...For the last four years, the Conservative Movement has waged a relentless and unyielding campaign against Agriprocessors and its most visible leader, Sholom Rubashkin. The Conservative Movement declared a boycott of all Rubashkin products, based on their many allegations and claims of worker abuse.
None of these claims had or have ever been substantiated, verified, validated, or proven by any respectable justice authority.
In tandem with their efforts to destroy Rubashkin, they promoted the Hekscher Tzedek, the Conservative mark of “ethical kashrut”. With every mention of the claims of atrocities purported to have happened at Agriprocessors, they spoke about the need for the Hekscher Tzedek. However, the first axiom of “social justice” must be that one may not destroy the life of another human being in order to promote one’s own concept of ethics.
I am deeply saddened to have to tell you that I believe without question or doubt that the Conservative Movement beleaguered Sholom Rubashkin with charges that were totally unproven only because they wanted to promote their Hekscher Tzedek.
Hekscher Tzedek was created by tormenting a fellow Jew.
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It is absolutely ridiculous to say that no claims against Agriprocessors have been validated. No one at the trial disputed the fact that minors were working at Agriprocessors, the issue was whether Sholom Rubashkin knew about it. And to say, as the article does, that an acquital means that the workers who testified against Rubashkin were "shown to be liars" betrays either a total and complete lack of understanding of how the American judicial system works, or a basic apathy for truth. I don't feel any better knowing that the meat I was eating a few years ago may have been prepared for me by minors working in dangerous conditions just because it can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt the management who was aware of that was Sholom Rubashkin and not his brother Heshy. I'm not sure why Rabbi Zeilingold feels otherwise.
If your 10 year old son or daughter, in a hypothetical but probable case, prepared you a frank or omelette, would you eat it? Is the only difference that the Agriprocessor plant was paying the underage kids money?
I would hope it would go without saying that I would strongly discourage my 10 year old son from working in a slaughterhouse. State law in Iowa (and I assume every other state) would as well. If you're seriously suggesting that there's nothing abusive about having children work in a slaughterhouse, than I think your issue with the Hechsher Tzedek is one of the definition of abuse and not one of the facts of the case. In either event, the idea that the verdict tells us anything about the actions of Agriprocessors, which to be clear, was not even the defendant in the case (the company pled guilty to child labor charges), is just false. And since that is the premise of the article, the whole thing is demonstrably nonsense.
I am not, definitely, in favor of child-labor. I am questioning the parameters of morals. If I understood you, it's not a matter of age but conditions although you didn't answer my question so I don't really know.
Ok. I would eat that, but my kitchen is not a slaughterhouse. I would also tell my ten year old not to cook for me without any number of safety precautions that cannot exist in a slaughterhouse. And why can't morality be both a matter of age and conditions? There are no shortage of things that would be immoral to do with a minor just because they're a minor. I'm certain the Hechsher Tzedek people feel that way, and that's certainly a defensible position. And again, because you seem to be running by that point, the idea that the trial has anything to do with that issue is ridiculous and the author of the aritcle is either totally ignorant of that or deliberately trying to mislead his readers. I don't see a third option, do you?
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