Rabbi Asher Zeilingold, the man whose kosher symbol appears on all Rubashkin non-glatt (but still kosher) meat, weighed in on the massive immigration raid at Agriprocessors…
Several people told me they heard Rabbi Zeilingold make the following points on Shabbat:
- It's all lies and, what isn't lies is done by everybody else. Nothing Rubashkin did is unique.
- There was no worker abuse at Agriprocessors.
- The only reason the raid happened is because Rabbi Morris Allen wanted to get the Conservative Movement's Hechsher Tzedek off the ground. It was his lies that got the government to raid Rubashkin.
Anyone following the details of the raid can immediately see that Rabbi Zeilingold is, shall we say, not telling the truth – unless he believes it is the norm to pay illegal workers $5 per hour, make them work long unpaid overtime hours, force them to rent substandard housing from plant owners and then jack the rents up on them every month, have many employees using the same plant-issued social security number, charging illegals an "immigration fee" to cash their paychecks that Agriprocessors issued to them but carried the name and social security number of a person who does not work at the plant, employed children as young as 13 on processing lines, etc.
And, I'm told Rabbi Zeilingold again claimed OSHA cleared Rubashkin – which is an outright lie and, perhaps, a federal crime, to boot.
(By the way, if you follow the above two links you'll see that I broke the story of the fake OSHA report. You'll also see the Forward, after I did the reporting, covers the angle – but without giving me credit, even though they were well aware of what I reported first. )
In related news, I was also told dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Chabadniks are traveling to Postville to help out fellow Chabad hasid Rubashkin. And, it seems, the average Chabad hasid is "sure" antisemitism is behind the raid. I suppose coming from Jews who believe in a dead messiah, anything – even this – is possible.
Pictured above: Rabbi Asher Zeilingold's United Mehadrin Kosher symbol.