The Modern-Day Blood Libels

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz, Editor and Publisher of Yated newspaper

…Think back to the Rubashkin saga.

An article by a writer who devoted much time and ink to covering the Agriprocessors kosher meat company provides insight into the thinking of those who targeted the plant and the people who owned and ran it.

Nathaniel Popper related what caused him to go on a tear against the Postville slaughterhouse: “What was it that so riveted our attention? It was never articulated and it took me a while to see it, but this one story had managed to distill some of the most essential questions and issues that are dividing and defining the Jewish community and indeed religious communities of all stripes today.

“These divisions are, at their most basic, about the proper way to interpret religious law and values: Should we read our ancient texts literally or adapt them to a changing world?

“The Agriprocessors plant slaughtered chickens and cows according to a group of laws – known as kashrut – that have been refined and codified over centuries in books like the Shulchan Aruch. Bearded, Orthodox rabbis had buzzed around the Agriprocessors plant making sure these laws were being followed.

“When allegations about the working conditions at the company first came to public attention through my 2006 reporting, these Orthodox rabbis vouched for the company. But a group of progressive, socially engaged, and mostly clean-shaven rabbis decided to visit the plant themselves. After a tour of the plant and town, these rabbis said that while the company seemed to be in compliance with narrow kosher laws, there was less attention being paid to another, less codified set of Jewish rules about the proper way to treat workers.

“These rules do not loom large in everyday Jewish life – there is little contemporary rabbinic legislation on the proper minimum wage – but they are strikingly consonant with modern concerns about human dignity and equality. The rabbis pushing this agenda might be compared, in secular terms, with Supreme Court justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer who seek to interpret old legal doctrines through a modern lens. As part of this push, these rabbis, who were representing the Conservative movement, created a new program, known as the Hekhsher Tzedek or Justice Certification, which aims to evaluate the business ethics of kosher producers.

“The Hekhsher Tzedek generated intense pushback in large segments of the Orthodox community, where there is a belief in strict adherence to the laws set down in the Jewish holy texts – these are the Antonin Scalias of the Jewish world, to continue the Supreme Court analogy. One influential Orthodox rabbi told me, ‘I don’t keep kosher because of some sense that it is the right thing to do socially – I do it because G-d said so.'”

We, who observe Torah and the laws of kashrus, are viewed and depicted as members of a backward group that doesn’t care about the welfare of animals and how people are treated. We are money-grubbing shylocks, looking to squeeze profit from pounds of flesh.

We let hair grow on our faces. We aren’t clean-shaven and professional-looking. We aren’t progressive in action or thought, and we refuse to adapt to the modern era. We prefer to remain cultists frozen in a time warp.

That is the perception that the media sold with a straight face.

Popper also decried the campaign to help pay for Shalom Mordechai Rubashkin‘s defense: “This campaign for Sholom Rubashkin,” he wrote, “has faced skepticism from progressive Jews – many of whom had spent months trying to help the immigrants put in jail after the raid. In standing up for the immigrants, the non-Orthodox rabbis have fought for a more explicitly universal vision of mankind, in which a Guatemalan Catholic has the same weight as a Brooklyn Jew.”

The people who battled Rubashkin, shechitah and the Shulchan Aruch deny that we are an Am Hanivchor. They are bothered by our success. They seek to undermine our way of life and target the things dearest to us.

Popper took one last jab at observant Jews in his article: “It is the very vitriol and divisive nature of the Agriprocessors debates that is one of the most characteristic elements of the increasingly polarized Jewish community of today. Progressive Jews passionate about social justice and Orthodox Jews unswerving in Talmudic law have interacted less and less in recent years, and disagreed more and more…”

To be clear, the battle wasn’t only against Agri. It was against Jews who hew to the Shulchan Aruch and Talmudic law. It was just another shot at us from those who see themselves as inheritors of the mantle of the Maskilim of the past centuries who also did not rest as they used the media and government to agitate against ehrliche Yidden.

When charges were brought against the company for hiring underage workers and taking advantage of illegal immigrants, we asked our readers not to rush to judgment, but to wait until the accused had a chance to defend themselves in a court of law. All the other charges bandied about in the media were allegations based on hearsay and did not deserve to be treated as fact, though regrettably they were.

In fact, when the government did go to court on the charges relating to worker abuse, the defendants were found not guilty. It made no difference, though. The narrative had been repeated so many times and the stereotype of religious Jews had already set in. Thus, the not-guilty finding following a fair hearing was a mere asterisk.

The leading media in this country formed a figurative lynch mob and went after Agriprocessors with the obvious intent of destroying the company. They slammed it with all kinds of false allegations, as if it were a cattle-and-man-killing jungle of the early 1900s.

When Amaleik perceives that he can’t destroy us, he slanders us and tells the world that we don’t know how to treat animals or people. He says that we are mean, vicious and heartless. The compliant media promotes the canards.

In September of 2008, the nation’s “newspaper of record” ran a story headlined “Kosher Plant Accused of Inhumane Slaughter.” PETA, the radical animal rights group, was behind the accusation.

In the fifth paragraph, the article stated that the Department of Agriculture (USDA) found the plant to be “in full compliance with humane slaughter regulations.”

The sensational headline was intended not to inform, but to aid and abet the smear campaign against kosher slaughter.

Examples abound of the attempts to minimize our accomplishments and cause our neighbors and those less observant to scorn us and to deride our accomplishments in this country.

The New York Times, in its lead editorial on August 1, 2008, described the Agri plant as follows:

“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… The plant has been called a kosher ‘Jungle.’ …The conditions at the Agriprocessors plant cry out for the cautious and deliberate application of justice…”

It wasn’t that long ago that pogroms were perpetrated against the Jewish population by illiterate peasants egged on by the Church and government authorities.

Today, thankfully, they don’t come after us with sticks, knives and guns; blood libels are a thing of the past. Today, instead of knives and spears, the warmongers implements of battle are words put forth by compliant media outlets.

Read the full article on Yated.com