Chabad Spokesman: It's Not The Rubashkins' Fault – "These Are Simple People. They Are A Family Of Butchers"

And who is that Chabad spokesman?

Rabbi…

…Dovid Eliezrie, who is identified in the article as "a California rabbi who has been assisting the family with the media."

Dovid Eliezrie was also one of the rabbis on the Agriprocessors-paid junket to Postville.

The section of the AP story dealing with Eliezrie and various Rubashkin crimes and lapses is posted below.

When you're finished reading it, check out my Jewcy piece and my Rubashkin index page to see what the AP left out.

…In 2004, however, the animal rights group PETA recorded a gruesome video of the company's operation that showed cattle staggering about in apparent pain after their throats had been slit and their tracheas partly removed. Agriprocessors, while defending its techniques as a religious ritual, agreed to change some practices.

One of Aaron's sons, the influential Brooklyn rabbi Moshe Rubashkin, pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2002 after writing $325,000 in bad checks related to a family textile business. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

A son-in-law, Menachim Balkany, a political fundraiser who hobnobbed with mayors and congressmen, was charged in 2003 with misusing a $700,000 federal grant. The prosecution was dropped when he agreed to make restitution.

Agriprocessors also found itself battling a lawsuit filed by a bankruptcy trustee overseeing the remnants of a New York health and beauty supply company whose owner had pleaded guilty to a multimillion-dollar bank fraud.

The trustee said the company, Allou Distributors, had a host of suspicious transactions on its books, including $2.9 million in unexplained payments to Agriprocessors. The lawsuit demanded Agriprocessors return the payments, which it claimed were part of the scheme to hide Allou's assets.

Agriprocessors insisted it did nothing wrong and had been supplying Allou with surplus meat, but it agreed last summer to pay $1.4 million to settle the case.

More trouble may lie on the horizon.

Moshe Rubashkin pleaded guilty this year to storing hazardous waste without a permit at a defunct, family-owned textile plant in Allentown, Pa. His son pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents during the investigation. They have yet to be sentenced.

Supporters say the Rubashkins are no scofflaws, just unsophisticated businessmen who made some mistakes as their company grew.

"These are simple people. They are a family of butchers," said Dovid Eliezrie, a California rabbi who has been assisting the family with the media.

Scott Frotman, a spokesman for the Food and Commercial Workers union, had a different take, calling the company's treatment of its immigrant work force "morally reprehensible."

"They blame the media. They blame us. They refuse to accept responsibility for anything that is going on in that plant," he said.

State and federal investigators are looking into various alleged violations at the company, such as employing underage employees, not paying workers, improperly using hazardous chemicals and not having alarms that could be heard by employees. The Rubashkins have not been charged.

"We are God-fearing people and we believe in the American system and we believe it will ultimately turn out OK," Getzel Rubashkin, 24, a grandson of the family's patriarch and an employee at Agriprocessors, told The AP in a recent interview.…

[Hat Tips: B, Lawrence Reisman, Ken, Harold.]

Comments

[rebitzman]

++Supporters say the Rubashkins are no scofflaws, just unsophisticated businessmen who made some mistakes as their company grew.

"These are simple people. They are a family of butchers," said Dovid Eliezrie, a California rabbi who has been assisting the family with the media. ++

This is a reasonable excuse IF the company recognizes that it has outgrown the skillset of its leaders, hires some quality managers, delegates propery authority to them and then lets them do their job.

Hiding behind step 1 just won't cut it.

[steve]

A family of butchers indeed. A family that lives on butchering the truth.

[state of the Jews]

Rebitzman:
Agri had professional, qualified staff that came from other slaughter houses, well familiar with rules and regulations. But if your boss demands faster production at lower cost, or else, the best professional will weigh his options and act accordingly. Keep in mind up until this year and skyrocketing corn prices, Iowa was an economically depressed state. Under such circumstances professional staff will work to keep their jobs and if this means bending rules and ignoring problems, so be it.
A fish stinks from the head down. The problem stems from the owners and given their unwillingness to do tshuvah and admit they were wrong I don't believe change is possible. They simply believe this is all a conspiracy, planned or not planned by union people, church people, anti-Semites, jealous competitors - its all caused by someone else. Everything they have done since the raid points to a continuation of the same mindset that got them into trouble in the first place. Everything is a problem - not to solve - but to get around.

[rebitzman]

++But if your boss demands faster production at lower cost, or else++

Note my last qualifiers - delegate proper authority to them and then let them do their job.

[steve]

You forgot their favorite excuse- poor PR.

[Isaac Balbin]

Ho Hum. This thread is becoming so boring. Same "clever quips" from the same people. Perhaps you need to start up failedbutchers.typepad.com or jewsforpeta.typepad.com or whatever and migrate many threads over there.

In the meanwhile, yes I know, nobody is forcing me to read, I reckon it would be good to hear back about this issue when/if it hits the courts. How many more times do we have to read the history of the family yadayada ... it's plain boring by now.

Obsessed is a word that comes to mind.

[rebitzman]

Isaac - enjoyed your writing on the subject of hallacah and adoption, and share your pasion for single malts......but if you have nothing to add here - just lay out.

+{+I reckon it would be good to hear back about this issue when/if it hits the courts.++

Think we agree on this as well - in all likelihood, its not going to happen.

[yidandahalf]

I do not think the Rubash-ins will change in any way for the benefit of the kosher consumer or address any of the issues other interests have brought up and continue to demand changes over. As long as they know the OU and Chabad are covering their back their neurotic mindset will continue on its hellbound trip. They will simply unearth other PR 'professionals' and opportunities, discover new means of spreading pseudo-Judaic propaganda over the wounds they create, and rely on their old boy network of corrupt government officials. Nothing will change them apart from the government's ceasing to be a part of the filth and a boycott.

[shmuel]

Nothing will change them? STOP BUYING THEIR CRAPPY TREIF PRODUCTS and let them go out of business. That will change them.

[bernice]

It is of interest that in the Halacha it always refers to the ones that we must be vigilant and can't trust "the Butchers".

[bernice]

The Shach (Y.D. 81:26), quoting the Hagaos Ashiri, tells us that the ingestion of non-kosher food items has two effects: (a) It changes one's character traits, and (b) it causes damage to people in their old age. What type of damage in old age is not clear, but in all probability it refers to the mental infirmities that we often associate with old age.
But let us explore a bit the change in character traits that the Shach discusses. Could there be any association with the current problems of struggling teens and youth and non-kosher meat consumption? Or, conversely, is there an association between remarkable spiritual growth and the cessation of eating non-kosher food?
Rav Shlomo Freifeld, zt'l, once asked someone, "Do you know why the 1960s produced a plethora of baalei teshuva? Because in the 1960s a number of people became vegetarians. When this happened, they stopped consuming non-kosher foods, the timtum ha'lev [blockage of the heart] stopped, and they were open to true spiritual growth."

[R]

Bernice the reason the 60's created so many BTs and they were so open minded to spiritualism is due to the drugs they were all on. As for what meat does to you in old age...i know plenty of old frum jews who have senile dementia and all sorts of other problems and the vegetarians also have that problem too.
You can't say "non kosher causes...." because there is no proof to base that on.
What next? Kosher meat is the cure for cancer?

[Carol Ann Varley]

I'm in a fog when it comes to kosher versus non-kosher, but it's clear meat is the culprit.

To paraphrase Archie Bunker (the T.V. character) most people are 'meatheads'; brain-washed to believe meat is necessary for survival.

A step to spiritual growth is to abstain from meat altogether. In terms of health costs and complicity in animal suffering, meat is not worth the price.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Let's cut out all the mysticism. I don't believe that meat- kosher or non-kosher, has magical powers to make one a good or bad person. Bad business practices do make one a bad person, however.

As for the "simple family of butchers" line, it's as disingenuous as Dr. Bones McCoy saying he's a "simple country doctor" as he flies through time-warped space on the Enterprize. (Not that I want to diss Bones).

[Carol Ann Varley]

YL,
The phrase 'simple family of butchers' is so folksy--it screams out for a song.

A possible lyric:
"We are Family,
all of brother butchers and me"

Could you beam-up a parody in your imitable style?

[Carol Ann Varley]

Oops! I'm no songwriter as I meant to say: all MY brother butchers and me.

(I should leave parody to YL--he does a much better job)

You should know scott that there are certain people who are so brash and arrogant that they feel no shame or
embarrassment at all before the Tzaddik or those who are truly pious. This brashness is a sign of
impure ancestry: it is very doubtful if their ancestors stood at Mount Sinai (Nedarim 20). They
have impugned the holiness of the tefilin, which are rooted in the Tree of Life. Instead they have
attached themselves to the Tree of Death. They will be cast out of the Garden of Eden and
thrown into Hell. But a person who repents and feels ashamed of his sins will immediately be
forgiven, and the wisdom and understanding of his soul will be restored. He will be able to expel
the spirit of folly from within him and become worthy of the radiance of the tefilin

[rebitzman]

++Theyhave impugned the holiness of the tefilin, which are rooted in the Tree of Life.++

Copy/pasting from a website without attribution is stealing (see below) even to make a point.

So..in your hurry to smear Shmayra - you stole AND spammed the blog?

I'd LOVE to see your "justification" for your avera.

http://www.breslov.org/modesty.html

[Yochanan Lavie]

Carol: It may be a stretch (when has that stopped me?) but I am parodying the Beatle's "Nowhere Man" which appeared on the American release "Yesterday and Today" with its infamous "butcher" cover:

He's a real butcher man,
Sitting in his Rubbishcan,
Making all his no win plans
For narishkeit.

Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows that he can cheat the Jews,
Isn't he a shit to you and me?
Butcher man, please listen,
You don't know what laws you're missing,
Butcher man, Agriprocessors is at your command.

He's as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Butcher man can you see kids at all?
Doesn't have a point of view,
Speaks out through 5W,
Isn't he a hypocrite, you see?
Butcher man, you should worry,
Don't take your time, hurry,
You will fall, when the DA's office
puts you in the can.

He's a real butcher man,
Sitting in his Postville land,
Making all his nefarious plans
For no-clue bodies.

[Carol Ann Varley]

YL,
Superb! A standing ovation!!!