The following is an editorial appearing in today’s Des Moines Register:
American Jews, beware. If you run afoul of the Justice Department, your chances for bail are slim to none. That’s the new legal concept created by the office of U.S. Attorney Matt Dummermuth in northern Iowa. The policy singles out Jews as a special category to be denied bail due to Israel’s “Law of Return.”
The Israeli law provides citizenship to any Jew immigrating to the country. It’s much like the asylum clause in U.S. immigration law, designed to offer refuge to Jews fleeing oppressive regimes. It’s never been used to give haven to American criminals. The United States and Israel have an active extradition treaty. Routinely, accused criminals are sent from one country to another.
We have yet to see whether this policy of singling out Jews will apply only in this part of Iowa or whether it will spread across the country. Dummermuth constructed this legal theory to prevent bail for Sholom Rubashkin, who is accused of nonviolent crimes related to the meat plant in Postville. The U.S. Attorney argued in front of Federal Magistrate Jon Stuart Scoles that the Law of Return could provide a safe haven to Rubashkin.
French can run to France, Mexicans to Mexico. If you have a Russian heritage, there is little fear that you would be barred from returning to your ancestral homeland. Yet Jews in the eyes of the U.S. Attorney are a special category under the law when it comes to bail, posing a flight risk and meriting treatment different from all other citizens of the United States.
It wasn’t so long ago that the American legal system singled out Japanese Americans for special treatment under the law, when those American citizens were imprisoned during World War II based on their heritage. That episode is considered one the blackest moments of American jurisprudence.
The issues between the U.S. Attorney and Shalom Rubashkin have been brewing for a long time. If he wanted to run, he would have done it already. This is his second arrest and indictment. He already was wearing an ankle bracelet from the first arrest. Dummermuth knew where Rubashkin was and could have allowed him to surrender, as is common in such cases. Instead, Dummermuth chose shock and awe, rolling into Postville on Friday, ensuring Rubashkin would be held over the weekend and on the Jewish Sabbath.
The people of Postville know Rubashkin well. It’s clear to us he has no intention of evading prosecution. He wants his day in court so he can defend his reputation. He feels maligned, singled out for prosecution. What other case of illegal workers has prompted such aggressive prosecution?
That’s why more than 30 of us, including me, pledged our homes as bail. We’re willing to put our families’ security on the line for him.
Rubashkin and his wife surrendered their passports to the court some time ago. Still, the U.S. Attorney claims that Rubashkin is a flight risk. His evidence: He found a bag in Rubashkin’s bedroom with his kids’ passports and some cash. The Rubashkins have an autistic child who opens drawers and closets indiscriminately. They placed these documents in a secure place, away from his reach. Does Dummermuth think that Rubashkin could have traveled to Israel, which has the tightest airline security in the world, on the passport of a 10-year-old?
The fear of fleeing to Israel is a theory that’s not based on any legal precedent or evidence from the investigation. As a kid, I studied the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It promised equal protection under the law. How can we be sure of this in America today, and particularly in Iowa?
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13 Responses
this does not appear to be an editorial (unatributed, but the opinion of the editorial board), but rather an op-ed piece (“that’s why more than 30 of us, including me”), and I’m wondering why the author’s name wasn’t included.
Isn’t Bernie Madoff a Jew? Oh, but silly me…I forgot, he doesn’t LOOK like a Jew, or do the good things a Jew does, like help the poor.
So Bernie needn’t worry, this policy only applies to Frum Jews. He can still enjoy is $7 million mansion while Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin is treated worse than a mass murderer in a stinking jail in a tin-pot state.
Aren’t there laws against discrimination in this country? How much do they cost? Can I buy one or two?
Not to take anything away from the article, but it is NOT an editorial (which assumes it is written by one of the editors of the paper, presumably, a persuasive voice in the State of Iowa), but rather, a commentary written by somebody named Rashi Raices, who is described as someone who “has lived in Iowa for 13 years, [and] is a principal of an elementary school in Postville.” Many newspapers routinely print opinion pieces, which they may or may not agree with. Nonetheless, the paper should still get credit for printing the piece. More importantly, YWN should accurately report exactly what it is reprinting.
it’s so ironic- the law of return was originally enacted so that Yiddin wouldn’t feel like 2nd class citizens in foreign countries, and that is exactly what the law is doing now.
There’s more to this than the law of return.
Some of us don’t realize that American Law incorporates precedent.
That means that a lawyer… and a judge can cite a previous case to promote their cause.
so….
how many of acheinu hachilonim have somehow managed to dodge the justice system by visiting their relatives at the Kosel?
apparently one needs to be a gemarra kup for that.
To hide behind a mask of piety, and fool the whole kehilla.
Do you really think that these judges… and lawyers don’t know??
they have heard, read, and seen people in charedi levush (all kinds…) getting away with cardinal sins, because some of us think that’s what the chafetz chaim meant.
They haven’t accepted the cherem on the internet. They don’t ask if they are allowed to read the news. They are unaware that the TV reporters make up stories about abuse. They live in a country where court cases are played out in public.
If you want to see justice done by umos ha’olam, then you should be fiercely promoting justice among your religious brothers. It’s simple mida k’neged mida.
Think twice before harboring a Rodef, or a Mesarev L’Din, Or a man who is withholding a get within YOUR minyan, and HKB”H will have rachmanus on your brother.
Don’t be so quick to ignore the cries of a child who has been hurt, or an adult who was taken advantage of in business…
Hashem evens out the score.
In the least likely way that you can imagine, apparently.
The innocent suffer because of the rachmanus that we have on the guilty.
when yidden prove to the U.S. justice system that we will prosecute our own criminals, they won’t think it’s necessary to watch us like Hawks. When we make excuses, and offer shochad to people who based the constitution on YASHRUS… it’s not a kiddush hashem.
it’s the opposite, R”L.
May we be zoche to a Good Shabbos…
and a return of sanity, honesty, and fair play.
Let us remember that anti-semitism in the US, especially from a redneck, is very usual. Be careful, nazi germany was the same way.
Get out of the farshtunkener USA before it is too late. Anti-semitism is rampant, the law is NEVER on the side of the Jew.
We do not have to justify the justice of the USA. There is very little,
Yes, more than Iran and Syria; or Russia for that matter.
But, non-Jews do not have the same rules. Therefore, the rules of Dina Demalchusa Dina DOES NOT APPLY! Get out of the USA before it is too late.
1. Complain immediately to President Bush. He is in charge of the Justice Department this week.
2. Many European countries will grant citizenship to descendants of emmigrants. Perhaps bail should be limited to Native Americans (American Indians) and Blacks (though some African countries will take them in for money).
3. Some countries, Namibia comes to mind, seem to accept anyone who is rich. So only poor people get bail???
4. So everyone who claims that Bush is our friends, so send an email immediately.
This guy Dummermouth, very interesting that he got this name and then ends up in the news — nothing is by chance — he should be investigated in Washington, and he should be sued for his office’s unorthodox practices and standards, which may fall outside of the U.S. Constitution, and certainly outside the boundaries of the way other States do business. The lawyers who read these pages should pursue this, and gather a group to look into this matter.
“…American Jews, beware. If you run afoul of the Justice Department, your chances for bail are slim to none…”
YWN, you are hysterical over one abberational case – The lesson drawn from the Bernie Medoff case is quite the opposite.
Yonason – actually, virtually everyone gets bail unless they are charged with a capital offense or unless they have a criminal record. Madoff’s treatment is normal, Rubashkin’s treatment is the exception.
Politically, I’m surprised at the position of the Bush administration, and it would be a good issue to try to get Obama to reverse it. An appeal of the bail is possible, since bail is a constitutional right.
Yonason,
Did you miss the first line?
“The following is an editorial appearing in today’s Des Moines Register:”
Akuperma-you state virtually everyone gets bail.On what are you basing that fact?The constitution states that everyone ha sa right to bail unless they are a risk.The prosecutors try to twist it anyway they can,and in th eMadoff scumbag case,obviously they want him in jail even though he is entitled to bail so they start claiming danger to community and flight risk.From the over hundred cases that I checked out,the majority were denied bail,just like the majority had no trial,they plesa bargained.The justic ewould like you to think that bail and trials are the norm,they are not.ask any criminal lawyer.
Rashi Raices is probably the wife of R. Mendel Raices, the elementary-school director in Postville. R. Raices was hand-picked by Shalom Rubashkin to come to Postville many years ago, he is a fine man and teacher. They, unlike the largely transient crowd of packing-plant workers, are not particularly beholden to R. Rubashkin; R. Raices has or did until this blew up have job security.