Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin, son of Agriprocessors founder Avraham Aaron Rubashkin and head of Agriprocessors daily operations…
…went to meet with workers families.
Friday is pay day at Agriprocessors. But, because hundreds of former employees are now sitting in local jails the checks are sitting unclaimed.
"Ordinarily they're supposed to pick them up at the plant or to a post office box," Sister Mary McCauley of St. Bridget Catholic Church said.
Legally, the company can only release it to the person named on the check, not to families, who increasingly need the money.
"It's not like most people where they have lots of money saved. They're not making large salaries so every pay day is very important for the folks who have worked for Agri," Pastor Steve Brackett of St. Paul Lutheran Church said.
Sholom Rubashkin, the head of Agriprocessors, met with families outside St. Bridget Church. He said the company is working to find a solution to the problem.
This is the newest problem in a long list that face those left behind.
"Basically we're trying to empower them to support one another so that they can make some decisions for their future," McCauley said.
St. Bridget has been meeting the immediate needs of the families, providing three meals a day this entire week. But, next week they hope to only provide services during the day.
The city of Postville has also set up a relief fund…
Two points:
- Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin is too frum, too religious, to set foot in a Catholic church. Chabad, like much of Orthodoxy, will not set foot in "idolatrous" places of worship. Stealing from poor workers, extorting poor workers, abusing poor workers, cheating the government, etc., ad nauseam, Rubashkin and his cohort do without so much as a twinge of remorse. But set foot in a church? No way.
- The Rubashkin family, so noted for its charitable works within the Jewish community, doesn't seem to be able to extend that charity to its own non-Jewish workforce. Indeed, a local Catholic church is feeding these poor people. Rubashkin could make that process easier by donating some of that non-kosher meat he has on hand. But he won't – unless, perhaps, he is publicly shamed.
In a an interesting but not directly related matter, Chabad Lubavitch of Daytona Beach will inaugurate its new $5.5 million community center and day school today.
Who is the major donor for this community center? Whose name will be proudly displayed on its walls?
Rabbi Morris Esformes, the nursing home baron who homes have killed – yes, killed – many residents through abuse and neglect.
Just as the Rubashkins who are Chabad, have not be shunned by Chabad, neither has Esformes, who is not. In each case money buys a free pass.
This is not unique to Chabad, of course. In fact, it is endemic to haredi society. Whether it be Leib Pinter of lunch program fraud notoriety who graduated to tens of millions of dollars in mortgage fraud, or widespread affinity fraud, or dozens of scams and ponzi schemes in between – money rules.
In ultra-Orthodoxy, money talks and morality walks. It's a simple as that.