Agri saga continues in the Times
It took more than a week, but the Times today printed six responses to last week's op-ed by Shmuel Herzfeld criticizing the responses of the major Orthodox groups and calling for a rabbinic investigation of the kosher producer Agriprocessors. Not surprisingly, opinion roughly divides between the rabbis and everyone else.
The Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America both took strong exception to Herzfeld, restating their position that, yes, they do care about worker treatment etc., but the federal government is the only entity qualified to evaluate and enforce those standards. Also, the company is entitled to due process and a presumption of innocence.
The letters can be read in full here.
Also, we got some emails regarding my description yesterday of Shmuel Herzfeld as Nat Lewin's "rabbi." Though Lewin is a member of Herzfeld's Washington shul, as well as several other area congregations, Lewin is a regular attendee of an Orthodox synagogue in Potomac, Md., where he lives. Calling Herzfeld his "rabbi" is inaccurate. Sorry about that.
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Agriprocessors,
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Your comment that opinion divides roughly between the Rabbis and “everyone else” is both false and prejudicial, in my opinion. There are many who think working conditions and immigration law is a matter for governmental regulation and not publicity-seeking officious intermeddlers. If the government is not doing its job, the remedy is on insisting on enforcement, not appeal to subjective morality poisoned by the reporting and commentary of an unreliable press.
Nothing in this post is intended to justify violation of labor, immigration, health and sanitation laws, or black-letter halacha. However, in this writer’s opinion, attempting to extend halacha to justify policy hobby-horses is an abomination
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Netanya
08/13/08 06:17 PM
There is Nothing “Holy” about the extent of cruelty inflicted upon the animals within industrial kosher system (AgriProcessors) or the flagrant disregard for the law concerning illegal immigrant workers, or the obvious mistreatment of these workers. What will it take to recognize our responsibility to care and act with compassion to the creatures of our planet, as well as the human beings who are forced to hold such disgusting jobs as slaughterhouse workers. Industrial animal production is a vile and non-compassionate system, and from there come 99% of animals for “kosher” slaughter. Time to wake up to the wholesale betrayal to the animals who provide nourishment for our world. Needless suffering is routine, thanks to greedy animal exploitation enterprises such as AgriProcessors, and evidently the persons who are supposed to oversee Jewish law within this system.