The National Council of Young Israel is coordinating and leading a mission of several dozen Jewish community and rabbinic leaders representing major Orthodox Jewish organizations and large Jewish cities to the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa on Thursday, July 31. The visit to the plant, which is one of the largest producers of kosher meat and chicken in the United States, is intended to provide the Jewish leaders with a first-hand account of the state of the Agriprocessors plant and the impact that recent developments have had on the Postville community.
“This mission is meant to provide Jewish leaders from across the United States with a factual perspective of the true situation at the Agriprocessors plant, untainted by the rumors and innuendos that have been circulating in many circles,” said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, Executive Vice President of the National Council of Young Israel. “As one of the major producers of kosher meat in the U.S., the success or failure of Agriprocessors is an issue that will directly impact Jewish communities that purchase kosher meat and poultry across the country. The situation warrants that we approach this with an open mind and obtain a first-hand account of the situation so that we can draw our own conclusion for the betterment of the American Jewish community.”
The Jewish leaders will tour the Agriprocessors plant and facilities, where they will meet corporate officials and managers, including Jim Martin, a former U.S. Attorney who is now responsible for all compliance issues for Agriprocessors. The group will also meet with senior representatives of the Kashrus organizations who certify the plant. In addition, they will meet with the Mayor of Postville and other local elected officials who will lead them on a tour of the Postville community.
According to Rabbi Lerner, the National Council of Young Israel took the lead in organizing this important mission because of the inevitable impact that the future of Agriprocessors will have on the American Jewish community, including the more than 200 Young Israel member synagogues and their 25,000 affiliated families. As a worldwide movement that provides religious, educational, Zionistic, social and communal programming for its member synagogues and their affiliated families, the National Council of Young Israel has been at the forefront of the effort to bring kosher food to the American Jewish community wherever they may be.
(YWN Desk – NYC)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
6 Responses
“Orthodox Jewish Leaders”?
I’m sure this “surprise” visit will tell it all!!
Hopefully they will resolve this issue once and for all.
They need to make surpize visits.
There was an article on the front page of the NYT on 4/27/08 that quoted some of the imigrants that worked in the plant and it wasn’t a very nice picture. Of course it is all alagations at this point but I wouldn’t be surprized if the goyishe employees especially the imigrants are treated like garbage.
It also said that some of the employees were as young as 13 years old, I am not surprized about that either as some of these youbng imigrants are sent here to make some money to send back to their countries.
Sounds like a great idea – make sure it’s a surprise visit, so that you can get the real story as to what’s going on.
There were absurd rumors that drugs were being manufactured in the Postville plant. We now
know that was untrue. I am sure that the allegations of mistreating the employees was also false.
There was a recent demonstration by former workers
mainly women, who were released becuaed they had to care for their minor children. They prfotested
the unfair raid on the plant.
Do you think that they would demonstrate if
they were mistreated?
What was the story then? It’s plain and simple. The union was trying to unionize the plant. So they passed on all kinds of false stories so that there would be a massive joint task force raiding the plant. FBI, DEA, Alcohol
Tax and Tobacco , Postal inspectors, etc etc
Most of the allegations were totally false.
We should teach our children that we are a kingdom of princes, and that our behavior should be an example for the rest of the world. As long as we continue to imply to them that we are more important than goyim for no apparent reason, we will continue to see this kind of disgusting behavior.