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A 1990s Israeli play is the feminist production NY needs right now
(New York Jewish Week) — When Anat Gov’s play “HaChaverot Hachi Tovot” (“Best Friends”) premiered in 1999, it was an anomaly among Israeli works of theater. In fact, Gov wrote it with anomalous intentions: In an interview before it opened, she called the piece a form of “compensation for the fact that there are no good roles for women.”
To remedy this, Gov wrote a play with no male roles — a 100-minute romp down memory lane which calls into question the very nature of friendship and whether or not the love between BFFs can stand the test of time.
At the time, the play was a smash, winning the Israel National Theater Award for best comedy of the year, and playing over 700 times during its initial run at the acclaimed Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv. “Best Friends” was then rewritten as a TV miniseries for HOT, a popular Israeli TV network, and re-staged in 2013, after Gov’s death the previous year.
Today, the play is enjoying a new imagining here in New York: Through April 2, it’s being performed at the Rattlestick Theater in Manhattan, in alternating performances in both Hebrew and English, by the team at the Israeli Artists Project, a non-profit that presents Israeli theater, music and art in the greater New York area.
“Best Friends” is ostensibly about friendship but touches on broad themes of jealousy, fertility struggles, betrayal and much more. And yet, intentionally or not, its deep dive into the force and fury of the female experience comes at a time when the cause of women’s rights is seeing setbacks in Israel and the United States.
“There are so many facets to our work,” says Yoni Venridger, founder and producing artistic director of IAP. “But to put it simply, we want to be a home where people of any affiliation can come together, enjoy our common culture, and put politics aside. In a way, everything we do is inherently political. We are, after all, representing a country. That said, we’re interested in doing Israeli things, being Israeli people, without automatically politicizing our events.”
The play, which is both hilarious and heartbreaking, centers on three women — Leli, Sophie and Tirtza — who are at a breaking point in their lifelong friendship. In the opening scene, Leli calls her two ex-besties to gather; it’s a matter of life or death, she says, refusing to say which one it is. Despite an extended period of silence between the three and heightened tensions between Sophie and Tirtza, in particular, they come together, and begin to unpack every single piece of emotional baggage they have.
As is the case in actual lifelong friendships, there’s a lot to unpack here: high school crushes, first loves, heartbreak, professional successes and woes, births, marriages — no stone is left unturned. Shouting ensues, and laughter, and some awkward silences.
“We need more plays that give central roles to women,” said Vendriger. “It’s not necessarily about writing plays without any male roles, either. What’s critical is writing more lead roles for women, more well-rounded, rich roles for women.”
“Best Friends” is an extreme version of this, of course, by omitting all men from the cast, and it easily passes the Bechdel Test — that is to say, it includes at least two named female characters who discuss something other than a man — with flying colors. Leli, Sophie and Tirtza certainly talk about men, love and heartbreak, but the primary focus is on how they’ve let themselves, and each other, down.
One of the most effective choices Gov made was to have the drama play out in two decades simultaneously. There are two casts: a young version of the women, in the 1960s, and a middle-aged version, in the 1990s. Beyond the illustrative power of showing friendship instead of telling about it, Gov creates a fascinating dynamic between the two sets of women. At times, the two casts interact, holding one another, reminding one another of their various strengths and shortcomings. Who among us hasn’t wished to warn or encourage our younger selves, or that our younger selves could remind us of who we once were?
This revisited version of Gov’s classic was slated to run in New York in May 2020 — but the pandemic, of course, made that impossible. Instead, it arrives in time for Women’s History Month 2023. “The timing kind of just worked out for us,” explained Vendriger.
From left, Maia Karo, Adi Kozlovsky and Karin Hershkovitz Kochavi play a trio of BFFs in “Best Friends.” (Courtesy)
In Israel, a right-wing government is under siege by rivers of enraged citizens — primarily because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul, now on pause. But there is pushback among liberal Israelis for other reasons as well. Recently, Betzalel Smotrich, a far-right member of Knesset and the current minister of finance, made sure that Israel would not sign the UN’s International Violence Against Women Act. Prior to this, Smotrich had called himself a “proud homophobe;” he organized a “bestiality parade” as a counter-parade to the Jerusalem Pride march in 2006.
In the United States, women’s rights are also threatened — including by the dismantling of Roe v. Wade, ensuring their right to an abortion.
Against this backdrop, the 1990s of “Best Friends” look downright progressive. To Vendriger, however, this play is about the timeless nature of friendship.
“Gov managed to write in a way that makes her work continuously relevant, regardless of the passage of time,” he said. “It’s the humanity of it. There are connections, power struggles, interpersonal attractions — that stuff will never change. Despite the fact that it’s originally from the ’90s, the meditation on the power and fragility of friendship, on the fact that we need to maintain and work on friendships, it all feels immediate and very appropriate for the present day.”
In fact, the IAP team made no changes to the original text.
The play works today, in 2023, because it leans on universal, wide-reaching themes. At the same time, there is a palpable Israeliness to the whole thing, whether it’s the prickly slang or the fact that one character, whose son is serving in the first Lebanon War, is jealous that her friend’s son has asthma, and therefore gets to stay home.
“‘Best Friends’ integrates the complexity of humanity, friendship and Israeli society, and brings them into the realm of humor,” said director Hamutal Posklinsky-Shehory. “It’s funny, but it’s also dramatic and very witty. [In this iteration] the whole staff is female. All the actresses are — six onstage and two understudies — plus the assistant director, play manager, lighting designer, and costume designer. I feel this is very appropriate for the age that we’re living in and really underlines the space we need to give for female identifying artists.”
When Posklinsky-Shehory isn’t directing, she’s a drama therapist at NYC Peace of Mind, a group psychotherapy practice that brings together drama therapists to support and enrich one another’s creative treatment approaches. Her work, she said, informed her directorial choices. “The relationships presented between the three friends are not the healthiest ones,” she said, “and we went through a process, truly trying to figure out and understand the motivations and [emotional landscapes] of the characters.”
To this end, the cast used therapeutic techniques alongside theatrical practices in order to deepen their connections and understanding. “We incorporated some writing activities, with the actors writing to their characters. Another time, we sought connections and differences between our actors and the characters that they play, as a group. In this way, we developed trust and deepened our bond with one another,” she said.
This is, in a sense, the bottom line of the play: the bonds that tie, and how they can unravel under the strains of a lifetime. “As humans, we’re complex,” said Posklinsky-Shehory. “Even in a play that’s all fantastic and sweet and nostalgic, there’s still the complexity and darkness [of life]. I’d like people to leave with an understanding that what we feel is perfect and complex, and that’s OK. We need to accept those parts of ourselves and our society.”
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Yiddish writer and Forverts columnist Miriam Hoffman has died
די ייִדישע שרײַבערין, דראַמאַטורגין, פֿאָרווערטס־קאָלומניסטקע און באַליבטע לעקטאָרין מרים שמולעוויטש־האָפֿמאַן איז מיטוואָך אַוועק אין דער אייביקייט אין קאָראַל ספּרינגס, פֿלאָרידע. זי איז געווען 90 יאָר אַלט.
אַלע וואָס האָבן מרימען געקענט האָבן געוווּסט וואָס פֿאַר אַ געניטע דערציילערין זי איז געווען. סײַ אינעם דאָקומענטאַר־פֿילם, וואָס דער פֿאָרווערטס האָט אַרויסגעלאָזט אין 2017, סײַ אינעם בוך זכרונות אויף ענגליש וואָס זי האָט פּובליקירט אינעם זעלבן יאָר, דערציילט זי אויף אַ פֿאַרכאַפּנדיקן אופֿן וועגן איר דראַמאַטישן לעבן פֿון סיביר קיין ניו־יאָרק.
מרים איז געווען אַ פֿרוי מיט אַ סך טאַלאַנטן. זי האָט יאָרן לאַנג געפֿירט אַ לעבעדיקן רובריק אינעם פֿאָרווערטס, וווּ זי האָט קאָמענטירט מיט אַ בײַסיקן הומאָר אויף דער ייִדישער געזעלשאַפֿט, באַניצנדיק זיך אָפֿט מיט אויסדרוקן פֿון איר היימישן פּויליש־ייִדיש. אַ טייל פֿון אירע עסייען האָבן אָבער געהאַט אַ מער ערנסטן, ווייכערן טאָן, בפֿרט ווען זי האָט איבערגעגעבן אירע זכרונות ווי אַ יונגע אימיגראַנטקע אין אַמעריקע. אין דעם רירנדיקן אַרטיקל למשל דערציילט זי ווי זי האָט מיידלווײַז פּלוצלינג אָפּגעשניטן אירע לאָקן כּדי זיך צו אַמעריקאַניזירן — און ווי אַזוי איר מאַמע האָט רעאַגירט אויף דער טאָכטערס „רעבעלירונג“.
פֿון 1999 ביז 1988 האָט זי געפֿירט אַ פּאָפּולערע ייִדישע ראַדיאָ־פּראָגראַם אויף דער פֿאָרווערטס־סטאַנציע WEVD.
מרים האָט אויך געשריבן אַ צאָל פּיעסעס פֿאַרן ייִדישן טעאַטער. אין איינעם מיט רינע באָראָו האָט זי געשאַפֿן דעם מיוזיקל „לידער פֿון גן־עדן“, וואָס האָט אין 1989 געשפּילט אין ניו־יאָרק, סײַ אינעם אָנגעזעענעם „פּאָבליק־טעאַטער“ סײַ אינעם שעקספּיר־פֿעסטיװאַל. אירע פּיעסעס האָט מען אויך אױפֿגעפֿירט אין מאָנטרעאָל, קאַנאַדע און איבער אײראָפּע.
במשך פֿון 23 יאָר איז זי געווען אַ באַליבטע ייִדיש־לערערין אין קאָלומביע־אוניווערסיטעט, און עטלעכע זומערן אויך אין אָקספֿאָרדער אוניװערסיטעט און אין װילנער אוניװערסיטעט. אין 2011 האָט זי אַרויסגעגעבן אַ ייִדיש לערנבוך, „אַ שליסל צו ייִדיש“, וואָס האָט אַרײַנגענומען נישט בלויז שפּראַך־לעקציעס, נאָר אויך געשיכטע, מנהגים, לידער און יום־טובֿ־מאַטעריאַלן.
אויף מיר פּערזענלעך האָט מער פֿון אַלץ אימפּאָנירט מרימס קעמפֿערישע איבערגעגעבנקייט אויפֿצוהאַלטן ייִדיש ווי אַ לעבעדיקע שפּראַך בײַם ייִנגערן דור. אין די 1960ער יאָרן האָט זי, אין איינעם מיט דרײַ אַנדערע פֿרויען — געלע שווייד־פֿישמאַן, מלכּה גאָטליב און צירל וואַלעצקי, אַרויסגעגעבן אַ סעריע קינדערביכלעך אויף ייִדיש דורך אַ פֿאַרלאַג וואָס זיי האָבן אַליין געשאַפֿן, „אויפֿגאַנג“.
ווי מרים און געלע האָבן מיר מיט יאָרן שפּעטער דערציילט, איז די שטימונג אין דער ייִדיש־וועלט דעמאָלט געווען אַזאַ פּעסימיסטישע, און דער צוגאַנג צו פֿרויען אַזאַ נישט־בכּבֿודיקער, אַז קיינער פֿון די ייִדישע אָרגאַניזאַציעס — אַרײַנגערעכנט דעם אַרבעטער רינג און דעם ייִדישן קולטור קאָנגרעס — האָט די ביכלעך נישט געוואָלט אַרויסגעבן.
מרים און אירע מיטאַרבעטער האָבן זיך אָבער נישט אונטערגעגעבן. אַ דוגמא דערפֿון איז דאָס פּרעכטיקע מוזיקאַלישע פּורים־שפּיל, „פּורים איז אַ שפּיל אַזאַ“, אַרויסגעלאָזט אין 1968. אויף דער הילע שטייט אַז דער מחבר איז „גבֿריאל טאָליעס“. דאָס איז אָבער געווען אַ פּסעוודאָנים; מרים איז געווען די אמתע מחברטע. „מיר האָבן פֿאַרשטאַנען, אַז קיינער וועט דאָס ביכל נישט אויפֿנעמען ערנסט, אויב מע דערוויסט זיך, אַז דאָס האָבן פֿיר פֿרויען אַרויסגעגעבן,“ האָט מרים מיר געזאָגט. „האָב איך גענומען מײַן מאַמעס נאָמען, טאָליע, און געמאַכט דערפֿון: גבֿריאל טאָליעס.“
מרים שמולעוויטש איז געבוירן געוואָרן אין טאָבאָלסק, סיביר אין 1936. איר משפּחה איז אָנגעקומען קײן אַמעריקע אין 1950, וווּ זי האָט זיך געלערנט אין ייִדישן לערער־סעמינאַר ביז 1957; אין מיאַמי־אוניװערסיטעט ביז 1981, און פֿאַרענדיקט אירע גראַדויִר־שטודיעס אין קאָלאָמביע־אוניװערסיטעט אין 1983.
אין די 1970ער יאָרן האָט זי מיט איר מאַן מענדל און קינדער אַבֿרהם און בנימין פֿאַרבראַכט עטלעכע יאָר אין ישׂראל, וווּ זי האָט אין איינעם מיטן קאָמיקער שמעון דזשיגאַן אָנגעפֿירט מיט דער ערשטער ייִדישער טעלעװיזיע־פּראָגראַם אין דער ייִדישער מדינה.
בײַ מרימען איז דאָס לערנען ייִדן די ייִדישע שפּראַך, קולטור און געשיכטע, און נאָך מער — אָפּשטעלן די געוואַלדיקע אַסימילאַציע — געווען אַ הויפּטציל אין לעבן. אין 2015 האָט זי אין איינעם מיט איר עלטערן זון — דעם אָנגעזעענעם ייִדישן אַקטיאָר, רעזשיסאָר און פּראָדוצענט אַבֿי האָפֿמאַן — פֿאַרלייגט די אָרגאַניזאַציע „ייִדישקייט איניציאַטיוו, ווי אַן אופֿן צוריקברענגען ייִדן צו זייערע ייִדישע וואָרצלען דורך לעקציעס און פֿאָרשטעלונגען וואָס שילדערן די ייִדישע ווערטן און קולטור.
מרים האָט פֿאַראָבֿלט אירע זין אַבֿי און בנימין, פֿיר אייניקלעך און אַן אור־אייניקל.
אַנשטאָט בלומען אָדער מתּנות, בעט די משפּחה מע זאָל געבן אַ בײַשטײַער דער „ייִדישקייט איניציאַטיוו“ אויף דעם אַדרעס, YILoveJewish.org/donate.
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Amid blazing heat and rising tides, artists find beauty and desperation in these biblical times
Daniel Rothbart’s floating aluminum and glass forms are at once playful and lyrical, biomorphic and other-worldly; prehistoric and futuristic. They are set in a pond and two small pools in Staten Island’s Snug Harbor, a hidden pastoral gem that once served as a safe haven for sailors.
Overflowing with colorful flowers and plants and shrubbery, the scene is idyllic, short of the oppressive, steamy heat that has settled over the landscape. But then that’s part of it too. Rothbart’s Serpentine Sibyls: A Floating Sculptural Installation, animated by winds and currents, are site-specific and immersive. He is keenly in tune with its ecology.
“No, my work has not always addressed political issues, but water is a fraught medium,” he told me over the phone. “You can’t work with water without addressing its importance to life on this planet and climate change and stewardship. Water has always fascinated me.”
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest the ocean was a constant alluring presence. And as a Jew, the water’s historical, cultural and religious traditional significance is defining, he said.
“There’s the purification ritual of the mikveh, the parting of the Red Sea, the washing of hands and feet before entering the temple in Biblical times and the casting off of sins, Tashlich on Rosh Hashanah. Water diplomacy and technology has always been central in Israel. Making the desert bloom.”
Rothbart, a multidisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited across the globe, is the author of Jewish Metaphysics as Generative Principle in American Art, which examines how Jewish mystical traditions, especially Kabbalah, informed abstract American art in the post-World War II years.
Erudite and heady, Rothbart said that his work can be viewed through the lens of tikkun olam, the Jewish imperative to help repair a fractured world, but it also borrows from Japanese culture, outer space imagery, Marcel Duchamp’s dadaism and Greek mythology.
The title of his exhibit references Sibyls, the Greek female prophets who were consulted in catastrophic times, not unlike our current era cursed by floods and wildfires and heat waves.
Rothbart started thinking about floating sculptures in 2007 for a piece he was conceiving for the Venice Biennial. A city surrounded by water cried out for it. Japanese glass fishing floats came to mind.
“The Japanese fishing floats would wash up on shore in Oregon where I grew up,” he recalled. “I loved the fragile recycled pieces of glass that came from the orient and that I could de-contextualize a common object and in so doing create something new.”
To anchor the sculptures, Rothbart and his assistant kayaked to the middle of the pond. There, once he established where he wanted each sculpture, he dropped each form, now attached to two to five-pound iron weights.
“The sculptures are sensitive to any existing life in the water,” he said. “The pond here has turtles and fish. I’ve found that the animals adjust to the new forms. I love the relationship between life in the pond and the foreign objects.”
Three artists, one flood
The Interchurch Center in upper Manhattan is currently hosting Noah, A Future of Hope, 3 Faiths/ 3 Artists/ 1 Story. A traveling exhibit, it employs the story of Noah and the flood to gently remind viewers to save, protect and celebrate the environment. The topic is explored respectively through a Christian, Muslim and Jewish vision. The artists — Yona Verwer, a Dutch-born Jew, Brian Whelan, a British-born Christian of Irish heritage and Hady Boraey, an Egyptian Muslim — each merge their religious identity with personal aesthetics and the need to advocate for the environment.
“Each artist was invited to create eight paintings that visually inspire our imaginations to heal our world by honoring our intricate connection to the earth as our sustainer, and by maintaining a sacred balance with all her life forms,” said curator Paul G. Chandler in his introductory remarks at the exhibit’s opening night reception. “In this way, the story of the ark, its animals, and the flood, take on contemporary relevance as we face today’s climate crisis.”
Seven is a significant number in each religion, so Chandler selected seven core lessons, each reflecting some part of the Noah story, for the artists to address. The eighth painting from each artist served as a kind of synopsis of the work that was to follow.
Water is a common image throughout the exhibit; indeed, water plays a major role, not only in Judaism, but in Christian and Islamic rituals as well, from Christian baptism to the washing of feet and hands before prayer in a Mosque.
When I asked Chandler if he could guess the religion of each artist on the basis of their paintings he said he could for the Jew and Christian, but wouldn’t have had a clue that Boraey emerges from an Islamic tradition.
“His paintings have an individual aesthetic and a more universal feeling. Still, you never see the face of Noah in his work. In Islamic tradition you can only view him from the back. To see his face is idolatry. Jews have the same tradition, but may not adhere to it as rigidly.”
Some of Verwer’s work incorporates Hebraic texts and characters. In “Care for the Species,” a figure is blowing a shofar. Similarly, Chandler said, he’d know that Whelan’s paintings were made by a Christian. They are literal illustrations of key moments in the Noah story.
His depiction of Noah evokes a figure right out of vaudeville, grinning broadly, sporting a little hat and in more than one instance looking slightly confused.
“Christians turn catastrophe into a kind of children’s bedtime story,” Chandler said. “It’s very Christian to sanitize the story. Jews don’t do that.”
“My being Jewish — a religious Jew—has had a bearing on how I look at everything,” said Verwer who says that water and its preservation is deeply important to her not least because for more than 2,000 years Judaism has had many rules to safeguard water. As a Holland native, she, like Rothbart, grew up near water and so it was always part of her universe.
Verwer’s work is also exhibited in an accompanying solo show, Fluid Futures-Living Waters, which features eight paintings that explore ocean pollution through a comic sensibility. One piece, bal tashchit (prohibition against needless destruction) depicts an octopus, submerged in deep ocean waters, clutching a soda can in its mouth.
“I don’t feel a painting is finished if I haven’t laughed at least once,” Brian Whelan said. “But it also needs a message.”
His major challenge was Chandler’s insistence that the paintings embrace a note of optimism.
“I don’t see any hope in what’s happening to this planet,” said Whelan. “My work mostly follows in the tradition of East Anglican medieval narrative paintings found in churches dating back to the 14th-to-16th centuries.”
For me his strongest piece is “Humans Outside the Ark Perished,” which appears in his linked, one-man show, 40 Days and 40 Nights. Here we see desperate hands reaching towards Noah for safety. A mouse sits alongside Noah, a poignant image. It’s safe and sound compared to the desperate humans.
Of the three painters, Boraey said his work was the least likely to be connected to any one particular religion. Unable to obtain a visa to the States he spoke to me on the phone from the Northern coast of Egypt.
He said his piece “The Great Collapse” spoke most vividly to both the Noah story and the ecological precipice we’re now facing as a result of climate change.
In the foreground, we view Noah from the back gazing out across a body of water at masses of people crushed together and almost immobilized as they hopelessly struggle to move forward. In the background hangs a giant and cratered blue moon sinking below the horizon and into the ground. It is at once foreboding and exquisite.
Having participated in exhibitions in the Middle East and Europe, Boraey said he was most influenced by the surrealist art movement in Cairo in the late 30s. The marriage between folkloric and political motifs is its hallmark.
The Noah tale for him is “both pessimistic and optimistic because hope is always there and they survived at the end of the story,” he said. “Noah saved humanity. He reminds us that we have to be very careful with the earth.”
In harmony with nature
Back at Snug Harbor, the late afternoon heat dome has made the airless, sun-baked space even more relentless than it was earlier in the afternoon. Rothbart’s visitors are slowly straggling out of the park, some wiping away sweat with bits of tissue, others fanning themselves; still others pouring water from their bottles onto reddened necks and arms and legs indifferent to the water splashing on to their clothes.
“Talk about global warming and climate change,” he told me. “This weather only drives home the point of just how serious this is and how we have to learn to live in harmony with nature and our environment.”
Serpentine Sibyls will run through Sept. 28.
Noah: A Future of Hope will run at the Interfaith Center through Aug. 26 and then continues its global tour.
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Fire at Postville, Iowa, kosher meat processing plant shuts down production ahead of the High Holidays
(JTA) — A major fire at one of the largest kosher meat processing plants in the United States is poised to increase the price of kosher meat ahead of the High Holidays, in addition to devastating the plant’s local community.
Investigators in Postville, Iowa, said on Wednesday that the fire that devastated AgriStar Processing started accidentally in the facility’s laundry room. The fire, which began on Tuesday, destroyed at least 75% of the plant and has put more than 600 people out of work, Fire Chief Jeff Bohr told the local TV network KCRG.
The fire has also interrupted a linchpin of kosher meat production, according to OU Kosher, the oversight agency run by the Orthodox Union.
“The damaged facility means a significant portion of kosher beef and chicken slaughtered and sold in the US will not enter the kosher supply chain,” Rabbi Moshe Elefant, the organization’s CEO, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Kosher consumers will feel the impact of the tightening supply with reduction of availability.”
Elefant said OU Kosher was working to “find solutions for ramping up production at other plants” while warning that the crisis could fuel bad actors.
“Unfortunately, when supply is limited, it creates opportunity for unscrupulous individuals who seek to make money by preying on the well-meaning Kosher observant public,” he wrote.
Jarad Bernstein, the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, said the fire represented “a terrible situation” in an email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“The impact on the local community and the business will be large,” he said.
The fire is not the first time that a crisis at AgriStar has sent the community into a tailspin. In 2008, a federal immigration raid at the plant, then known as Agriprocessors, netted the arrest of hundreds of workers and led to the arrest and conviction of the company’s longtime CEO Sholom Rubashkin on 86 counts of bank fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. It also led most of Postville’s Jewish residents to leave the town, which had developed as an unusual stronghold of Orthodox life in eastern Iowa.
Saying that “many people” believed Rubashkin’s 27-year prison sentence had been excessive, President Donald Trump commuted Rubashkin’s sentence in 2017. Rubashkin’s conviction stands.
Canadian Jewish billionaire Hershy Friedman purchased Agriprocessors and reopened it as Agri-Star. He told JTA in 2016 that he had done so after being urged by Jewish leaders to ensure competition in the kosher meat processing industry.
“It wasn’t done for financial purposes; it was done to really cater to the Jewish community,” he said about the purchase. “During the time Rubashkin was closed, the price of beef roughly doubled. After we acquired it, it came right back down.”
Friedman also said he had shored up the company’s employment practices, which had run afoul of the law, and made improvements to the slaughter process that had made Agriprocessors a target of animal rights activists.
Agri-Star said in a statement on Wednesday that it appreciated the first responders who “worked tirelessly and selflessly to protect lives and contain the fire” and the employees who had shown “inspiring” care for each other. It also indicated that it did not yet know the future of the plant.
“We understand there are many questions about what comes next,” Agri-Star wrote on social media. “While we are still gathering information and evaluating our short-term plans, we are committed to sharing verified updates as soon as they become available. We appreciate your patience as we work through this process thoughtfully and responsibly.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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