Rabbi Shlomo Levin, spiritual leader of Milwaukee’s Modern Orthodox Lake Park Synagogue, has an opinion piece in J the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. calling on the Orthodox establishment to start certifying the working conditions at kosher meat companies:

The Orthodox Union states clearly that its supervision relates only to whether food is permitted to be eaten. It does not consider labor issues, animal cruelty, environmental impact or anything else of this nature and has no plans to start doing so. Why not? For many reasons.

The list of potential issues to include in expanded supervision is nearly endless. The government already regulates some of these matters; the O.U. lacks the required resources and expertise.

And many of these concerns are not uniquely Jewish, while the O.U.’s purpose is to serve the special needs of the Jewish community.

There is nothing wrong with the O.U. conducting itself in this manner, as long as we understand what the O.U. symbol means. A product is kosher to eat, but whether the company manufacturing that product is kosher to do business with is unknown.

What we need is not a replacement for the current kosher supervision system, but an addition to it.

Since how a business treats its workers, the environment and its animals is important, we need another mechanism by which consumers can receive that information.

The Conservative movement has taken some steps to form a “hechsher tzedek” kosher certification focused on the above issues. Some other small, independent groups have done the same.

The Orthodox kashrut establishment, however, due to its large existing infrastructure of supervisors, would be able to produce a new certification with the greatest ease, efficiency and speed.

As kosher consumers, let’s make clear that we want them to do so. Only if we as consumers make known that we will base our purchasing decisions on the presence or absence of such a new symbol is it likely that substantial action will be taken.

Marc Perelman reports in the Forward that “a recent flurry of signals from Al Qaeda leaders has fueled concerns among terrorism experts that Al Qaeda could be setting up to launch an attack on Israel.”

The worries about an impending attack actually grow out of the apparent struggles of the terrorist network, visible in mounting criticism from former members and leading Muslim theologians.

In recent weeks, the CIA chief has claimed that Al Qaeda had suffered setbacks in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and lengthy exposés in The New Yorker and The New Republic have detailed the inner debates raging within Al Qaeda, especially due to resentment over its indiscriminate killing of Muslims.

This perceived weakening has some experts predicting that Al Qaeda leaders would seek to repair the group’s image — and prove the skeptics wrong — with a spectacular attack on Israel, the one target on which all Muslim extremists seem to be able to agree.

The New Republic and the New Yorker both have long articles about Al Qaida’s problems in the Muslim world.

We’re a little overdue for an Agriprocessors update, and as always, there’s some choice nuggets to report.

• Bruce Braley, the Iowa Democrat whose district includes part of Postville, made a pointed statement on the Agriprocessors situation, saying the company shouldn’t get any more second chances. Braley was responding to an inquiry concerning Iowa’s decision to reduce by three-fourths the $182,000 fine levied against the company for safety violations. The Iowa Workforce Development’s labor division said leniency was warranted because the company plans to improve. “You have to keep pressuring [Agriprocessors] to engage in the right behavior,” Braley said.
• Folks in Postville have told me that more subpoenas have been issued at the Agriprocessors plant, though details are sketchy about who is being summoned. This news follows a report late last month that a close associate of the Rubashkins had been summoned to appear before a grand jury. All this is sure to fuel even more speculation that the government is planning to bring company officials (or former officials, as the case may be) up on criminal charges. The U.S. Attorney’s Office refused to comment.
• The Associated Press ran a story this week on continuing fears of price hikes for kosher meat. I’m proud to say we were ahead on this, but the AP did add an interesting wrinkle: Even if Agri can get itself back up to speed, it will almost certainly have to pay documented workers more than the undocumented, or falsely documented, ones it had previously employed, which would likely undermine the company’s major competitive advantage: cost.
• Eight kosher summer camps in the midwest have found a non-Agri supplier of kosher meat after the company filled an order for meat with a shipment that was two years past its date.
• Leah Koenig has an interesting interview with a former Agri kosher supervisor on her food blog, The Jew & the Carrot. His take: “It seems very typical considering that the way they managed the company is kind of unprofessional …I don’t think [the Rubashkins are] monsters or deliberately trying to hurt anyone. It’s their lack of professionalism.”
• In a sign of how hopelessly far apart the ultra-Orthodox are from the rest of the Jewish community on this, a religious blog published this frontal assault on Conservative and Reform Jews, accusing their leaders of cynically exploiting the Agri situation under the guise of genuinely caring about kashrut.
• And finally, the folks who claim responsibility for getting the Agri ball rolling sent us this heartwarming story this week: A PETA investigator sent thousands of dollars worth of vegetarian food to the Postville church that has been helping families affected by the raid. PETA, by the way, might not have a taste for meat, but they certainly do for irony.

• Borat director Larry Charles and comedian Bill Maher have teamed up on a new film, Religulous, which ridicules the most ridiculous behavior of individuals and communities of faith. To promote the film, the team has launched Disbeliefnet, a spoof on News Corp’s religious community site Beliefnet. Among their targets are the kosher phone and haredi anti-Zionist sect Neturei Karta.
• E! remarks on mock-mekubal Ashton Kutcher’s Omer beard.
• Ex-mock-mekubal Britney Spears is on a Costa Rican vacation with anti-Semitic conspiracy buff Mel Gibson.
• Valleywag shares exclusive photos from the wedding of Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who had a lavish Jewish ceremony in Jamaica last week.
• Semites on Bikes, a Jewish motorcycle club, is raising money for the Humane Society with a kitty porn calendar.
• The BBC has footage of masked Israeli settlers physically attacking Palestinians in the West Bank.

At least one Jewish organization is psyched by the California Supreme Court ruling to allow same-sex marriages. The secular Sholem Community and its vegvayzer (that’s Yiddish for leader, apparently), Hershl Hartman, is planning to officiate for same-sex couples. The full release follows:

Los Angeles — With the California ban now lifted on gay marriages, The Sholem Community, a progressive, secular Jewish organization, is set to provide support to both Jewish and intercultural gay and lesbian couples who wish to marry.

The Sholem Community’s education director Hershl Hartman, a Secular Jewish Leader (madrikh in Hebrew, vegvayzer in Yiddish) who is certified to perform marriages, welcomed the Court’s ruling. “I am thrilled that the California Supreme Court acted in the interest of equality, justice, and humanity by extending a fundamental civil right,” said Hartman.
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The Boston Globe reports on one local synagogue’s controversial plan to revitalize its Hebrew school: Read the rest of this entry »

Over at JTA Election Central, we posted on Liz Cheney’s not so veiled swiped at the Bush-Rice policy of pressing for the Palestinian elections that culminated with a Hamas victory. Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo linked to our post, under the headline “All in the Family,” referring to Cheney’s vice-presidential dad.

Well, later in the week at the AIPAC conference, a Cheney family cousin (Barack something or other) also took a swipe at the Bush administration over the issue:

We must isolate Hamas unless and until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and abide by past agreements. There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organizations. That is why I opposed holding elections in 2006 with Hamas on the ballot. The Israelis and the Palestinian Authority warned us at the time against holding these elections. But this Administration pressed ahead, and the result is a Gaza controlled by Hamas, with rockets raining down on Israel.

Rice is sticking to her guns. Here’s what she had to say about the topic in a recent essay that she wrote for Foreign Affairs: Read the rest of this entry »

Nextbook’s Jonathan Rosen has an op-ed in the NY Times on the hoopoe. Also, here’s more on kosher giraffe milk.

JTA correspondent Dina Kraft caught up with New York Times columnist and author Tom Friedman in Tel Aviv last week, where he was speaking at a conference sponsored by the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank.

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The Israeli press is all atwitter about whether or not Israel should launch a major military operation to curb Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on Israeli communities down south. (Read about JTA’s Jacob Berkman dodging Palestinian rockets last week here.)

The consensus, it seems, is against an operation.

“It didn’t work before, and it won’t work this time either. It is merely an attempt to buy time that won’t lead us anywhere,” writes Ariella Ringel-Hoffman in Ynet:

The proposal for one decisive blow should be replaced with creative ideas that would bring Gilad Shalit back home and expand the lull agreement, so it will have the potential of creating dramatic change in the region.

In an editorial Wednesday, Ha’aretz advises pursuing an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire with Hamas rather than launching a war Israel cannot win:

There is no persuasive reason for a military action, except the fact that we cannot accept continued firing on Israel, and Hamas’ continued arming. In contrast, there are a number of reasons for a cease-fire, however temporary. The main reason is that Hamas can no more be eradicated than could Hezbollah.

The Jerusalem Post’s reliably hawkish Caroline Glick finds the idea of a ceasefire politically expedient but strategically disastrous:

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