JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Let them eat cake

By Ben Harris · June 4, 2008

That's what many Jewish Shabbos tables will be serving this week if the reports we're hearing about the kosher meat supply turn out to be true. But first ...

Late yesterday we heard that a bunch of Jewish bigs had signed on to the Uri L'tzedek petition, which vows a boycott June 15 if Agriprocessors doesn't commit to establishing an externally transparent department to ensure compliance with American and Jewish legal requirements concerning treatment of workers. A spokesman for UL confirmed they are in discussions with the company.

We also got a statement today, issued through the company's PR guy, announcing that Agriprocessors would be hiring a chief compliance officer. I emailed back asking for more details about the search for a new CEO, which were supposed to be announced last week. I got this reply:

Agriprocessors has begun the process of changing the current management team and adding a Chief Executive Officer by identifying potential candidates with backgrounds necessary for this new position. We will continue to move quickly and deliberately to make this important addition to the company. In the meantime, we are moving rapidly to increase our production capacity each day so we can continue to provide our customers with the quality products they expect from Agriprocessors.

Speaking of production capacity, contrary to assurances we are getting from company spokespeople, the supply of kosher meat is beginning to be affected. Several butchers told us they were able to find other meat suppliers after Agriprocessors was unable to fill orders. But at least one kosher caterer in Florida told JTA she was running from store to store trying to find supplies, and that if Rubashkin shuts down, it will destroy her business since there are no alternatives in her area. JTA's Sue Fishkoff will have more on this later in the week.

And finally, a piece of news we neglected to note earlier. Agriprocessors has been placing ads for new workers in a Guatemalan newspaper – NOT newspapers for the Guatemalan community in the United States, but newspapers in Guatamela. There's a PDF of the ad over at FailedMessiah.

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Borscht Boss: Brooks Arthur on Catskills nostalgia, Barbra Streisand, and Adam Sandler?

By Matthue Roth · June 4, 2008

Brooks Arthur started his career as an audio engineer in the 60s, working on "My Boyfriend's Back," "The Locomotion," and "Leader of the Pack" before building up to producing albums for the likes of Liza Minelli and Carole King. He struck up a friendship with a young breakaway comic named Adam Sandler led him to produce Sandler's ubiquitous "Chanuka Song," after which they co-wrote possibly the most scatological Chanukah movie ever, Sandler's "Eight Crazy Nights."

Arthur's latest venture is The Jewish Songbook, a CD filled with new and veteran performers doing renditions of Jewish songs. Most hearken back to the Borscht Belt melodies of the 1940s and 50s, but there is also the liturgical (Barbra Streisand doing "Avinu Malkeinu"), the modern Israeli patriotic ("Hatikvah"), and the unexpected—Adam Sandler doing a version of "Hinei Ma Tov" that not only isn't a joke song, but also manages to showcase his competent classical tenor. JTA spoke to Brooks Arthur the day before the CD's release about the record, the performers, and how it felt to sing alongside Barbra Streisand.

[audio:/images/archive/060408_arthur_roth.mp3] Audio sound funny? Upgrade your Flash player.

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Jewish art on the coasts

By Ben Harris · June 4, 2008

June will be exciting for Jewish arts on both coasts.

San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum opens June 8th. JTA's Sue Fishkoff has already written about its unique mission, and here is an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about architect Daniel Liebeskind's visit and thoughts on his latest architectural masterpiece.

Meanwhile, in New York City, many Jewish museums are hosting exhibits and concerts, from "Warhol's Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered," (at the Jewish Museum through Aug. 3) to "Spirit of Sepharad: From Casbah to Caliphate, a 500 Year Journey" at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on June 25. See the New York Times' take on these and other New York Jewish arts events this summer

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Aaron and Me

By Ben Harris · June 4, 2008

After my frustrating experience with Sholom Rubashkin in Postville, I thought it unlikely that I'd have much more luck with his father Aaron. The elder Rubashkin still runs the original family butcher shop on 14th Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhood Borough Park. Rubashkin opened the shop in 1953, the same year he emigrated from Russia, and the shop looks not to have changed much since. In the space above the door where the sign should be there are only reddish panels, one of which is missing. In the upper right corner of the front window is a square yellow sign: Rubashkin's.

Sholom had been friendly in our meeting and only disappointed me later, when he reneged on an offer to take me on a tour of the plant. With Aaron the situation was entirely reversed. His underlings in the shop initially ran interference for their boss, saying he was unavailable when I first inquired about speaking to him. About 20 minutes later, Aaron himself wandered in and promptly turned on his heel and disappeared when I identified myself as a reporter. When I approached him again 20 minutes later, he told me he was too busy – "It's erev Shabbos!" – and to come back Monday, to which I agreed.

But as I interviewed a gaggle of his customers in front of the store last Friday, Aaron appeared and spoke on the record for about 10 minutes. He wandered off, but then returned about 20 minutes later and went on for close to an hour. And when I returned Tuesday to snap a photo, he seemed positively thrilled to see me, greeting me warmly and happily posing for several shots.

Even physically, the elder Rubashkin is the mirror image of his son – his white beard flecked with black, instead of the reverse. His face is deeply lined and he wore a pale blue shirt over his ample belly. He gently swayed back and forth, prayer-style, as he talked, his watery blue eyes boring into me. And he spoke with the kind of Yiddish/Brooklyn zing it's almost reassuring to know still exists. (When he told me 30 rabbis supervise the plant, it came out "toity.")

To hear Aaron tell it, he is the victim of all this – not the Mexican workers who claim they were abused by Jewish supervisors; not the town of Postville, whose economic in future is very much in peril since the federal government arrested 20 percent of its population; not the kosher consumers who may face very real shortages and price increases if Agriprocessors can't get back on its feet, and soon (more on this later in the week).

No, as Rubashkin sees it, he is the victim of workers who make baseless allegations and a news media that gobbles them up, more interested in selling newspapers than the truth. Several times he compared the press to the Soviet, state-run media ("a lynching press, a one-sided press") and seemed resigned to being at a fundamental disadvantage in making his case to the public.

"I am the one who's at fault?" he asked. "I will never accept that."

Rubashkin seemed particularly offended by the notion, implied by the criticism from Jewish social activists, that he is somehow opposed to justice. He carried on at length about "tzedek," using the Hebrew word for justice, as if to say that destroying a man's livelihood based on hearsay couldn't possibly be just. "If there is a group about tzedek," he said to me, "I want to be part of it."

One of the most interesting facets of this story is how divergent are the reactions between the ultra-Orthodox communities who are Rubashkin's major customers and the liberal religious communities who are his foremost critics. On Friday, a steady stream of Orthodox customers filed in and out of the store, and none seemed particularly bothered by the allegations against their local butcher. Invariably, they said they didn't believe the charges, and even if they were true, it wouldn't make much difference. "The meat's nice, the meats good," said one. I'm going to continue to buy it."

My full story on the interview is here.

Selected audio from the Rubashkin interview is here:

[audio:/images/archive/060408_rubashkin_harris.mp3]

And here are three interviews with Rubashkin's customers, none of whom was fazed by the allegations against him.

[audio:/images/archive/060408_rubashkin_customers_harris.mp3]

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