BBYO to steer clear of Rubashkin’s
B'nai Brith Youth Organization will abstain from Agriprocessors meat this summer. Here's their statement:
Camp Food is No Joking Matter BBYO Teens Demand Agriprocessor-Free Camp ProgramsAs a result of the allegations of intolerable injustices at Agriprocessors, the largest producer of kosher meat and poultry in the U.S., BBYO takes major stand by asking its various camp partners to avoid serving Agriprocessor products, to which they comply.
Nine hundred teens participating in BBYO's summer leadership experiences at Perlman Camp, PA; Beber Camp, WI; and American Hebrew Academy, CA, over the course of this summer, will eat meals free of Agriprocessor products, showing a unified commitment to social justice and Jewish values.
Teens make concerted effort to expand summer program curricula to address the Agriprocessor issue from variety of angles, including the ritual and ethical implications of kashrut, worker's rights, immigration reform and Jewish values.
The first program will take place on Thursday, June 26, 11:45 am – 1:15 pm, when nearly 100 Jewish teens will gather at Beber Camp in Mukwonago, Wisconson (suburban Milwaukee) to make their voices heard against the intolerable injustices at Agriprocessors. Confirmed speakers include Rabbi Morris Allen, a Minneapolis-based leader of the Heksher Tzedek campaign for kosher foods to be produced ethically, who has been to Postville multiple times and will share first-hand accounts from factory workers. Lauren Shenfeld, BBYO's International Teen Co-President, will also address the group, to raise awareness among her peers and encourage action when teens return home to their local communities.
"If anyone is going to make their opinion on this problem matter to the Jewish community and communities at large, and ultimately stand up against an issue in which human rights and Jewish values are demeaned, it's BBYO teens." – Lauren Shenfeld, BBYO International Teen Co-President
"The reason this issue has struck such a deep chord with BBYO teens is because it's the story of their grandparents and great grandparents – the story of immigrating to find a better life, fighting oppression and standing up for social justice." – Marilyn Sneiderman, BBYO Deputy Director and former Director of Field Mobilization for the National AFL-CIO
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To all who have commented so far:
YOU SHOULD BE ABSOLUTELY ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES !!!!!!
To understand the TRUTH, read in depth ALL of the letters in the URL below:
[http://www.goveg.com/feat/agriprocessors/letters.asp]
Kudos to the BBYO kids for showing leadership and standing up for what they believe in. they are standing up for what they believe is right, even when there are consequences. what a valuable experience for the next generation of Jewish leaders to have. you can’t program this kind of stuff!
dovid
This is an utter discrace!
Is this what we are teaching our children?? The opposite of true justice? I thought justice meant “innocent until proven guilty”?
I don’t care what this Rabbi Allen has to say. He clearly has an agenda. And that is to get an ‘in’ into the Kosher certification business.
This is an injustice to the education of these pure children and an injustice to all Jews.
John wrote: “What about the Jewish value of not condemning and executing someone before the facts come out?
You have totally missed the mark! There have been countless federal fines issued to Rubashkins and they have 250 non-compliance charges! They had children working in the factory (fact!), they were not properly training or securing the employees (fact!), they are recruiting new employees to exploit now in Mexico and Guatemela. There are countless interviews documenting the abuses (see the 120 points in the 60 page affidavit). The facts are out.
Also, the Jewish community has the right to choose how to allocate its funds and which businesses to support with its money. These attempts to critique from the outside these ethical purchasing decisions are shameful and unfortunate examples of parochialism at its worst. Who are these demagogues writing in?
Although I have not met her, I am very grateful that Mrs. Sneiderman has been hired. It’s great to have more women activists pushing for a more just world in leadership positions, especially heading our holy educational programs.
It is very sad that there is a kashrut community out there that isn’t interested in these ethical sins and that they only use secular standards (absolute convition in the US court) as their moral compass.
The JTA replaced the erroneous headline it posted on June 24, “B’nai B’rith Youth Organization is calling for a boycott of Agriprocessors,” with the current headline posted June 25, “B’nai B’rith Youth Organization will abstain from Agriprocessors meat this summer.” To clarify, the teens are not calling for a “boycott” as the JTA reporter originally headlined the article, but rather asked its partners to refrain from serving BBYO participants Agriprocessor products this summer at camp, to which they complied. This position deals with the ethical and moral considerations that BBYO believes are an integral part of Jewish values.
BBYO’s decision follows a call from the U.S. Conservative movement which urged the Jewish community to consider not patronizing Agriprocessors (http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/108713.html). BBYO is not acting unilaterally, as it has joined more than 1,000 community leaders who signed the Uri Tzedek petition at http://uriltzedek.webnode.com/information-on-the-agriprocessor-effort/sign-the-letter-to-agriprocessors/, and was based on the following undeniable facts:
1) On May 12, 389 illegal workers were arrested, among them 18 juveniles between the ages of 13 and 17 (Detainees moved from NCC grounds, Waterloo, Courier, May 15, 2008).
2) Agriprocessors was cited for 39 health and safety violations in March 2008, including amputations, eye injuries and hearing loss, despite years of public inquiry and concern over worker conditions at the plant (Agriprocessor’s Safety Problems, Des Moines Register, May 14, 2008).
“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” Driven by Rabbi Hillel’s call, BBYO’s teens are using this summer’s programs as an opportunity to explore the complexities of the Agriprocessor issue.
“When news broke of the raid in Postville last month, we were particularly concerned because some of the workers were kids our age,” said Evan Herron, BBYO’s International Teen Co-President. “Our teen leadership will be exploring issues raised by these events through some of our programs this summer, particularly as they relate to Jewish values and social justice.”
BBYO is an independent organization of B’nai B’rith International.
I think it’s great that campers at BBYO summer camps will be thinking about Jewish values of justice. What a good place to figure out how the decisions we make in running our lives have ethical consequences! We should strive to consume kosher food made under conditions where workers are treated fairly and paid enough to live on--pretty basic criteria. Good for BBYO in choosing to make this ethical decision!
Attacking the BBYO boycott of Rubashkin chicken and meat on the basis that no “facts” have come out is ridiculous. Somehow, the Iowa Department of Transportation, the Iowa Department of Labor, the Iowa Workforce Development, and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration have found enough facts to keep them busy with wide-ranging investigations into health and safety practices at the AgriProcessors plant.
If nothing unjust was going on there, how did it happen that nearly 20 of the immigrant employees picked up in the ICE raid on May 12 were children? If conditions were so rosy, how, between 2001 and 2006, did OSHA manage to log reports of broken bones, amputations, eyes injuries, hearing loss and other nasty injuries suffered at the plant? How, in fact, did the feds come up with enough evidence to charge AgriProcessors with 39 new health and safety violations this past March!
To look at the facts – yes, the facts—and allege that they are unjust allegations is simply ludicrous.
The true embarrassment here is the indictment of the BBYO teens. The Torah states: “Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates (Deuteronomy 24:14). We applaud BBYO for their commitment to social justice and Jewish values.
Asaf Bar-Tura
Director of Teen Programming
JCUA
Iowa Workforce Development (March 20, 2008) “Postville Company Cited for 39 Health & Safety Violations, &182,000 Fine Proposed”. News release. Retrieved on 2008-06-25.
Pitt. David. “Immigration raid spurs calls for action vs. owners,” Chicago Tribune 02 06 2008. 25 Jun 2008 .
Weiss. Anthony. “Iowa Fines AgriProcessors for Labor Violations,” The Jewish Daily Forward 24 03 2008. 25 Jun 2008 .
So it seems that the shareholders of Rubashkin’s have taken over this blog.
A hearty yasher koach to BBYO! I hope that the youth movements that I grew up in, United Synagogue Youth and Camp Ramah, follow suit.
If BBYO campers were thinking about justice, they must have misplaced the meaning. Same goes for ethical behavior.
You are all guilty of lashon hora, not a Jewish value. You have allegations, speculation, and gossip but not facts. You are a disgrace to Jewish youth worldwide.
You have jumped on a bandwagon for the thrill of the ride not realizing you are being led by a group of pied pipers into a sea of deceit and lies in the name of “justice”.
You have made a mockery of tikkun olam.
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Jszc
06/25/08 01:52 PM
As a former Jewish youth group leader (go EPA USY!) I am so impressed and proud that BBYO has taken this step. Agriprocessors has shamelessly exploited its workers - for example, taking advantage of their disempowered legal situation to pay them less than required by law and far less than it takes to raise a family, not to mention putting workers in physical danger by not adhering to safety standards.
As a Jew, I have been ashamed that a kosher meat company is behaving so egregiously and that we can call food “kosher” when it causes pain and injury to so many families. However, I’ve also been proud to see that 1300 Jewish leaders, educators, and kosher consumers have signed a petition calling out Agriprocessors for their abuses. I don’t know anything about the group organizing the petition, but their website is uriltzedek.webnode.com.
Kudos to the youth leaders of BBYO and to its staff for bringing the Jewish community and the workers in Postville one step closer to justice.