Rubashkins Honored Amid Scandal

The Postville Herald-Leader is reporting that Sholom Mordechai and Leah Rubashkin were honored by New York-based Collel Chabad charities with their Founder's Award:

[Postville's] Mayor John Hyman presented the award to the Rubashkins who received a standing ovation from a large contingent of city representatives, employees of Agriprocessors, and business associates.

Read it all here.

Comments

[gil]

Shmarya, if you ever get tired of making up conspiracys got to http://www.westword.com/extra/conspire.html
to generate some new ones

[Paqah]

" Mayor John Hyman presented the award to the Rubashkins who received a standing ovation from a large contingent of city representatives, employees of Agriprocessors, and business associates. "

Oh ! Somebody flew them all in ? Wow !
How reflective of the truth !
Darkei Sholom (Rubashkin ? )

[Pollack family]

The Rubashkins, are the same as […] or even worse.
As as Jew, I'm appaled at the low=life these people represent= the fressing (eating till one blows up)
applies to these two= they should have the happiness from now on, that they allow their butchers (probably former inmates) who slaughter the poor animals from now on.
You hear […]?

[Todd family]

YOU have just made us even more ashamed of "keeping kosher" and paying the high prices for killing animals the way Shalom )peace_ and his […] Leah do so that they can pocket more money in their fat pockets.
Shame on both of you and your slaughterhouse!
Shalom, peace will be in your life, as you have given it in your processing plant- G-d will make sure.

[Jonathan Loring]

You should contact Rabbi Meir Fund of the Flatbush Minyan in Brooklyn, New York. This past Shabbos evening and morning he stood at his pulpit and proclaimed that his congregants should not eat Rubashkin's at this time. I know this because I was there for each service. He handed out hard copies of an email from a Rabbi in Lakewood (at this time I forget his name) that detailed how bad the Rubashkin's plant is. Rabbi Fund's point was that he felt these allegations by the Lakewood Rabbi have good credibility. Until the allegations are totally verified or negated he told people not to use or shop for Rubashkin's products.

[Isa]

I used to live in the Minneapolis area. All the kosher butchers that were not Orthodox have gone out of business as the majority of all kosher consumers of meat seem to be Orthodox. If you are not Orthodox or more precisely shomer Shabbat, then one is not regarded as G-d fearing or trustworthy as lots of money can be made substituting regular meat for kosher meat. My uncle-in-law worked in the Great Northern Meat Market and told this story to me; circa early 1950s, one day a kosher butcher comes in and orders a great quantity of meat and he knew precisely where that meat would end up as ‘kosher’ in that butcher’s shop. That day my uncle-in-law stopped keeping kosher.

I was close once, to pious shochet, this guy was absolutely G-d fearing. He explained there is a difference between ‘observant’ and ‘religious’. Using an extreme example in a different city so as not to get into trouble. He gave the example of someone who is ‘observant’ who dons tefilin through the week, keeps kosher and the Shabbat, but yet cheats and mistreats his workers, his clients and vendors, cheats on his income tax, anything to make a few more bucks and even extracts sex from his secretary. My pious friend said “donning tefilin will do him no good” and I knew what he meant. Using another extreme example of someone who uses a car on Shabbat to go his business. He maintains a scrupulous relationship with all he comes in contact with. For him to cheat anyone is out of the question, he doesn’t even think it. Should he have to let a worker go because of business reasons, he gives the worker a letter so the worker can collect unemployment benefits. His secretary can go to work without fear of being ‘groped’. This fellow knows that G-d rewards and punishes and even though he is far from being ‘observant’ there at least some things he can do. This is an example of ‘religious’.
My pious friend said “Its best to be both”.

In my shul of the 1970s, there was this Orthodox owner of a factory. A year ago I was in a technical college and my lab partner was the son of one of the workers at this factory. The Orthodox owner was loved, nobody ever quit. Not only did everyone get the secular holidays off, if the Jewish holidays occurred during the work week, they got those off too. This is a true example of 'observant’ and 'religious'

I realize there are ‘shades of gray’.

If one is born into the observant community how much G-d fearing does it take to be shomer Shabbat when one’s whole life is depended on being so? Perhaps being G-d fearing has nothing to do with it. I am hinting at something.
Isa