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In Galveston, descendants of a forgotten Jewish migration keep their community’s story alive
(JTA) — GALVESTON, Texas – More than a century ago, this busy Gulf Coast port and longtime vacation destination 50 miles southeast of Houston welcomed so many European immigrants – including some 10,000 Jews – it earned the moniker “The Ellis Island of the West.”
Today, the few remaining descendants of Jewish immigrants from that time period still living on the island are determined to preserve and nourish the story of the Galveston Movement, a mostly forgotten but pivotal chapter in Jewish-American history.
Galveston, an island-city of 53,000 residents, is the fourth-busiest cruise port in the country and the birthplace of the Juneteenth holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. With 32 miles of brown-sand beaches, a charming historic district with numerous well-preserved Victorian-era homes, and some 80 festivals held year-round, the island annually attracts 8 million tourists.
It also offers visitors several sites related to the Galveston Movement and what was once a robust Jewish community that produced five mayors, prominent business leaders and two highly renowned rabbis.
The Galveston Movement, also called the Galveston Plan, was a humanitarian effort operated by several Jewish organizations that brought Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia and Eastern Europe through the port of Galveston between 1907 and 1914. Most arrived in Galveston on steamships from Bremen, Germany, a transatlantic trip that took two to three weeks.
A recent book by English historian and journalist Rachel Cockerell — “Melting Point” — has helped reignite interest in the Galveston Movement. Cockerell, whose great-grandfather David Jochelmann played a key role in organizing the program in Europe, spoke this month at Galveston’s Temple B’nai Israel as part of a U.S. tour promoting the book.
“As soon as started reading about the Galveston Movement, I sort of went down a rabbit hole from which I didn’t emerge for three years,” Cockerell told a group of more than 100 Galvestonians, Jews and non-Jews alike. “I was totally transfixed by this amazing story of Jewish immigration in the early 20th century.”
“I love it,” says Shelley Nussenblatt Kessler, 74, of the heightened attention on the Galveston Movement. Kessler estimates she is one of 25 to 30 “BOIs” — shorthand for “Born on the Island”) — still living in Galveston who are descendants of the Jewish immigrants who came to America as part of the program. Her grandmother and grandfather immigrated from what is now western Ukraine to Galveston in 1910 and 1911.
“Not only am I very proud to be a descendant of two of these immigrants, but I can’t help but think of how lucky I am to be here,” she said. “I’m in awe of what my grandparents did and how they got here, and the sacrifices that they made.”
By the late 1880s, thousands of Jews began fleeing their homes in the Russian Empire to escape antisemitic policies and violent pogroms. Many immigrated to New York and other East Coast cities, resulting in overcrowding and poverty.
Jacob Schiff, a New York banker and philanthropist, financed the Galveston Movement as a way to blunt an anticipated wave of antisemitism on the Eastern seaboard, which might lead to immigration restrictions. Schiff sought to find suitable alternative destinations in the American South for the influx of Jewish immigrants.
Charleston, South Carolina, which had a long-established Jewish community, was considered but city leaders there only wanted Anglo-Saxon immigrants. New Orleans was also in the mix but there were concerns about periodic outbreaks of yellow fever.
Enter Galveston, a port that checked all of the boxes. It had a deep-water harbor that could accommodate large ships and an extensive railroad system available to transport immigrants to other cities and towns.
“Really the purpose of Galveston was to channel the immigrants into other parts of Texas and up the middle of the country west of the Mississippi,” said Dwayne Jones, a historian who is CEO of the Galveston Historical Foundation.
Jones says there was another key reason Galveston was selected: There already was a well established Jewish community that was thriving in the city’s business and political circles. In fact, Galveston had elected its first Jewish mayor — Dutch-born Michael Seeligson — as far back as 1853.
“It was a more tolerant community with a depth of diversity you didn’t see in other places,” Jones said. “It also had a long history of Jewish leadership and activities in Galveston.
The first Reform congregation in Texas, Galveston’s Congregation B’nai Israel, was established in 1868. Twenty years later, London-born Henry Cohen, who was only 25 at the time, became the congregation’s rabbi. Cohen led B’nai Israel for a remarkable 64 years until his death in 1952. It’s believed to be the longest tenure of a rabbi at the same congregation in U.S. history.
In 1900 Galveston was decimated by a storm known as the Great Galveston Hurricane. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history, with an estimated 8,000 fatalities, about 20% of its population at the time. Two-thirds of the island’s buildings and homes were destroyed. Cohen and other Jewish leaders played a major role in the relief and reconstruction efforts that followed.
“Jewish leadership took a really powerful role in rebuilding the island,” says Jones. “Without that leadership, I don’t think Galveston would have come back as it did.”
Seven years after the hurricane, the first ship that was part of the Galveston Movement – the S.S. Cassel — arrived from Bremen with 86 Jewish passengers. Cohen – who was proficient in 10 languages — was the humanitarian face of the movement, meeting ships at the Galveston docks and helping guide the immigrants through the cumbersome arrival and distribution process.
The arrivals were processed at the Jewish Immigrants’ Information Bureau headquarters in Galveston, which gave the immigrants rations and railroad tickets to more than 150 towns in Texas and other places west of the Mississippi River.
Unlike a vast majority of the immigrants who had only a brief stopover in Galveston before settling in other communities, Kessler’s grandparents decided to remain on the island. Her grandfather was a painting contractor while her grandmother worked as a housekeeper.
Adjusting to life in Texas proved to be a struggle for many immigrants. Kessler’s grandparents decided they would be happier back in Europe, even buying passage on a ship so they could return to their homeland. But World War I broke out, canceling their trip.
“The harbormaster told my grandparents to hold their tickets until after the war, and if you want to go back, we’ll redeem them,” Kessler said. “Thank God, they didn’t go back.”
By 1914, declining economic conditions and a surge in nativism and xenophobia — a forerunner of today’s anti-immigration climate — brought an end to the Galveston Movement. Still, the program resulted in an estimated 10,000 persecuted Jews finding new homes in the American hinterland in places few had imagined.
The Galveston Historic Seaport Museum chronicles the immigrant experience in an interactive exhibit called “Ship to Shore.” The exhibit includes a prominent photo of Henry Cohen. Computer terminals enable visitors to search for information taken from ships’ passenger manifests pertaining to their ancestors’ arrival in Texas. The Galveston County Museum, located inside the county courthouse, also features artifacts related to the Galveston Movement.
Kessler’s late husband Jimmy, who died in 2022, was another key figure in Galveston’s Jewish history. Jimmy Kessler served as B’nai Israel’s rabbi for 32 years until his retirement in 2014. He also was the founder and first president of the Texas Jewish Historical Society, which is now 45 years old and has more than 1,000 members.
Jimmy Kessler was devoted to telling the story of the Galveston Movement, writing three books about the area’s Jewish history, including a biography of Henry Cohen called “The Life of a Frontier Rabbi.” The street on which B’nai Israel is located was renamed Jimmy Kessler Drive in 2018, honoring his service to the congregation and the greater Galveston community.
“I’m married to a street,” joked Shelley Kessler, adding, “Jimmy, with what he did to preserve Texas Jewish history, kept all of this [the Galveston Movement] in the forefront.”
B’nai Israel, which now has a membership of 125 families, relocated to a new building in 1955, named the Henry Cohen Memorial Temple.
The congregation’s original synagogue – built in 1870 – was the spiritual launching point for the Jewish immigrants who were part of the Galveston Movement. It still stands on Kempner Street (named after a prominent Jewish family that included Mayor Isaac Kempner) in downtown Galveston. The building is now a private residence. Galveston also has a small Conservative synagogue, Congregation Beth Jacob, that was founded in 1931.
Robert Goldhirsh, 75, former president of Congregation B’nai Israel and another descendant of immigrants from the Galveston Movement, has been the caretaker of the Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery for the past three decades. Several hundred Jews — some of whom came to America in the Galveston Movement — are buried in the cemetery. Henry Cohen also is interred there.
Both Goldhirsh and Kessler say that despite perceptions of deep-rooted intolerance in Texas, they’ve encountered little to no antisemitism in Galveston.
“Most of the people I know, it makes no difference that I’m Jewish,” Goldhirsh said. “We’re just Galvestonians.”
Indeed, Goldhirsh says the biggest threat to Jewish life on the island comes from Mother Nature. With climate change a contributing factor, recent years have seen a significant rise in weather-related disasters in Texas. For instance, Hurricane Ike in 2008 led to widespread flooding on Galveston Island and caused water damage in both synagogues.
“During one of the High Holiday services, there was a hurricane headed this way and we had to cancel for fear that the congregants would be caught in a bad storm,” he recalled. “You have to listen to the weather reports. If they say ‘leave,’ you better leave.”
The post In Galveston, descendants of a forgotten Jewish migration keep their community’s story alive appeared first on The Forward.
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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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