Was Postville Processing Kosher?

The ICE raid of Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa, came amid fierce claims that workers were not being protected by health, wage, and safety laws. This has raised questions about whether the processing done at the plant met Jewish requirements for the kosher products that were presumably prepared at the plant. Miriam Jordan writes in the Wall Street Journal:

An immigration raid on the country’s largest kosher meatpacking plant has fueled a nationwide debate in the Jewish community about what it really means to be kosher.

The debate flared after May 12 when federal immigration agents raided the country’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors Inc., and ultimately arrested 389 illegal immigrants.

The Postville, Iowa, plant specializes in kosher slaughter, a process that is overseen by rabbis and involves a quick, deep stroke across the throat designed to kill an animal within seconds. The closely monitored process, deemed humane by Jewish law, is designed to spare suffering. But the people doing the work were allegedly treated inhumanely. The raid, an example of the Bush administration’s crackdown on industries employing illegal immigrants, exposed allegations that workers were being underpaid, physically abused, sexually harassed and extorted.

A federal investigation of the plant is under way and immigration officials declined to comment. No officials at Agriprocessors have been charged with wrongdoing, and management declined to be interviewed for this article.

The incident involving alleged mistreatment of immigrants has dismayed some Jewish leaders who say that Jews should be particularly sensitive to human suffering.

“The Jewish narrative for 2,000 years has predominantly been about our powerlessness as unprotected immigrants,” says Shmuly Yanklowitz, co-founder of Uri L’Tzedek, a progressive Orthodox group. The allegations are “particularly embarrassing because of how deeply connected our religious and historical identity and universal moral mandate are to the plight of these workers.”

One such worker, Joel Rucal, is a Guatemalan immigrant who worked on the chicken line before the raid. He says his mother, who also worked at the plant, was arrested and wears a monitoring device around her ankle. Mr. Rucal also listed alleged abuses in the plant including extra shifts without pay and sexual advances by supervisors.

“Sometimes we needed to use the bathroom and they didn’t allow us,” says Mr. Rucal. “We were afraid to say anything because it was the only job we could get.”

Rabbi Weiss Mandl, top supervisory rabbi for kosher certification at the plant, says: “We were not aware of any mistreatment of workers.” However, he added, “we are not involved with cutting and packing…That’s not the kosher part.”

But for Rabbi Morris Allen, kosher is about more than a process. The revelations at Agriprocessors have prompted the conservative rabbi from Mendota Heights, Minn., to call on consumers to avoid the company’s products. The 53-year-old is founder of a movement that advocates for animal and worker welfare in kashrut, food prepared in accordance with Jewish law. Click here for the rest of the story.

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