If this institution were brought down, prices of Glatt Kosher meet would rocket higher than did Gasoline earlier this year.
KT
RRW
Dark Meat
By
Shmuel Herzfeld
Washington
ACCORDING to the Jewish calendar we are now in the month of Av, a period of increasingly intense mourning that culminates with a total fast on the Ninth of Av, which this year coincides with Sunday, Aug. 10.
One of the customary practices in these nine days is the avoidance of meat: it's the way we commemorate the destruction of the Temple, where daily animal sacrifices were once brought.
Refraining from food is symbolic, of course. The idea is not just to avoid meat but to limit ourselves so that we can better focus on the spiritual.
Unfortunately, this year kosher meat has become a different type of symbol, one not of mourning and spiritual devotion but of ridicule, embarrassment and hypocrisy. In May in Postville, Iowa, immigration officials raided Agriprocessors Inc., the largest kosher meatpacking plant in the country.
What began as an immigration sting, however, quickly took on larger dimensions. News reports and government documents have described abusive practices at ...
2 comments:
So if Rubashkin's is closed, the price of meat goes higher?
So what?
Meat is treated in the Torah as a luxury. I can only imagine what Moshe Rabeinu would have said about drive-thru burger joints and 29 cent wing nights.
People will eat less meat. Again, so what? They'll substitute with possibly healthier choices like veggie burgers and fruits. I don't see a down side.
In addition, all the rabbis who are so busy condoning Rubashkin's business practices will be out of a job. Again, what's the downside?
PETAs goal in focusing attention on Rubashkin's is to reduce and eventually eliminate the consumption of meat by human beings (they don't seem to object to other meat eating animals). They mount attacks from all angles -- animal slaughter practices, use of undocumented workersv and childre (enlisting the aid of testomony from frustrated union organizers) etc. Unfortunately Rubashkin's has provided plenty of ammunition and the lynchmob attitude of some of the press and Jewish organizations has has magnified Rubashkin's mistakes. As with most things the truth is no doubt somewhere in between Rubashkin's assertions of innocence and assertions that they are an evil empire that needs to be brought down rather than reformed. However the credibility of organized Judaism from the left to the right is being challenged once again in my opinion by the charges being flung back and forth. So the down side of all this is unfortunately, God forbid, more and more Jews who don't the relevance of Judaism.
Post a Comment