Intrigue At The Highest Levels Of Government

Update:

Representatives of the OU, KAJ, Star-K and Lubicom (the kosher industry trade and PR orgainzation that puts on Kosher Fest and publishes Kosher Today) appear to have been in a meeting just over one year ago with the United States Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman.

The purpose of the meeting?

Allegedly to amend UDSD Directive 6900.2 to favor AgriProcessors/Rubashkin and allow the throat-ripping and other procedures seen on the PETA video. This meeting occurred shortly after PETA's first complaint to Rubashkin and the OU, but before PETA filed a complaint with the USDA.

The first version of the USDA Directive 6900.2 was issued on October 7, 2003. The revised version was issued on November 25, 2003. The rabbis' meeting with USDA Secretary Ann M. Veneman allegedly took place sometime between those two dates.

PETA's first written correspondence with Rubashkin is dated June 18, 2003. PETA's threat to go public with its findings is dated November 3, 2003, right in the time-period specified above.

Why didn't PETA file a complaint earlier with the USDA? Because PETA was trying to keep the issue quiet and to work with the rabbis and with Rubashkin.

But when that proved impossible, PETA sent in an undercover investigator to video the plant. That process – trying repeatedly to work with Rubashkin, failing to gain cooperation from AgriProcessors, finding the volunteer and sending him in undercover, getting the video and trying to work with Rubashkin and the OU again – took just over one year.

More to come as this story develops.

Comments

[D Brand]

PETA wanted to keep it quiet? PETA raises money by raising publicity. I sincerely doubt that they ever had any intentions of keeping this to themselves.

What shocks me more, Shmarya, is that you continue to attribute only the noblest of intentions to PETA, while, at the very same time, you note that any Rabbi that speaks in defense of Rubashkin has some type of nefarious intentions. If not evil, you falsely say that Rabbis involved have a "financial interest" and are therefore not reliable. For the record, a Rabbi who goes into any plant for Hashgacha is just doing his job. He makes not one cent more by ensuring that more items come out kosher. I just cannot understand the way you have positioned PETA vs. the Rabbinical organizations and Rubashkin.

[Shmarya]

The rabbis testifying for Rubashkin are overwhelmingly in business relationships with him. As for the rest of your charges, the documents support PETA's contention that they worked to resolve this problem quietly, and did so for more than one year before going public.

In short – the facts support PETA.

[fnu lnu]

It is unclear whether PETA tried to handle the matter quietly. The letters were sent before the video and, if memory serves, at approximately the time that PETA was engaging in their Holocaust-chicken campaign. At that time, PETA had low negotiating power to deal with this, they had no proof, they were held in disrepute because of their campaign and a good case can be made that there was reason not to take them seriously at that time. Moreover, the PETA letters are themselves dated months apart, indicating a low priority.

After the video when PETA negotiating power was maximum they went to the media and not Rubashkin, OU, KAJ etc (well, they went to them like a day before the media but thats clearly just going through the motions).

PETA fund raising IS a partial motivation no doubt and they are most likely trying to embaress the OU, Rubashkin etc. for doing so. Every time Rubashkin's cries anti-Semitism (even though changes were implemented as a result of PETA actions) and they story makes it to the general media, PETA makes more money.

Anyway, until now, I'd thought the OU, KAJ etc. were caught with their pants down and now we would have greater kashrut vigilence. If a case can be shown that they knew about this beforehand, indeed, legislated to permit this, then the next step is to see (i) why they feel it is appropriate to be untruthful to their members/ the frum world now, and (ii) why tzar baalei chayim was not a factor to them (should the kashrut organizations/did they have procedures in place to identify that), and (iii) what can be done to prevent this from happening in the future and not only in the US and not only with meat (e.g. what if a kashrut organization was certifying food from a place that used slave [child?] labor)

There are other issues: for example, it is very possible Rubashkin could have made a case for trachea removal if to not do so was prohibitively expensive. But it was not evidently, so why was that pain chosen in order to save a few pennies? Why is Rubashkin maintaining their hard line when, to this kosher person, they sound like either the self-interested or fools.

Why are the OU and Rubashkin people claiming there is no consciousness or pain when the published experts disagree, the layman's view of the video is no different,and there are halachic sources that say as much? How does such circling the wagons and untruthfullness possibly help the community? Are they concerned the frum might eat less meat?

R' S.R. Hirsch, KAJ's founder, called for a democraticly elected frum Jewish leadership (and he did not live in a democracy). Would that we followed the vision he provided; one hopes our community would be very different.

[Stephen Mendelsohn]

BS"D

In regard to a kashrut certification from a place that uses immoral labor practices, it would be worth investigating whether Rubashkin is hiring illegal immigrants. Most of his non-Jewish employees are Mexicans, Russians, Ukrainians, et. al, and saftey signs in the slaughterhouse are posted in multiple languages. It's the kind of hazardous work that other people would not perform, and having illegals on the payroll would lead to a more compliant workforce, because these folks would never do anything to risk deportation. Quite simply, the unsafe working conditions captured on the video (for the humans, never mind the cattle!) raise the whole issue of "ethical kashrut" and the proper role of a mashgiach in such circumstances.