JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Former prosecutor to help Agriprocessors on compliance

By Ben Harris · June 5, 2008

Just got this announcement from Agriprocessors' spokesperson:

As part of the ongoing effort to enhance compliance with immigration and employment law, Agriprocessors has retained Jim Martin and his compliance specialty group, The Prevene Group, as the company's outside Corporate Compliance Officer. Martin, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, will begin his efforts immediately.

"My job is to ensure the company operates in compliance with all applicable laws," Martin said. "Agriprocessors' 800 jobs are important to Postville and northern Iowa, along with the observant Jewish community across the country that relies on them for their kosher meat and poultry. Agriprocessors can meet the needs of those who depend on the company and operate in compliance with all laws, and I intend to see that happen."

After spending more than 20 years with the United States Attorney's Office, Mr. Martin has spent the past several years helping companies strengthen and enhance their compliance programs. He was recently recognized in Best Lawyers in America for corporate governance and compliance law.

"We are pleased to have someone with the integrity and credentials of Jim Martin join our team," said Heshy Rubashkin, vice president, Agriprocessors. "Retaining Jim and his team is part of our ongoing effort to improve compliance and company performance. We take our responsibility to our employees, to Postville and to the observant community very seriously."

Agriprocessors is also searching for a new Chief Executive Officer.

"We have identified qualified candidates and started the interview process," Rubashkin said. "Obviously selecting the right person for this job is critical. We are moving with deliberate speed to make the best selection as soon as possible. Hiring a new CEO and retaining an outside Corporate Compliance Officer demonstrates our company's commitment to meaningful change."

The company continues to cooperate with the government following the recent worksite enforcement action that led to the management changes. The company is also conducting an independent investigation of the circumstances which led to the enforcement action. The company cannot respond to specific allegations until that investigation is complete and pending legal issues are resolved.

0 Comments | Share This | Agriprocessors, Kashrut |

Iran on the brain

By Uriel Heilman · June 5, 2008

After three days of tough talk on Iran at the annual AIPAC conference and a meeting on the subject Wednesday between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Bush, Israelis are again envisioning scenarios of U.S. attack against the Islamic Republic and its assumed nuclear weapons program.

On Tuesday, Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Horovitz told me he thinks such a scenario is possible in the sunset of Bush's presidency, partly due to an impression he got when he and a few of other Israeli journalists interviewed Bush in the Oval Office a few weeks ago. On Thursday, Ari Shavit imagined such a scenario is his column in Ha'aretz:

Contemplate, if you will, this wild scenario: In November, after Senator Barack Obama becomes president-elect of the United States, outgoing president George W. Bush inflicts a severe blow on Iran. That could take the form of a naval siege, the flexing of American military muscle, or even an all-out air strike targeting Iran's nuclear program.

Under ordinary circumstances, people would reject out of hand such a wild scenario. The American public does not support the idea of opening a second front in the Middle East, and America's political, military and intelligence establishments are fearful. A military move, even a semi-military one, carried out by an outgoing president would be unprecedented and illegitimate; it would be perceived as the final insane trumpet call of a thoroughly off-the-wall administration with a committed religious outlook.

But these are not ordinary times, and the protagonists involved are not ordinary people.

Is this wishful thinking?

Maybe the Israelis are encouraged by the hawkish talk at AIPAC about Iran by the presumptive major-party presidential nominees. But sounding the right applause lines for a pro-Israel confab in the lead-up to a U.S. presidential election isn't the same as dispatching fighter planes over the skies of Iran in an attack that likely would spark a regional conflagration and a massive retaliatory attack on Israel by Iran's allies in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

An attack on Iran by a lame-duck president is just not a realistic scenario. The United States lacks the political will, military resources and international consensus for such an act. The sooner Iran's primary target accepts this, the better off Israel will be to figure how to proceed.

8 Comments | Share This | International, Iran, Israel |

The News Shticker: Neo-Nazis for Israel

By Daniel Sieradski · June 5, 2008

• A German neo-Nazi faction has declared its support for the state of Israel, claiming that "Instead of destroying the Jews we should have taken every measure possible to support the Zionist movement."
• Yosef Abrahamson, a Black hasidic teenager from Crown Heights, got to be commanding officer of his local police precinct for a day after winning an essay contest about healing racial tensions.
• An arrest warrant has been issued for Yitzhak Shuchat, a member of Brooklyn's Shmira Civilian Patrol, who is alleged to have participated in a hate crime attack against a Black Crown Heights resident.
• New York Magazine profiles NY State Assemblyman and frum Lower East Side throwback Sheldon Silver.
• A NYC attorney whose firm is committed to defending women against sexual harassment is now himself in the dock for sexual harassment. Jack Tuckner of Tuckner Sipser Weinstock & Sipser is accused, among other things, of telling a non-Jewish coworker that she was "the ultimate shiksa so highly coveted by inner-city Jews such as him."
• Menachem Froman, the chief rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Tekoah, makes the case for advancing religious dialogue with Hamas.
• Gawker has compiled a list of the most popular websites among Jewish Internet users.
• The Andrea & Charles Bronfman Philanthropy's Reboot project and San Francisco's new Contemporary Jewish Museum will be hosting an arts festival Saturday night to celebrate the museum's grand opening, as well as the upcoming holiday of Shavuot.
• A new video game being developed by grad students at the University of Virginia allows players to go back in time to kill the main characters of the Bible and the Quran in order to stop the spread of religion.
• The UK's Movement for Reform Judaism, with the support of the Muslim Institute, has launched a new initiative to promote interfaith dialogue online: Faithbook.
• A wax sculpture of Hitler soon to be exhibited at Madame Tussaud's new wax museum in Berlin has sparked outrage among Jewish and non-Jewish Germans alike.

0 Comments | Share This | Shticker |