Rubashkin attorney and OU/Agudath Israel flack Nathan Lewin has a long article in the new Jewish Press making serious – although largely unfounded – allegations against the Forward and their coverage of the newest Rubashkin scandal. In the article Lewin claims that the USDA's report, held illegally in confidence by the agency for more than one year until Freedom Of Information Requests filed by PETA (and by at myself and at least one major news source) forced its release, "largely exonerates" Rubashkin. The report does nothing of the kind, confirming all of PETA's charges of animal cruelty and violation of Humane Slaughter law. It does note that the US Attorney for the Iowa district declined prosecution. It is almost universally believed this happened because any prosecution of Rubashkin would publicize the failings (and apparent corruption) of the USDA's leadership. Rubashkin's defense, if one can call it that, would most certainly have been based on the USDA's failure to enforce the law (until outed by PETA). And that is in fact the line Lewin takes in his piece.
But this is not all. Lewin's 'report' relies heavily on the "eyewitness testimony" of Rabbi Asher Zeilingold, who went to Postville last week and, in Lewin's words, Rabbi Zeilingold "had decided independently on Sunday to travel to Postville to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears whether the condition of AgriProcessors employees in Postville was accurately described" in the Forward's article. Rabbi Asher Zeilingold is legally blind. As I noted previously, there is no way he would be able to detect fear on the face of worker or notice Rubashkin loyalists lurking nearby.
But, worse than that, the rabbi's name is on literally thousands of boxes of meat produced weekly at the plant. He is well-known as a Rubashkin friend and loyalist, and did the interviews on plant property, with Rubashkin's permission, on company time. No worker would take Rabbi Zeilingold to be a neutral observer. And, when one realizes that one of the charges made against Rubashkin is the threat to those workers to turn them over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service if they form a union of file formal complaints about their treatment, one can easily see why workers would not tell Rabbi Zeilingold the truth.
It is also important to realize that Rabbi Zeilingold, a Chabad hasid, was dressed as a rabbi, and his driver/companion on this trip, Carlos Carbonero, has a large beard and wears a yarmulke and hat. In other words, two hasidic Jews, allies of Rubashkin, with Rubashkin's permission, in full view of supervisors and other employees, asked workers to expose Rubashkin and in doing so open themselves up to possible retaliation, arrest and deportation. This is the "investigation" Lewin and the Jewish Press rely on. And then we have Aaron Rubashkin's rather checkered past.
The Jewish Press has a regular rabbinic columnist with a very checkered history, including stock frauds and other swindles carried out repetitively over a thirty year period. Yet he still writes for the paper, and still hold a senior position in a national rabbinic organization. I fully realize there may be employees of the Jewish Press who are, shall we say, not happy with the Klass family's sheltering of these rabbinic criminals. But they do not control the Jewish Press.
The OU, KAJ and other so-called kashrut organizations give their imprimatur to Rubashkin. If these organizations and the rabbis who run and staff them are to be taken seriously, they must act ethically. It is their presumed morality and ethics, this presumption of kosher behavior, along with their presumed mastery of Jewish law, that makes their brands – their symbols – valuable and their kashrut trustworthy. Ethics and morality extend beyond the amount of time a piece of meat sits in salt. Associating with and covering for rabbinic miscreants, whether the miscreants name is Rubashkin, Kolko or Klass, detracts from that presumption of kashrut. Any rabbi who can knowingly certify as kosher the products of animal cruelty, theft and worker abuse, is a rabbi who can no longer be trusted and who has lost his own presumption of kashrut.
The proper response to this latest Rubashkin scandal is to boycott all Rubashkin meat – Aaron's Best, Rubashkin, Shor HaBor, and David's brands, along with his non-kosher output. Tell you local supermarket you will no longer purchase these products – and tell them why. But go beyond that. Tell the companies the OU, KAJ, etc. supervise that you will no longer buy their products, even if that means your family has to live on raw vegetables for the foreseeable future. To do any less is to accept and facilitate the debasing of Judaism by these amoral people.
The old joke about the Jewish Press goes like this: A man asks his rabbi if he can read the Jewish Press in the bathroom. The rabbi responds, "the real question is whether you can take it out of the bathroom!" Sadly, when it comes to coverage of the Rubashkin scandals and certain other related issues, that old joke becomes more and more true, and less and less funny.