It seemed for a while things might have quieted on the Postville front, but the past few days have brought a flood of new information. Let’s briefly recap:

• Yesterday the Iowa labor commissioner referred 57 allegations of child labor violations to the state attorney general, calling the violations “egregious” and recommending they be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law.”
• This news follows by one day the declaration by a group of 25 Orthodox rabbis that the plant was clean and modern and entirely different from the “jungle” described by New York Times editorialists.
• Shmuel Herzfeld, an Orthodox rabbi in Washington, penned an op-ed in today’s Times saying the responses of the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America have “fallen far short.”

Agriprocessors spokesman Menachem Lubinsky also provided JTA with a number of documents last night that provide an interesting window into the way the labor commissioner’s investigation unfolded.

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The National Council of Young Israel organized a company-sponsored visit for 25 Orthodox rabbis to Postville, Iowa, last week. Here is video shot by the Five Towns Jewish Times inside the plant.

WARNING to vegetarians and those of weak stomach (myself included): Video includes graphic footage from the kill floor.

UPDATE: Also today, the Iowa Labor Commissioner announced it had completed a months-long child labor investigation and is turning the results over to the attorney general for prosecution, citing “egregious” violations of state labor law.

Agriprocessors responded by saying it was “at a loss” to understand the commissioner’s action, claiming the government refused its request to identify child laborers so they could be fired.

The labor commissioner’s press release is here. The full Agriprocessors statement is after the jump.

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The New York Times weighed in with its latest editorial on the fallout from the May 12 immigration raid at Agriprocessors, the largest kosher meatpacking plant in the U.S. (See previous editorial here).

Most of the newspaper’s ire was reserved for the federal government, whose criminalization of the illegal workers it called “a disgrace,” “a fraudulent exercise,” and “cruel” — echoing many of the descriptors used last week in hearings on the subject in Washington.

But the paper also rehearsed the litany of complaints against the company itself, in part to account for its outrage at the government’s targeting of the workers rather than the employers who hired them:

A slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, develops an ugly reputation for abusing animals and workers. Reports of dirty, dangerous conditions at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant accumulate for years, told by workers, union organizers, immigrant advocates and government investigators. A videotape by an animal-rights group shows workers pulling the windpipes out of living cows. A woman with a deformed hand tells a reporter of cutting meat for 12 hours a day, six days a week, for wages that labor experts call the lowest in the industry. This year, federal investigators amass evidence of rampant illegal hiring at the plant, which has been called “a kosher ‘Jungle.’ ”

The conditions at the Agriprocessors plant cry out for the cautious and deliberative application of justice.

Two days after immigrants and their advocates marched in Postville, Agriprocessors released this statement:

The founders of Agriprocessors, the Rubashkin family, are a Jewish refugee family that escaped the clutches of Communism decades ago. Aron and Rivka Rubashkin fled Soviet Russia after experiencing oppression in the anti religious regime. Mrs. Rubashkin’s uncles were imprisoned in Siberia due to their religious beliefs. Mr. Rubashkin noted: “As immigrants in America we found freedom and opportunity. We fully understand the pain and suffering which immigrants are going through in building better lives.”

Agriprocessors is dedicated to providing economic prosperity, quality jobs and a safe environment for all its employees. Chaim Abrahams, a company spokesman, explained: “We are committed to follow all federal, state and local regulations in our plant.” In reiterating the company policy, Mr. Rubashkin pointed to the hiring of Jim Martin, a former US Attorney in the state of Missouri, as the chief compliance officer of Agriprocessors. “ He is insuring that our company excels in the area of compliance to government regulation” noted Abrahams. Among other things, Mr. Martin established a 24-hour anonymous hotline for any complaints of workers.

Since the plant opened in 1988, it has created a new era of prosperity in the region. The plant has created jobs, and given a boost to the area. Our plant is modern, clean, and consistently focused on food safety and the safety of our workers.

Agriprocessors is deeply concerned about the plight of the immigrant families in Postville. The Rubashkin family feels that it can help others. Aron Rubashkin explained “As an immigrant family we want to provide our workers with the opportunity to share in the American dream. In recent weeks we have been helping the local families with their daily needs”.

Sue Fishkoff was in Postville, Iowa for yesterday’s rally there on behalf of the workers at Agriprocessors. Click here for her story.

Perhaps the biggest name from the Jewish organizational world to take part was Gideon Aronoff, president and CEO of HIAS. Here’s the text of his speech:

Statement of Gideon Aronoff
President and CEO, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
Postville Iowa, July 27, 2008

Why are we all here in Postville on this Sunday afternoon? The simple answer can be found in the lessons of the Hebrew Bible - in the book of Genesis - where we are taught that we are - in fact - “our brothers’ keepers.”

This core Jewish teaching goes far in explaining the fundamental Jewish commitment to vulnerable refugees and immigrants of all faiths and backgrounds. We at HIAS, the American Jewish community’s international migration agency, have sought for 127 years to put these values into action. As both Americans and as Jews, we have worked to ensure that our country’s immigration laws reflect the promise that the great American-Jewish poet and HIAS volunteer, Emma Lazarus, described in her poem The New Colossus – “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free…”

We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. We are responsible. As Americans, we are responsible to see that our country addresses its problems directly, and does not simply dump them on the backs of the Mexican and Guatemalan immigrant workers at Agriprocessors, or on the community of Postville that they called home.

The raid at AgriProcessors should not have happened. Last year the President and Congress had a chance to fix our broken immigration system and create a new legal immigration system that honors core American values and serves essential American interests. They failed to live up to their responsibilities.

By now, millions of undocumented workers – including those arrested at AgriProcessors – who came to the United States simply to work and support their families – not to harm this country – should have been on the path to legal status and potentially citizenship. This would have been a long process, with appropriate penalties, but the immigrant workers would have been out of the shadows, able to fight exploitation, and as legal residents able to call on the government to protect them.

The AgriProcessors raid is part of the legacy of failed immigration reform. Instead of a national solution to a national problem, we now have a mishmash of state and local immigration proposals, scattershot raids, unworkable solutions like the border fence, and billions of dollars spent chasing after undocumented immigrant workers. Employers who need more immigrant workers than the tiny quota our law provides still have no legal avenues. Fundamentally, we must recognize that we cannot enforce our way out of this problem. The economic and social forces that drive immigration to the United States and around the world are simply far too strong.

The people of Postville are bearing the brunt of this federal non policy. For the undocumented workers, the punishment does not fit the crime. Criminal prosecution and months of jail time are not morally appropriate. There was no intent to harm anyone – they were simply playing by the rules of our defacto illegal immigration system. Now many of the workers sit in jail, families are separated and others live in fear that they may be next. And for the community of Postville – the schools, the businesses, the churches – the raid has meant massive dislocation and harm to a once thriving small town.

The raid at AgriProcessors typifies what our country faces in the wake of national failure on immigration reform. For many of those in the Jewish community who have yet to join in the mobilization for immigration reform, the raid is a wake up call. The kosher meat produced here sustains life for so many. We must pay attention to how this product is produced.

If, as alleged, AgriProcessors violated labor, health and safety laws then they should be prosecuted to protect their workers – legal and undocumented alike – and the entire community. If AgriProcessors, like countless employers across the country, relied on undocumented workers to fill vital labor needs then they should be penalized, not just the workers. But more importantly for the future of our country, a rational relationship must be created between our economic realities and our immigration laws.

We in the Jewish community are taught the preeminent importance of welcoming, protecting and loving the stranger. We remember the thousands of years of expulsion and dispersion of Jewish history where we were forced by anti-Semitism and poverty to migrate in search of security, freedom and opportunity.

These lessons – and our community’s interests in pluralism, economic vitality, social integration and security – compel us to insist on humane and just treatment of immigrants. We also must work to end to the chaos, violence, death and exploitation that come from the failure to fix our broken immigration system. The government must take responsibility and do its job. But we in the Jewish community – and all in the broader American community – must also heed the biblical injunction to be our brothers’ keepers.

Our values and our interests require that we care for the stranger – the immigrant – when he or she is in need. We also must and stand with Postville and other communities across the country that have been devastated by raids and failed immigration policy. These are the new frontlines of the immigration struggle. And that is why I, and we, are here today.

On the heels of Sunday’s interfaith rally in Postville, the National Council of Young Israel has announced it is planning a mission of its own to the beleaguered Iowa town on July 31. Here’s the purpose of the trip, which will involve “several dozen Jewish community and rabbinic leaders,” according to NCYI’s Pesach Lerner:

This mission is meant to provide Jewish leaders from across the United States with a factual perspective of the true situation at the Agriprocessors plant, untainted by the rumors and innuendos that have been circulating in many circles. As one of the major producers of kosher meat in the U.S., the success or failure of Agriprocessors is an issue that will directly impact Jewish communities that purchase kosher meat and poultry across the country.  The situation warrants that we approach this with an open mind and obtain a first-hand account of the situation so that we can draw our own conclusion for the betterment of the American Jewish community.

The trip is to include a tour of the Agriprocessors plant, meetings with slaughterhouse officials — including newly hired compliance officer Jim Martin — as well the Postville’s mayor, who will take the group on a tour. Lerner and his troop might take the opportunity to ask the mayor about reports that Agriprocessors’ new hires are raising the town’s crime rates.

Michael Freund devotes his column in Tuesday’s Jerusalem Post to the increasingly acrimonious battle between differing Orthodox camps in the battle over conversions in Israel. Less than three weeks before Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the destruction of the Holy Temple as a result of “sin’at chinam,” — infighting among the Jewish people — we’re at it again, Freund writes.

one of the consequences of the ruling by the haredi-dominated Rabbinical High Court retroactively annulling conversions performed by religious Zionist Rabbi Haim Druckman was to swing open the floodgates of hateful intra-Orthodox rhetoric…

While the dispute between the two camps pre-dates the establishment of the state, driven by ideological differences over Zionism, events in recent years have further heightened the discord.

Disagreements over how to oppose the 2005 Gaza withdrawal, and controversy surrounding the observance of shmita, brought to the fore a sense of loathing and even hate that simply has no place in a spiritually-oriented community.

Frankly speaking, this is not the Torah way.

And if cooler heads don’t prevail, and soon, it could cause lasting damage to the inner fabric of Orthodox Jewry, potentially tearing the community apart.

Freund also makes several suggestions for healing the rift.

The New York Post had a package on Sunday taking aim at the Kabbalah Centre.

Allan Nadler, director of the Jewish studies program at Drew University, wrote an piece slamming the take on Jewish mysticism being sold to and sold by celebrities:

It is a vulgar distortion and shamelessly self-promoting abuse, by Hollywood’s Kabbalah Centre, of an ancient, noble and highly esoteric canon of Jewish mystical teachings.

Real kabbalah followers quietly devote themselves to the study of the sacred Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the Torah and rabbinical literature, and their profound teachings about the nature of God.

The two most prominent principles of real kabbalah, shared by all devotees, is a strong reticence, bordering on secrecy, and a stoically unforgiving denial of the basest yearnings of their egos, to say nothing of their loins.

Hollywood kabbalah is directed to our basest and most narcissistic impulses - its barely literate books and Web site are filled with breathless promises of eternal bliss and every imaginable form of personal gratification.

However well reasoned and written, Nadler’s piece will probably do little to slow the Kabbalah Centre. But the other main article — shining a light on the center’s 10 free parking passes — could prove to be quite a nuisance:

There are about 400 permits given annually to clergy and houses of worship, but religious groups usually get just one or two such passes - not 10. So far, the city has no plans to cut the number of placards given to private groups as prescribed by city law, a City Hall spokesman said.

But with the city slashing the number of placards given to its workers, it’s time to take a hard look at other groups who get the benefit, said Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group critical of placard abuse.

“There really can’t be any rationale for giving parking perks to private citizens,” Norvell said. “It doesn’t make sense. These sorts of permits should be at the top of the chopping block.”

City officials initially denied that religious institutions, including the Kabbalah Centre, got the plum passes.

“They have to be fakes,” a spokesman insisted.

The following day - after The Post provided photos of the parking permits in cars left outside the center - officials admitted that the center was given the permits.

Several of the cars sat outside the center for nearly six hours, violating the permits’ three-hour limit.

Yesterday we linked to an opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post criticizing Orthodox outreach programs aimed at non-Orthodox young people. One of the groups in question — the Orthodox Union’s NCSY — has actually been receiving some good press, with participants on one of its Israel trips visiting the home of Ehud Goldwasser, one of the two slain soldiers returned by Hezbollah on Wednesday.

The New York Times:

In Nahariya, the hometown of Sergeant Goldwasser, which is a few miles
south of Rosh Hanikra, residents and a busload of American teenagers in the country for a summer education program lighted candles and prayed.

The Jerusalem Post:

At one point, in front of the two story red roofed Nahariya home where the Goldwassers were sitting waiting for news, a bus load of American teens touring Israel pulled up and lit a few tea lights on the sidewalk.

“When we heard what was happening here we wanted to come and show our support,” said Gwenn Barney of Pittsburgh.

Here’s the press release issued by the O.U., with comments from some of the participants: (more…)

With a lawsuit pitting a mother and father against each other over whether to circumcise their son, the Oregonian takes a look at the ritual — and the forces fighting against it.

In addition, the paper interviews a Jewish woman about her decision not to circumcise her son:

Was [the father's] argument persuasive?

Well, I couldn’t get my mind around it. If I were having a daughter, why wouldn’t she want a visceral, spiritual experience?

Then I asked myself, would I really accept this practice without question? It’s not something I do, especially in regards to another person’s body. I had been doing so much to protect my son — eating well, walking, doing prenatal yoga. And no matter what people told me, I could not imagine a way in which circumcision would not hurt him.

What about medical arguments?

Research suggests no medical reason to do it. Why cut off a piece of a child’s body if I don’t have to? I didn’t believe this is what would make my son Jewish.

What will?

Celebrating Shabbat, keeping Tikkun Olam (Hebrew for “repairing the world”). Being Jewish is internal, a way of connecting to the rest of the world, to tradition and to history. It is a way of questioning as well.

What about the argument that circumcision connects generations of Jewish men to each other and to God?

I did think about the Holocaust, how people had not been able to practice circumcision — or risked their lives to do so. That was impressive to me.