Sholom Rubashkin and Agriprocessors

If you're looking for a summary of the various scandals surrounding Sholom Rubashkin, his family and Agriprocessors, and links to all posts related to them, here they are.

Rubashkin Scandals.

Comments

[ChanaC.]

"Failed Messiah" owner is a Jew hater,don't believe anything he says

[sage]

Wrong!!!

ChanaC is the true Jew hater, the truth be told.

[neighbor girl]

Were there any penalties for Aaron Rubashkin fraudulently hiding assets from US Bancorp? Did he ever turn over his house and shares of stock?

[AGRI-vated Angel]

I feel the profile piece examining Sholom Rubashkin/family/Agri-?, having aired on CNBC's American Greed, is an apt depiction/analysis of the factors that led to the ‘Fall of Agri-Processors’.

The acquiescent compliance Sholom afforded to his family, compounded by the obsequious nature of his/their minions, was a volatile combination which led to devastating results.

I will never understand how Sholom justified his actions/inactions. Everyone involved would have done well to remember . . . that ends do not justify the means.

The key here is to always ask oneself ~
‘Is this what G_d would want me to do?’
. . . or perhaps, ‘Is this legal?’

[Concerned for the Postville Area]

Shmarya,
Great job with the interview on "American GREED" tonite! Nice to finally put a face with your name. Very impressive!
For the most part I agree with the commentary except for a few points.
1) The Rubushkins DID NOT save this town by coming here, they actually destroyed this quiet town.
2) When talking about setting up a Jewish school towards the beginning of the piece they should of showed the actual Jewish school instead of the public John Mott School in town.
3) They should have included how town officials (many) fell into the weave of corruption as well.

I know time limits would not allow for all the deceit and historical events which happened to this town to be aired in 1 hour. Maybe they could start a mini series like Dallas or Knots Landing. It would entertain the world for years.

P.S. Thanks AGRI-vated Angel for the laughs tonite!!

[Yoel Mechanic]

ChanaC; do you have any evidence of this?

[AGRI-vated Angel]

Thanks. :) We had a good time, CPA.

Good food/great friends and 'WinE-Dews' . . .

'It just doesn't get any better than that.'

[eric@hsrealties.com]

The owner of this site is a real shuck. He should consider getting a life. Your a failure if all you have to do is jewish news. You do it cause you failed at any other news agency. Please do yourself a favor to save yourself from more humility and remove this site.

[larry]

Shmarya, how many times will you being up this same post again? What’s bothering you now?

[sage]

Shmarya,

Please Consider making this a pemanently Pinned Post.

[sage]

I'm reposting my post in the first blog along with that of yidandahalf:

+++This was an excellent general summary, but, IMHO, two hours would have been necessary to provide more in-depth detail, especially more details of why PETA had to do the undercover video, complicity of the OU, KAJ, R. Weissmandel and others in aiding and abetting the criminal behavior of the RCF, how the RCF methodically ruined Postville, treated the gentile population with contempt and why this saga is the worst instance of Hillul HaShem in Jewish American History.

It was very nice that the FM Webmaster was included and he did a first-rate job.

Posted by: sage | March 23, 2011 at 11:07 PM

sage is absolutley correct. the OU ad ka$h-R-u$ is the scaffolding upon which this entire corruption was founded and ran. Without some explantation from that perspective the coverages was incomplete. There was no mention of the PETA work in Gordon or the "buy my car and you can work" racket. Of course we have to consider time constraints and the cost of such a production which would be prohibitive.
All in all it was good, it got the job done, albeit not to the extent most of us would have liked.
Shmarya was probably the most well spoken and presentable of all those taking part; his presentations were extremely well done.
Did anyone see the black Nazi era cartoon of a Jew on the American Greed green home screen in the very, very beginning? It lasted only a second?

Posted by: yidandahalf | March 24, 2011 at 06:54 AM+++

[AGRI-vated Angel]

Perhaps, a better reference to the Rubashkin family as SAVING the town should be expressed as CONSUMING the town or DEFACING the town.

[ruthie]

chana c.
you're stupid.
he's pointing out that there are religious jews that steal and abuse.
you should thank him.
or go crawl under your blanket.
how do you know what he feels...he's reporting and writing.
come to monsey ...95% of the hasidim here steal from social services here. can't they pay taxes too? no, they need the money for weddings...do you know what the number one wedding gift in monsey is? an application for food stamps and medicaid. this is not a joke. i am 100% serious. but you chana c. don't believe that. do you think i hate jews? i love being jewish...i love jewish people. but when i see what goes on in monsey...i'm appalled.

[Yoel Mechanic]

Can someone post a link to watch American Greed (Episode 45) on this. I could only find a preview.

[AGRI-vated Angel]

[how the RCF methodically ruined Postville, treated the gentile population with contempt]

The blatant/flagrant separation of Gentile/Jew was merely another means of amassing control over the local townspeople. -a need to know basis . . . always with 'hidden agendas' intended to benefit the Rubashkin family. There were times-I felt like I was living amidst a cult.

[AGRI-vated Angel]

Thanks~
Shmarya ! ! ! :)

Your work is appreciated by all who are willing to accept what has been proven-honest . . .

[FirstGenerationBavarianAmerican]

Eric wrote:
"The owner of this site is a real shuck. He should consider getting a life. Your a failure if all you have to do is jewish news. You do it cause you failed at any other news agency. Please do yourself a favor to save yourself from more humility and remove this site."

The groups running media serving various ethnic and immigrant groups have always been filled with parasites and scam artists who took advantage of these people, because they learn the "lay of the land" yet. Thanks to the Internet, members of these groups can now google the story they are interested in and find out other reports on the same story.

[FirstGenerationBavarianAmerican]

Correction to above:
....because they didn't learn the "lay of the land" yet.

[Yoel Mechanic]

>i love being jewish...i love jewish people.

ruthie, you are so funny. when you start venting statements like this just seem very funny.

[state of disgust]

Agri-vated Angel said:

"There were times-I felt like I was living amidst a cult."

You were.

[A E ANDERSON]

Things have changed at the federal level with respect to how ICE enforces the alien illegal worker problem.

Instead of big workplace raids, like the one that got Rubashkin, enforcers are relying on what critics call "silent raids," which pretty much means off-site matching and vetting of credentials, after which the undocumented or improperly documented are just dismissed from employment.

See Silent Raids Squeeze Illegal Workers --
Critics on Right and Left Fault Obama's Pressure on Employers for Fostering Underground Economy

SMR might be a free man today had be been investigated under the new rather than the old policy. Luck of the draw, I suppose.

[Shul Committee for the Yeshivah Shul. Melbourne Australia]

David Knows
I know what I know, and I know what I don't know. But there are some things I don't know that I don't know.

Now available as a podcast.
TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2011
The e-word
I was quite shocked to receive the letter from the CoM advising of the formation of a new Shul Committee for the Yeshivah Shul. I was aware of some of the things that were happening in the background in recent months, and was even one of the people who took part in what might be very loosely called a "focus group", referred to in the letter. Considering how long the CoM have had to consider this, and how many aborted attempts there have been, the whole things looks quite lame to me. You call this governance?

Based on the ownership structures currently in place, neither people who daven in the shul on a regular basis nor seatholders have any rights whatsoever. However, any moral (or halachic) rights we may have, or any moral (or halachic) obligation the CoM might have for transparency and accountability is clearly held with scant regard by those in power.

They claim to "encourage greater community participation" but it always has been and has to be on their terms. Members (and I use the term loosely - the term has no legal sense and is only tolui in hergesh) have been screaming for more participation for many years, yet time and again have given up after banging their heads against the wall that is the CoM. Now, they expect everyone to come running? Has anything really changed?

And what of "succession planning"? What is the average tenure of a CoM member? What process was used in the past to appoint new members? If they ever did accept fresh blood into the committee, they would be more like fresh meat to sharks in terms of their position on the committee relative to all the others. I have had the experience of being on the board of a large Jewish not-for-profit where several members had been there for over twenty years. Fortunately in that case, those people were kindly asked to move on, and a managed process of succession was put in place - a regular flow of new people and ideas in. Are they suggesting a staged retirement for existing members to make room for new ones? I doubt it.

The CoM expect us to believe that volunteering in their new committees will "create and foster a new generation of lay leadership". Newsflash: two generations of talented lay leadership have already been sufficiently disenfranchised to either give up or just find other organizations who value them and where they can make a contribution.

They claim that service on these committees "is a pathway for people with appropriate skills ... to be appointed to the CoM". What skills do the existing members have? Are they prepared to even articulate the sort of skills they are seeking and an open process of selection? No - all power to the existing CoM, now and forever.

What irks me most is the self-righteous tone of the communication. Bandying around buzz words like "succession planning", "reform" & "spirit of goodwill" just ring hollow to most members. They even chose not to use the "e-word" (election) anywhere in the entire document. And all of this hides behind the official party line of doing this for the betterment of our Moisdos. What have they done to make our Moised better in the last twenty years? Would anyone say it is better?

To summarize, it almost sounds like the Khartoum Resolution that followed the Six Day War:
• No membership
• No collaboration
• No respect
Revolutions against autocracies are happening as we speak in the Middle East. Even the leftist, apologist Obama acknowledged that "the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed … are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support this everywhere". No-one is asking for a no-fly zone over the Yeshivah; just a standard of governance that reflects contemporary values and indeed Jewish values.

Unlike than this bottom-up tinkering, any genuine reform has to be built using principles at the top, and let everything flow down from that. As the old proverb says, a fish rots from the head. There is no sign of any change as far as that goes.

[David Werdiger]

David Werdiger
just leave the Yeshivah for good go to
Mizrahi shul you not a lubavitcher

[Yeshivah Shul]

Ha Ha a new Shul Committee for the Yeshivah Shul bad luck David

[Emes]

This man, Shmarya, is clearly disturbed and hates himself. If not, why would he dedicate his time to try and disgrace a whole community rather than various individuals? (even if he would blow the whistle on certain individuals he at least deserves to give them the benefit of the doubt before dealing he verdict - which he doesn't!). His venomous rage and accusations are akin to blood libels of notorious anti-Semites and certainly there is more negative than positive being created here. Nazis treated animals very kindly, it certainly doesn't mean they were 'good people' by any means (btw Nazi's also tried to put away kosher shechita). What I mean to say, is that people are posting that we need to give credit for this man's (or child's?) degradation and accusations of individuals - but would that justify his overwhelming and unrelenting attacks on fellows without trial. His alacrity in accusing others certainly reveals his misdeeds. A fair-minded individual would present evidence accurately and not use double standards.

Unfortunately, the truth is that this man feels himself to be demonized by others and of course despises himself and who he has become. He nurtures his self-hate and inner rage by relentless accusations and through this achieves a sort of twisted self-love. This means that through his accusations and blood-libeling he achieves a self-appreciation because now he has proven that the "other" or object through who he is communicating with is also "evil". Through this process he nourishes himself. This state is a caused by appropriate narcissistic needs that were unfulfilled during his life resulting in an obsessive need to vilify others and therefore 'redeeming' or loving himself from his inner self-loathing.

The only solution for this individual is for others to accept him (of course NOT approving his libels) and provide him with unconditional love and support. Through this process there may still be hope for this poor and hate-mongering individual, who has more in common with Nazis than his fellow Jew.