "Come on Sholom," I called out to him. "Lets get a beer, talk this over. You must be pretty stressed."

On the contrary, Sholom said smiling, "I'm having a great time."

Again I turned to go back to my car. I pulled out my laptop to jot some notes while they were fresh in my mind when I felt my cell phone vibrating against my leg.

"Do you want to take a tour of the plant?" Sholom asked me. Of course, I told him. He promised I would see a clean, modern, state of the art facility. Just call in the morning, he told me, and he'd set it up. Oh, and everything he had told me (which was basically nothing), was off the record. "I'm trusting you," he said. Not that I have anything to hide, he added, "I'm as clean as a baby."

Reporters are in no way bound by an after-the-fact request to keep things off the record. Still, I figured, it was worth keeping quiet if silence would get me a tour of the plant and a potentially more insightful interview later on.

But the next day, Sholom apparently had a change of heart. I called him twice in the morning. Again in the afternoon. And twice more in the evening. Nothing. Having broken his promise to show me around, I feel a bit better about sharing the story of our fleeting moment together in Postville.

11 Comments | Share This | Agriprocessors, Kashrut, Religion |

Iran’s dispute with U.A.E.

By Uriel Heilman · May 28, 2008

The National has a helpful backgrounder on the dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates over three islands in the Persian Gulf. If Iran and the United States were to go to war, the islands could be key to attacking U.S. naval forces in the Gulf, the UAE newspaper notes. This week, Iran refused Russian mediation to resolve the dispute.

Meanwhile, in an editoral, The National expresses alarm over the latest IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program.

Tehran's refusal to clarify its nuclear intentions is particularly dismaying and shows a disregard for the welfare of the people who would be immediately affected by a nuclear catastrophe: the citizens of Iran and the residents of the Gulf.

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The other face of Syria

By Uriel Heilman · May 28, 2008

Even as Syria moves forward with peace talks with Israel, it is strengthening its ties with Iran. On Tuesday, Syrian Defense Minister Hassan Turkmani ended a three-day visit to Tehran by signing a new defense pact with the Islamic Republic. Read the Tehran Times report here.

Also on Tuesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, met with Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas terror chief who lives in Damascus, to urge him to keep up his fight against Israel even if Syria goes the other way.

Syrian President Bashar Assad quickly reassured Tehran, telling a group of visiting British parliamentarians that Damascus would not accede to Israeli demands that Syria cut ties with Iran. "He said if Israel could question Syria's relations with Iran, then Syria could question Israel's ties with other countries, particularly the United States," a source told Reuters.

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Mapping out J Street

By Ami Eden · May 28, 2008

James Kirchick of the New Republic takes aim at J Street, the new outfit that has been described in some circles as a fledgling AIPAC alternative aimed at securing a more aggressive U.S. role in pushing the peace process:

A perusal of J Street's list of supporters further undermines its pretensions to mainstream credibility. One of the most prominent Israelis involved with the group is Avrum Burg, former speaker of the Knesset. A member of a distinguished Israeli political family, he set off a political scandal last year when, in an interview with Ha'aretz, he claimed that "to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end"; he has also compared contemporary Israel to pre-Nazi Germany. Naomi Chazan is a former Knesset member from the left-wing Meretz Party, which has just five seats (out of 120) in the Knesset. Henry Siegman, a former Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has compared Israel to apartheid South Africa, accused Israeli leaders of having the U.S. government "in their pockets," and claimed (absurdly) that the 2000 intifada "was not planned by Arafat, but a spontaneous eruption of Palestinian anger."

Moreover, J Street's depiction of the pro-Israel establishment–read, AIPAC– as wildly hawkish is more than a bit of a stretch.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founding executive director of J Street, responds in an interview with Shmuel Rosner of Ha'aretz:

Determining where J Street sits relative to the 'mainstream' of the American Jewish community depends on how you define the term. I don't claim that the entire community agrees with J Street's view of the world, the Middle East or Israel. Neither should Kirchik claim the community is with the New Republic.

A large number of American Jews do hold right-of-center views. But a large number don't. Many of us believe in a smart, tough foreign policy for America that both defends its vital interests and provides a path to peace and security for Israel. This may put us squarely in opposition with Marty Peretz and Mort Klein, but it also puts us squarely within the range of views held by large numbers of American Jews.

In the "ooops" department... Yesterday we supplied the wrong link to Rosner's interview with Pastor John Hagee's Jewish adviser. Click here to read the full exchange (we hope).

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