Uncategorized
Shunned by the right, targeted by the left, Eva Illouz confronts antisemitism masquerading as academic freedom
Last month, the Dutch city of Rotterdam became the latest stage for antisemites parading as anti-Zionists. It occurred at the city’s Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, named after Desiderius Erasmus, the great Dutch humanist best known, rather ironically, for the satirical work, In Praise of Folly. In this instance, however, the academic fools strutting as anti-Zionists made the mistake of targeting the wrong person, Eva Illouz.
A member of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, Illouz is a renowned sociologist who has published several influential books on the role played by emotions in politics and economics. No less important, Illouz is a prominent public intellectual in France, where she is a frequent contributor to Le Monde, and Israel, where her byline is often found in the pages of Haaretz.
Illouz also holds the dubious distinction of winning but not receiving the prestigious Israel Prize. Earlier this year, the prize committee chose her for the award — previously given to figures like Amoz Oz, Martin Buber, and Gershom Scholem — but their decision was nullified by Yoav Kisch, the minister of education. Outraged that Illouz signed a petition sent to the International Crime Tribunal in 2021 to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes in the West Bank, Kisch denounced her “anti-Israel ideology.”
This was not the last folly that would befall Illouz this year. Invited to give a talk, “Romantic Love and Capitalism,” at the Love Lab, a research department at the Erasmus School, Illouz was then abruptly disinvited. Last month, she learned from the lab’s director that “not all the members of the faculty were “comfortable with the initial invitation.” The reason, predictably, was Illouz’s former affiliation with Hebrew University, even though she no longer taught there. While the decision was not unanimous, the director added, it was nevertheless arrived at “democratically.”
In the spirit of Erasmus, Illouz replied that she was “delighted to learn that a truly antisemitic decision was arrived at democratically” for which the “faculty members must feel all the more virtuous.” But Illouz also asked a lawyer to challenge the decision which, earlier this week, led the school’s rector to issue both an official apology and a new invitation to speak at the school.
While Illouz will not pursue her case, the significance of this affair remains pertinent. I asked Illouz to sit for a Zoom interview on her thoughts about this affair and the lessons we might take from it. The following conversation, slightly edited for reasons of space and style, begins with Illouz’s response to my question about the disinvitation.
Eva Illouz: If you are disinvited it could mean one or two things. First, it can be your opinion, but then, you know, there is nothing in my opinions that really changed since the time I was invited. And usually, if it is an opinion, people care to let you know. They want to let you know it’s because you spoke badly of trans people or because you express an offensive view about the biology of men and women or the hierarchy between the sexes, whatever. If it’s not an opinion, and of course it was not, then it means that it’s something about you.
This is where I think it gets interesting. The journalist from Le Monde managed to get a hold of one of the persons at the Love Lab, and the person told her that I still had a connection to Israel, And the proof of it was my email address. This is getting, I mean, really bizarre. But in fact, it’s not so bizarre because I think modern antisemitism is this capacity to turn Jews into an essence. An essence is something you cannot change. In the Christian world Jews could convert. They were evil, but not an essence. Modern anti-Semitism makes Jews into an evil essence. And this has been simply transposed to Israelis and Israeliness via decolonial discourse. An essence is something you can never leave behind. It defines your being. Like an email address.
Robert Zaretsky: But the notion of being Israeli, as an essence, that’s simply a surrogate, is it not, for anti -Jewish sentiment, a form of anti-Judaism?
Yes, absolutely. Israelis are Jews but because hating Jews is out of fashion, Zionism and Israel become code words, conceptual substitutes for Jews. And the effects, interestingly enough, are exactly the same as they were in the Middle Ages or later times, namely to ostracize and isolate. To create a real or symbolic ghetto. IA ghetto is a place to which Jews are assigned because they are not allowed to interact with others. BDS ostracism and exclusion are strangely and eerily reminiscent of the ghetto.
So then, in a way, what you’re suggesting is the BDS movement or what took place with the Love Lab at Rotterdam was the making of a virtual ghetto.
Absolutely, yeah. By the way, I think it’s interesting to note that in the homepage, I believe, of the BDS, they mention only institutions and not individuals.
Exactly, but they made an exception in your case.
In my case and in many other cases. I am not sure BDS speaks in good faith, because it is very unclear who does or doesn’t represent institutions and when an individual starts and a representative ends. Unsurprisingly Israeli institutions have become Israeli individuals, Israeli individuals have become Zionists at large, and Zionists are, surprise, Jews. All of these categories are intricately connected to each other. But they can hide safely behind these thick layers of obfuscations which turn anti-Zionism into an opinion.
How odd that earlier this year you were awarded the Israel Price, which was then clawed back by Netanyahu’s government because, in their eyes, you advocate an “anti-Israel ideology.”
Exactly. And it shows that the left, the extreme left and the extreme right use the same tactics.
Extremes meet.
They meet, they use the same tactics, and they are basically the same kind of people. They are bullies. They simply are bullies. As Trump says. If you’re not 100 % with me, I’ll go after you. Each side is a Trumpist at heart. If you’re not 100 % with them, they go and they come after you.
Which makes him the most dubious of allies for American Jews who think that Donald Trump, in fact, will protect Israel which, in fact, this not Donald Trump’s motivation. It’s purely transactional. And for an older generation of American Jews, unlike my children’s generation, they see Trump as a shield. And I think they are profoundly mistaken.
I mean, look at what is happening now. All the neo-Nazis ghosts are coming out. i They are like a Frankenstein creature which you can no longer control. Trump in power has unleashed the darkest forces in America. The darkness of these forces has perhaps no precedent in the history of your country and the Jews will be in the middle.
It’s created a permission structure for people who have always felt this way to finally speak out aloud about what they feel towards Jews, what they feel towards blacks, what they feel towards women.
In my opinion, Nick Fuentes is the real scary stuff. Judith Butler and Masha Gessen and Pankaj Mishra are adversaries (people I disagree with) but not enemies.
At first glance, the Rotterdam affair seems to have a happy ending. The university issued a public apology for what took place and made it very clear that what they did should not have been done. And so, one is tempted to say all’s well that ends well, but is that true?
It’s a small battle, but I’ve won it and its important for many reasons. One is that I went and took a lawyer who decided to go to the European court of justice and say, this is a blatant case of discrimination, which on the basis of nationality is prohibited as much as race or gender. Each one of us needs to refuse and fight against any act of discrimination not only because we are Jews but because we believe in the constitutional values of our countries.
Do you believe really that it was just legal pressure or that the administration realized that it had committed a mistake?
I will never know. I mean, you and I can speculate about it, but we will not know empirically what made them change and do this. They disavowed their faculty member and they took a position that is today, you know, not easy to take, certainly in Holland, where the freedom of expression is extremely wide. I have to credit the rector; it must not have been a very easy decision to make.
What does this suggest about the role of university administrators?
I think university presidents need to be empowered. They need to be given more power to be able to make these kinds of judgments. Academic freedom has been the cover to excuse many egregious actions. I think it needs to be much clearer that academic freedom is actually much more limited than freedom of expression. Academic freedom is a misnomer. It is only the freedom to decide the content of your research and of what you teach. The classroom context actually prohibits you from saying a great deal many things and it’s a very good thing too.
Don’t you worry this would be considered a form of censorship?
As a French woman, I take it for granted that we have to do balancing act between freedom and the collective good. This is why we French people prosecute hate speech. We have rules and limits to protect the integrity and dignity of people. Strangely enough this applies to every single minority except for the Jews. It doesn’t work for them. If I had been a black woman, I want to hope there would have been an immediate scandal inside the university. And I believe there would have been. At least, I want to hope so. But somehow being excluded as a Jew diminishes the seriousness of the offense.
The post Shunned by the right, targeted by the left, Eva Illouz confronts antisemitism masquerading as academic freedom appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
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.
The post Yiddish writer and Forverts columnist Miriam Hoffman has died appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
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.
The post Amid blazing heat and rising tides, artists find beauty and desperation in these biblical times appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
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.
The post Fire at Postville, Iowa, kosher meat processing plant shuts down production ahead of the High Holidays appeared first on The Forward.
