Recently I attended a large rally to protest the treatment of Latino workers at the Agriprocessors kosher meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa
By RABBI JONATHAN PERLMAN12postv (do not publish again)(photo credit: Avi Katz)An article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
Since the 1990s, I had read scathing reports about the owners of the plant, the Rubashkin family, and their bad rapport with the town's residents, about the unnecessary pain caused to animals through sloppy slaughtering practices and the "enslavement" of foreign workers and abuse through poor wages, beatings, child labor and 17-hour work days.
I had come along with hundreds of others from Minnesota and Chicago to protest the federal raid and imprisonment of 381 undocumented workers from Agriprocessors in May. It was the largest raid of any single site in the history of the U.S. Now fathers and mothers are separated from families, facing five months imprisonment and eventual deportment. Being a close reader of this terrible story from an ethical point of view, I was there to work through my own shame.
I wanted to be present with Mexican and Guatemalan people who have suffered as a result of the cruelty of a Jewish business, engaged in the holy preparation of meat for Jewish consumption no less; a Jewish business cloaked in black apparel of the very pious caught up in a corrupt immigration system that dehumanizes people and breaks up families. I had come embarrassed as one associated with people who claim my values in keeping dietary laws, Torah study, Sabbath and other traditions.
As I entered St. Bridget's Church in Postville for an interfaith service conducted in English, Spanish, and Hebrew, I felt a deep need to do my own teshuva, to ask God to forgive me for not having acted sooner, for continuing to eat Rubashkin meat, for being entertained by the stories coming out of Postville about greed, power and the corruption that comes with it. In Israel, the Agriprocessors story would have been reported as just another one of the endless scandals that divide religious from secular or politicians from law-abiding citizens, stuff that fuels the fires of inter-family gossip, but in the quiet of the American Midwest, the crisis of Postville has been a festering sore, a gaping wound in Jewish-Christian relations.
Father Paul at the church asked the assembly to bless "our Jewish friends" for coming out in great numbers to join the rally. He talked of how the church had provided sanctuary for families during the raids, how "the last time we met here, we were filled with terror and uncertainty" as the police tore mothers and fathers from their children, and how the thousands that had now thronged to the church for the rally had "brought us hope that things can change." Rabbi Alexander Davis of Beth El Synagogue in Minneapolis spoke of the joy of Psalm 146, which sees God's power in "bringing justice to the oppressed, food to the hungry... protecting the stranger, supporting the orphan and the widow, and frustrating the designs of the wicked." But my heart of shame was not assuaged.
I marched next to a Latino teacher keeping a group of school children in order. They dressed in red and held a banner aloft and yelled, "No more raids!" I wanted to tell the teacher how sorry I was as the rally made its first stop at the gates of the slaughterhouse with a giant Hanukka menorah festooned to its roof. The Jew is told to bring the light of goodness into the world, yet how could I ever expect these people to see Jews again as that shining light? Next to me was a young woman under "house arrest" with a monitoring device fastened around her ankle, one of dozens of parents picked up in the May raid. We passed a group of teenagers on the side of the road who had just arrived from Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, looking dumbfounded. The woman marching next to me began to lead the school children in a chant as they waved at the campers, "Los judÃos son nuestros amigos!" "The Jews are our friends!"
In one of the most poignant scenes of the day, the school children read aloud a poem at an abandoned playground called, "We are Latinos." The schoolteacher explained that it was inspired by the Holocaust poem by Franta Brass that the children had studied in school. "We are proud of our people/how dignified they are/ even though we are suppressed/ we will always come back to life." Heartened by these words, I clapped my hands and joined the chant. "Justice for the children! Justice for the children!" Several mothers stood in the back and cried.
At the end of the march, rain fell and we sought shelter back at the church. Speeches continued at the podium faithfully translated into Spanish and English by interpreters, a useful but annoying institution of the day, that united us and divided us at the same time.
We left, and thoughts of the families we left behind clouded my mind. I am not sure how everything will turn out in Postville. Some of the Latino managers have been indicted for fraud; the Rubashkin CEO has stepped down. Immigration laws are still hotly debated in the media and by politicians. Following the rally, Jewish Community Action of Minnesota raised $20,000 in charity. The Heilicher Jewish Day school in Minneapolis will no longer buy from the Rubashkins until the issue is resolved. Several Jewish overnight camps in nearby Wisconsin bought from alternative meat sources this summer. Our local Trader Joe's has stopped carrying Rubashkin meat and other grocery stores are following suit or offering alternatives.
My hope is that the rally will bring Jewish attention towards equalizing human justice with the ritual demands of piety and kosher diet. In Iowa, workers and locals saw Jews marching for righteousness. It was a small effort to undo many years of "hillul Hashem," the desecration of God's name.
An article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
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