This documentary offers a sobering look at the friction between religious insularity and secular ethics, exposing the human cost of spiritual exceptionalism. It is a necessary, unflinching examination of how dogmatic particularism can lead to systemic exploitation.
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CHABAD / POSTVILLE AND BEYOND / part 1 and part 2Added:
Manaka Mendel Schneerson was born in 1902 in Ukraine in the town of Nikolav, the city of Nikollay uh to a Lubavichassidic family. He was married to the uh middle daughter of the previous Luba who was also his cousin Yosfi Saksherson.
And in 1951 he took on the mantle of leadership of the Kabad Bubavic Kasidic movement, a movement that was relatively small, certainly much more obscure to the wide public than it would become under his leadership.
And during the course of leading that movement until his death in 1994, uh he infused it with a great deal of messianic ferveny and activity and transformed it into a worldwide outreach movement that continues to try to change the character of Jewish life in the world uh to this day.
Now in regard to Rabbi Manahim Mendel Schneerson and as far as the Labovich Kasidic Jews are concerned that's their rabbi. They call him the rebby. So we can say that the Labovichic Jews are followers of Schneersen. I've spent the better part of a decade um studying in depth the thought the expressions which are in about 36 huge volumes of letters and diaries written mostly in Yiddish some in Hebrew of Manakim Schneerson goes on and on about why the soul of the Jew which is holy which lives on somewhere in eternity or heaven or next to God after a person dies in terms of the physical body that the soul of the Jew is far superior. God made it so far superior to the soul of the non-Jew to the soul of the non-Jew. uh and we give a quotation or two in our book and that's clearly the case. Now, I could go on and on with this, but there but there there is something superior. But now, let me say something else that transcends just the discussion of Schneersen or Kabad Lubavich oridic Jews or even orim transcends it and goes right into orthodoxy. If one looks at looks at you just have to look at and read carefully the basic the most basic prayers in orthodox Jewish prayer books. And I just have read again these prayers in the synagogue last Saturday on Yom Kapor, the holiest day of the year, the end of the high holy days. If you look at these prayers, they clearly outline and specify that Jews are superior. For example, thank you God for not for making me a Jew and not a member of those other nations that that that are uh that only live for vanity and so on and so on and so forth. And there are prayers that go even further than that.
If you are saying that there are one group of people who are essentially in a very essential sense different and better than another group which Ner and others clearly say that's racism and our normal understanding. Now they don't use the word race in the same way and I say it's not it's not exactly the same. And it's not coming out of the laboratories uh of anthropologists and so on, but it definitely says there's something about a Jewish nasha soul that is superior.
>> And in terms of when you're dealing with non-Jews, there is a level of racism there. Kabad views non-Jews as being a lesser type of creation than Jews are. Even though they have outreach to non-Jews and they talk about various laws that non-Jews need to follow and how they can reach God that way and a whole list of things, they do also have this other problem which is sort of unique to them and to um a couple other small subgroups within ultraorththodoxy where non-Jews are viewed as being um that their souls come from a place that's not as good as where Jewish souls come from. Look at it that way. Um, that's actually a polite way of saying what they actually have written in the book called the Tanya, which was written by the first Rebi of Kabad, the first rabbitic leader of Kabad in the late 1700s. You know, we as humans aren't reduced to one characteristic, Jew versus non-Jew. But that's how Shalom and all of the Lubeters look at the world. You are a Jew.
And a Jew, by the way, is determined through bloodlines, through your mother's religion, not through your father's religion. It's a religion that's passed maternally from mother to child, from mother to child.
>> They see the world divided uh in a kind of dualistic fashion between the good guys and the bad guys, the insiders and the outsiders.
The world was made into Jew versus non-Jew. That's how most ultraorththodox looters look at the world.
You're with us. You're a Jew or you're goyam. You're trafe non non-coosher.
You you eat pork. You eat uh you're you're part of the hazerai. And so that was the key that I was a Jew and as long as I was a Jew I was perceived as friend not foe. They believe that they alone know uh have the recipe for uh um the way people ought to live. They that's not only uh limited to Jews. As a matter of fact, they have a a campaign called the 7 for70 campaign which plays on their the address of their worldwide headquarters 770 Eastern Parkway and also plays on the concept that in Jewish life uh according to traditional Jewish thinking there are 70 nations which means all the the nations of the world and there are seven commandments given to Noah and the sons of Noah which precede Abraham and the Jewish people and the seven for 70 campaign is a campaign to get all the people of the world to abide by those seven commandments. That's another example of this kind of uh recipe that they believe that it is their task to make sure that the world uh that all people observe at least those seven commandments and that the Jews observe all the commandments uh that were given to them. And when all of that happens, that will bring about the day of redemption.
>> Uh in many cases, you know, we've kind of had this cloud of political correctness hanging over us where people just don't even, you know, they get to the point where they're afraid to even talk to each other. They're afraid to say uh to say things to each other, to call each other on their behavior because remember again, I make a distinction between what people do and and who they are. And uh sometimes again with this cloud of political correctness hanging over us, we're afraid to have those kind of direct uh communication.
I don't think of them as the same. I think I think that any collection of human beings, any human organization is is perfectly capable of their own bias and their own different sets of expectations.
Um, I understand that different groups are going to have different agendas and degree to which they choose to consider themselves separate from a broader society uh is really their own damn business. I mean, as long as uh I mean, if that's the way that they choose to live their lives and worship God in the way that's comfortable to them and organize themselves and that's their message, uh I don't have a problem with it as long as they don't interfere with my right or my opportunities to do the same. I would never try to impose upon them uh I would never try to impose upon other people my own views.
They feel it's their righteous calling to um crusade against uh Jews like me who are trying to persuade Jews uh away from believing in God. I understand their righteous or self-righteous passion. But on the other hand, they have their own Messiah that they believe is the Messiah and they're just as evangelistic about Rabbi Schneerson who they think is going to rise from the dead and be the Messiah.
And by the way, you know, most of these postville rabbis are are corrupt to their core or not most, I don't know, many of them been been caught subsequently in in various kinds of uh mistreatment of their workers and uh financial misdealings and so on. They're not a particularly estimable group, at least on the leadership level.
>> The rest of them I don't know that much about. Uh but uh and were they like that today, the Jews like that in history?
I'm inclined to doubt it. It's too diver the Jews are too diverse. Uh and I don't think even the place they came from, that is uh Eastern Europe, that was the predominant way that Jews operated. You know, if Jews were that bad, so to speak, they wouldn't have survived.
I am worship.
Just like Hallelujah.
Glory to you.
What happened in Postville is a group of um kabadidic Jews um bought an old closed slaughterhouse and decided that this was going to be the center for kosher meat production in uh North America. And they set out to make that happen. but they did it um in ways that that were weren't always legal and weren't always nice. And they created a large amount of animosity within the local community, within the surrounding communities, uh with their suppliers, with uh um people who were concerned about how the animals were being treated to whatever you can imagine. uh their own employees, they they create a tremendous amount of animosity. It's going to cause tension >> when you have different people come together and especially when you have uh a situation um like with the the hetic Jews in town who as part of their culture and part of what uh trying to preserve their uh their religious purity and and keep their children from being affected by society. they choose to stay as a pretty insular um close-knit group.
You start out in a small town that way, and that's going to accept upset some people because people in small towns are used to saying hello, being polite to one another, holding doors for each other, uh don't have the same restrictions about men and women interacting, and uh you know, and even in terms of what you do on the Sabbath or don't do on the Sabbath. So for years the the tensions that existed um the the community different members of the community were trying to uh to come together to learn about each other and uh embrace the diversity not necessarily try to change anybody but to try to understand everybody.
Um, so you started to see things like um people from the Jewish community who wouldn't say hello initially saying hello. All I was suggesting was can't we say hello? And Laser said no, we can't do that. We are separate and above and apart.
Um, you know, authors really like turns in their books. And that was the turn for me in there was a in the pit of my stomach. I just felt no, no, no, no.
This isn't what Jews do.
This isn't what people do. Merely saying hello ushers the Holocaust. Come on.
It's a very closed society.
And as a town, Postville, I think, did their best to be open. And I find that paradoxical.
>> You know, the Ians welcomed the Lubeters with open arms. The Ians were just tickled pink that the Lubeters chose postfilm.
They, you know, the Ians, their perception of a Jew might be developed from channel surfing and, you know, seeing Seinfeld, you know, for a couple of seconds and then going to another station, maybe ending at Lawrence Welk, but there was no sense of who are these foreigners, who are these people coming in controlling us. They really welcomed the Lubovich and they they they bent and they they were they just bent and bent and bent and they were pushed and pushed and pushed. I don't like to call a spade a spade. Ians just will give and and they they were they welcomed the Lubeters. The beverage just took and took and took so much from this community until the locals said, "No, no, no more." Early on, we were questioned by some uh federal officials.
Uh do you people know of um human trafficking that was going on the plant?
Well, at the time, I didn't even know what human trafficking was. I And I said, "No." Were they to ask me that now I would say yes indeed because um these workers were talking about signs they had seen even in their little villages about work. Um they were saying the sign said come you'll have apartment free apartment furnished for a month so you get established you will get $10 an hour and uh the work you can start right away. All of that turned out to be a lie. So it was a trafficking to get them up here because once they were here and you had a long line applying, it was easier to fire somebody you didn't who was causing a little trouble, you know, and then hire one of these new workers.
And as a matter of fact, uh the workforce went from Mexican to Guatemalan because it was easier to control the Guatemalans. They had less education and they were new arrivals who needed immediately to get to work and have a place to live.
Yeah, these were all this was not happen stance. It was deliberate.
>> And then the plant was also recruiting a lot of down andout Americans that were desperate for work that really needed um needed some type of employment. So they were going into inner cities for instance uh inner city African-Americans, Detroit, Chicago, those kinds of areas. uh low-income Appalachian whites. There were Native Americans that were brought in from other states to work in the plant. And so you had a real mix of different kinds of people coming in to the plant.
>> Then the raid happens. So then people are all kind of shocked at what was going on, but still they didn't say much.
So then the plant starts to bring in all these people from all over the country through their labor supply companies and people start to get pissed off.
Things are being broken. Things are being robbed. Things are being fights in the in the tavern every night. Um, ears laying on the sidewalk one morning because there was such a nasty fight the night before. Stabbings. Police department keeping everything quiet because they don't want to they don't want to bother the community with what's going on and they won't release any news stories because they just don't know if they should. It was typical for farmers once they retired to pass their land on to children if if they were interested in in farming or selling their land to someone else and then moving into town.
Well, with the unrest and with with uh some of the crime and and other problems that came along with um the rotation of workers that would have happen or the the the uh the flux I guess that happens in the workforce. Um there would be times when things were pretty tense in town and it wasn't like it used to be where you could leave your doors unlocked. No one locked their car when they went downtown. sometimes just left it sitting there running.
You don't do that anymore because you don't necessarily know who was here in town or how long they've been here. You know, I think Postville in many ways is sort of out front in America. And I think if you want to see what will happen in America in 2015, 2020, go to Postville. You know, Postville takes us right to the heart of multicultural America. in in Postville, you don't have elements that confuse the issue.
It's a very small town. It's not like Los Angeles or Chicago or Miami or Houston or New York.
There no distractions.
It's a social laboratory.
You really see all these other things get jettisoned to the side and you really see what happens when a group of dummy what kind of group it is but a group of strident people who believe their way is God's way when they choose to park themselves in a community and really not care about the community.
>> I think you have to understand too that the lay the lay world, generally speaking, the lay world that I work in, they have no idea what kabad is.
They understand a lot of them there are the Orthodox Jews, you know, you got to understand it. Most of the people that I work with would couldn't have this conversation because they don't share the same vocabulary. There's nothing wrong with that.
You you know people don't I can guarantee you that a lot of people don't even realize that there is a kabad movement that there are members who belong to kabad. Uh I'll give you an example. Okay. Typical Shabbat in postfilm. Okay. Folks are dressed appropriately. They're going to sh they're going to synagogue.
Um at various times there have been people from different sects of course who part participated and of course different sects for example that wear different head gear. Sorry. And I can guarantee you that most of the postvillians that I know and known for years could not tell you the difference between the two sex based on the hats that they were wearing. I don't think they just re I don't think they realize a lot of people don't realize that there is a kabad.
>> People knew nothing about about orthodox or certainly not about anything about their sect uh the hedum.
So only what they've learned um having lived here and lived with them. Um the majority of these people had probably never met a Jewish person before they started to move here.
>> Postville as a community tried to be so open to a variety of peoples coming in.
But the religion of the particular group of Jewish people that we had within Postfield, it was not in their principles to maintain that same openness. And I just say that's kind of a paradox that you you want that openness within your community, but it isn't coming from that particular group.
But I don't think their religion permits that.
The Lubovich have shown themselves particularly in Postville to be so antithetical to American democracy.
Um they have bribed officials. They have flagrantly flipped the bird to anyone who disagrees with with the simple rejoinder.
If you disagree with us, you're an anti-semite.
>> What? You're questioning us? That's anti-semitism.
And that would shut most people up.
Except it didn't shut us up. Because my response is, "Yeah, but you're anti-gentile."
I mean, do you ever discuss that? You ever even see it in print? I mean, come on. You've not treated the Gentiles here very well.
What's Let's hear somebody talk about that. No, that that it's exactly what I'm talking about.
That's the lack of tolerance. That's the lack of diversity. That's the non-Jews are not as good as us. That they have souls that come from a a place that's not pure. That they're that they're rooted in a lower creation almost. I mean, you know, if you were going to look at at the the old evolution, except you wouldn't view it as evolution because it's they don't believe in evolution. But if you if you were ranking, you know, human beings and and creation, right? So you would have Jews, this is them. Jews are on top, right? Then you've got non-Jews.
Then you have the great apes. Then you have, right? And it goes down like this to rocks, right?
Well, first of all, you should know I'm the only one on our staff who ever toured the plant.
And uh as far as the Habad and their work at the plant, uh in my work as a a missionary, I ended up in Texas and worked there for two years and toured a good many meat processing plants, Pilgrim's Pr uh Pride, chickens, and you name Tyson's and altogether maybe a dozen different meat processing plants. This one without question was the dirtiest, most unsafe one I've ever been through.
It it there was I couldn't see why there weren't more accidents because they paid so much attention on loading meat up and shipping it off to Chicago and New York and not on worker safety. They didn't have earplugs for the workers. Uh many of them did not have safety gloves. Uh they all had to buy their own uh rubber bibs to protect against blood and so on.
clean their own uniforms. I knew that uh there was going to be major problems and it was directly connected to the way the uh hesetic Jews here were running that plant. Uh there were lies uh in the second of the tour that I had.
It was probably about in uh 200 uh three 2002 they uh the guide told me directly and I couldn't believe it. Our goal is to become the largest kosher plant in the world and con uh control all the meat that goes in to Israel.
And then when I saw how they were breaking all the uh kosher rules in the book of Leviticus and their own religious texts, it just staggered the imagination that this could be happening.
the the slaughter house reminds some Jews of a concentration camp, a concentration camp for animals, you know, for for cattle, for turkeys, for for chickens. Um, you you're well aware that PETA was able to infiltrate the slaughterhouse in Postville and and um took videos of of horrific, horrendous scenes of abuse.
I mean, some of that abuse, some of the unsanitary conditions I write about in the book. I mean that, you know, you take it from upper level management, even mid-level and lower level management, with the exception of a few white guys at the lower levels, everybody was acting to the same end as far as plant management there goes. They were acting that they wanted to squeeze as much money out of that product as they could by spending as little as they could.
So, you know, forced overtime, no vacation pay. Um, it was all part of the grand plan to keep the product at a very low cost. And then once they got it out, they they really did up the price quite a bit because it was kosher. But for the first time, kosher meat becomes available outside of a boutique butcher shop. It's it's mass- prodduced. It's available at what seems to be cheaper rates, but substantially more expensive than regular meat, but those people who keep kosher would keep it. But then I start hearing stories about from guys on the line saying, "Well, we get this meat from Colorado, this beef from Colorado now that comes from their plant out there, from the Nebraska plant that it's kind of green when it gets here."
But as soon as it comes in, the rabbis disappear.
And so they're running this lousy meat through the trae is what they call it, I think, because it's unfit for not only human consumption, but it's so far from kosher that you couldn't even touch it.
And so the rabbis disappear when that's coming through. But yet, they still have product to ship out. I do know that many of the allegations that the feds made against the slaughterhouse were in the book. I mean, there was drug trafficking going on in the slaughterhouse. there was gun trafficking going on in the slaughter house. Um, in terms of sexual harassment, um, it was rampant way back in the early 90s. I wrote about that. Um, there were women I talked to who told me, "If you don't put out for your boss, you will be out of a job." I do know it was the worstkept secret in Iowa after the book came out that if you wanted a job, you could always get a job in Postville.
You know, the the this whole issue of oh gee, you have to have you know, you have to be documented. That was all garbage.
All you need to do is knock on the window of the employment office at Agroprocessors in the morning. In the afternoon, you'd be on the kill floor. They had two different payrolls. They were um paying the immigrant workers, the undocumented immigrant workers, much less than they were paying the for the most part the u quote unquote American workers. Um they were stealing overtime. they were making people work working having work forced overtime and then you know not paying them for it. Um you had kids working um 12 to 14 hour days 6 days a week when they were supposed to be in school um 7:00 a.m. to uh sometimes 10:00 p.m.
When it started with 3 400 workers that plant could handle that but when it got up to 900 it couldn't. part of that plant should be condemned. It was so old. And when I took my tours, uh the working conditions were horrendous. There was blood flowing on the floor. Um people who came to me said that they would cut like this with an electric saw just cutting the legs off chickens that were hanging uh for 8 n 10 hours a day with one half hour off to eat. The stories I used to hear were many uh because it wasn't uncommon for people that I got to know that especially guys that were younger guys that didn't have families and even family men as well, but it wasn't uncommon for them to after work or on a given evening just to come by and just to chat. And and I think the the worst condition, if you want to call it a condition, is is just how they were driven. They were driven to a point of of you may as well say, um, slavery basically because they pushed them so hard.
>> There were minors and other people with very little training working with knives in very fast environments. There's certainly a lot of health issues because of the speed of the line and the lack of breaks of just the repetitiveness of it.
People have repeatedly testified to having to do, you know, to process 60 chickens, you know, if you're doing a cut. I remember one particular person that talked about taking a chicken breast, you know, and and you have to remove it from the bone. And that requires I don't remember exactly the number of cuts, but it's several cuts just to do that piece of it. And you're doing 60 in a minute. I mean, that's a second. And you're doing this for hours on end. and often without very much training or no training at all.
>> I'm not a doctor, but while I was pastor here on a regular basis, I had people coming in saying, "I can't lift my arm."
Um, young people uh with cuts.
And right behind our rectory here is the offices of a doctor who was doing a lot of work for for the plant where they could go and get a band-aid or get something sprayed on and then the plant would say be back to work tomorrow or there won't be any job for you. I saw that on a regular basis. So it's it's >> it was a horrible working working conditions in that place. They atrocious. um they made those people work incredibly fast under the threat of being fired immediately because they had such a a a a ready workforce available.
They they could they could hold these people over the barrel for for no reason whatsoever except production.
>> Different people have talked about there's one gentleman who talked about being hit with a meat cleaver, you know, uh because of not moving fast enough within the factory by one of the supervisors. Um there is the story that was actually a gentleman gave his testimony before a congressional visit that came to town about losing his arm in a machine and that's a very gruesome story just very very visual of his arm being trapped in this part of the machine. Uh you know they they didn't have adequate safety equipment in place to prevent something like this. the the guy was cleaning the machine that had been stuck and one of the supervisors in frustration because the machine was stuck started it and got this guy's arm caught in it. Basically destroyed his arm. It was caught in the piece inside the machine so they couldn't release him with it. They dealt with him fairly poorly with the rush to try to get the machine back and the operation back and running. They removed it. Uh you know it took a long time. The guy was trapped in this machine for quite some time. They put him on a stretcher, took him to the hospital. they removed his arm from it and basically returned the same machine, the same piece back to the machine and kept working. I mean, it's just the the many of the stories just um point to an approach to individuals as moving parts of a machine as a whole. You know, that that image uh really has stayed with me because I think it was emblematic of the way that people were viewed uh within the company. Two young women said that they began working when they were 14 and um uh they worked up to 12 hours. Uh there are it's it's not only at agusters that uh workers special women have to wear diapers because they're not given time to go to the bathroom. That's nothing new. Uh but that happened there. Uh there's a testimony of a woman who uh because she was not allowed to take uh breaks and she was diabetic, she lost her child. Um and I do have a woman on camera saying that because she was not given time to go to the bathroom, she peed on the line.
Uh people would also have proposition a lot of the women were propositioned sexually by supervisors and sometimes threatened you know with losing work or pay or or would be shifted to harder work if they didn't comply with those expectations or if they tried to complain about it. So I think the pervasiveness was fear and the sense that you were really had no right. Yes, it was uh it was there was there was abuse at the plant. Some of the supervisors would require uh some of the women to give sexual favors in exchange for either a job or a better shift. None of us really had an understanding of the full the full uh level of of dysfunction is I guess what I would say that was going on there at the plant.
>> Once the raid happened and people knew they had lost their jobs anyway, they had nothing more to lose. We started hearing the horror stories. you know, one of the supervisors who uh would say, "If you want a job here, you have to buy a car from me." Or, "If you want to be moved to a different line, you have to buy a car from me." And they were junk vehicles that didn't have a title, maybe had the VIN numbers scratched out, and it was just a way of extorting money from uh from the workers. We started hearing about sexual abuse that was happening and sexual propositioning, very inappropriate uh situations about um beatings and abuse that had happened.
>> Um yeah, well, there was one story that had floated around about someone being hit with a meat hook because I don't know if he wasn't working fast enough or it's been long enough ago. I don't remember the issue, but uh you know some of those stories started coming out and you'll find those in the media accounts if you search on them and and look through them. This is stuff that has become public knowledge since. But but it was I mean to me there was a definitely a a culture um a negative culture that that had been established there at the plant and uh a culture of abuse and a culture of um taking advantage of the workers who were there.
You know we we keep hearing that these are folks who were making more money than they ever had before. Very true. Very true. But by US standards um they were not making very much money and they were also in uh situations where they were being treated very poorly and had no way to complain. There was nowhere for them to go.
>> Uh if they complained to a state agency, they would find out that the people were undocumented and and uh you know they would risk being deported certainly. So the abuse was able to go on. So the most consistent types of things were, you know, people have talked about the pressure for work, you know, that that was just like constant, just no stopping, just very demanding work conditions and that that productivity was um, you know, obtained by yelling, by you know, speeding up the line, by threats about losing your employment.
There was no room for illness. There was no room for excuses. Their breaks were seldom provided adequately. You know, there would be something in writing about what their contract time would be when they would have breaks and stuff and that wasn't respected. They often talked about there was a time when you went in, but there was no clarity when you went out. Basically, whatever the work was for that day had to be completed. And even though the law says, you know, after 8 hours is your choice and you'll get paid overtime if you choose to remain, there was really no choice. if you wanted to keep your work, you just kept going till the job was done. And and so, you know, people dealt with issues around their child care. You know, if you have a kid waiting at home, you don't have arrangements for after your work shift, but you have no idea when you're getting out because it's just till the line is done. And so there was that constant constant pressure. Uh so overtime was really not an option. It was pretty much required. it wasn't always compensated uh as overtime. Uh people often felt that, you know, the hours that they clocked in didn't match the hours that they were paid for. Uh that they wouldn't be adequately uh compensated.
>> It was common knowledge among people who had been working there for a long time that it didn't pay to work overtime because the more you worked, the more uh hours you were not paid for. So >> you see all of the the um Hispanic families that we worked with that were Christian Catholics could never get out of work on Christmas and Easter because those were Sundays.
And yet when uh Passover another feast came and they there was no work up here and even during the uh Passover celebrations the community Hispanic community uh didn't have any job but to get we requested the plan just to give them an hour off so they go to church on Christmas and Easter and we're totally ignored. The system within the plan was quite hierarchical, you know, and the hierarchy was used as a way to press down. So that whatever pressure was coming from a higher level just got harder and harder as you came down. And the system was set up by different helmet colors, which I think is still something they do. So that the workers in the plant, and that may be common to other plants, I'm not sure, but people were identified in their status by the helmets that they wore. So that's the way they've experienced the world. There are people with and people without. You're the worker, you have very few rights, you know, and then there's the people who have. So the people who have become monolithic. I think to some extent people probably distinguish some between the rabbis, you know, these group. I don't think any of them would ever use the term Habad. I don't think that most of them would have a a sense that there are varieties of Judaism and different ways of being it.
They hardly, you know, most people I've talked to, you know, it's sort of like a a foreign thing, you know, >> but yeah, so they would have a sense that those who have have everything.
They have the housing, they have the food, they have the jobs, they have the power.
Everybody was called a a rabbi as long as you had the same garb and they were rabbis to the workers. I don't think the workers knew uh who did what here even uh Jews that were working in the plant supervisors were called rabbis by by the workers.
>> Yes, they had a u rabbi room in the plant that was off limits to anybody who wasn't uh hidic.
While at the same time they had nearly a thousand workers, they only had one rest room for women and a lot of times it was plugged up.
The men also used that one for women, but the men had another one whereas the women many times during work could not go to the restroom. They either had to go in their pants or hold it. And after the raid, we discovered one woman especially, she had kidney problems. She had have some serious u medical attention just from holding.
>> One of the worst uh stories and and it was more than a story. It's it's been heard by many people. Many people said it uh many of the workers said it that their uh break room or the lunchroom where they would sit down to eat, there was a some sort of a trench, a drainage trench trench that ran through there and that on many occasions or on several occasions anyhow, there would be a sewer back up and that stuff would back up right into that area where they were having their lunch. So, I mean, I don't know how you can have any worse sanitary conditions than something like that. I I've heard of many occasions where uh um again speaking of how fast the conveyor belts were moving as of meat falling on the floor and that it was just picked up and just continue going with it.
One of my first questions to one of the first people I interview, I said, "Why did you put up with this kind of situation where you couldn't take bathroom breaks, where you were paying less than you had work?" And she said, "Um, from nothing to a little bit, there's a big difference.
And for somebody who uh was making back in Guatemala, what she could make here, what it would take her a month to earn there, she could earn here in 3 days. Uh even though she was, you know, living her life there. Uh it meant the lifeline meant that she could pay for her parents' medicines. It it meant that she could pay for her kids. uh food back home. So, it was this really bittersweet situation where you know you're getting screwed, but hey, it's better than than nothing.
>> Like most situations of exploitation, you have fear that prevents people from speaking openly. uh in most situations once you add the layer of people living without documentation and with very little understanding of their own rights. In the particular case of the people who worked in Pville, a large portion of them come from Guatemala where people are fearful of organizing of raising any concerns. You know, you you have a long history. that you are familiar with with the history in Guatemala. But in Guatemalan history talking, anybody who talks, anybody who complains, you know, there are consequences to this. Fear has historically been used in the country to really keep people down, you know, and so that's a cultural issue that people are already carrying with them. I think within the plant at agri processor whether it was intentional or not there was a use of that fear against the workers you know and so I definitely think that we know very little about what actually happened in that place. We know very little about the kinds of conditions people put up with and the kind of the number of you know accidents or the untold sort of price that people paid physically in their bodies in their minds from this kind of work. kind of trauma.
>> The things that I read in declarations by former workers were next to unbelievable because it's like they knew they needed the job.
They knew they had to have the job. They knew that if they lost the job, it was not just their family here locally that was going to suffer. But a lot of these folks also, because they're so close-knit, family oriented, are still supporting family members back in their home countries.
So, they were put in a no in a no win situation. and they had to they had to pretty much put up with whatever was dished out to them.
But it is my understanding that at one point enough the majority of the workers had signed up and were willing and wanted to have a union.
And of course the Robashkans were always looking for a way to derail that because I think the last thing they wanted to see in there was a union. So as they saw the union gaining strength of the workers, they would also have meetings with the workers and try to discourage them from from ever voting for a union. And uh I think I think the the final thing that derailed what could have been a union there is the fact that he told them that because they were und they were told and that came out in the press.
Um he had told the workers that they didn't have a right to have a union because they were undocumented. So, I always found a lot of irony in him saying that and then also at the same time in other um statements saying that he wasn't aware that he had undocumented workers in his plant when he was the one that came out and said, "No, you can't have a union because you're undocumented." So, I see a lot of irony in that.
>> Um, what about the landlord and the rental situation for these people? Do you know anything about that? Would were they subject to? It sounds like there's >> And uh during the child labor violations trial, it came out that uh they were told that if they did not work the hours that they were required to work, they would either lose their job or uh the immigration authorities would be called.
>> Everybody in town knew there were minors working in the company. uh the school system knew they were kids that just, you know, would show up for school for a year or two and then disappear, you know, no longer come back to school.
>> When when I first got here, my first job was actually at the school. I was the bilingual outreach coordinator. And so I worked with mostly high school and middle age middle school students and their families. Um and there were quite a few the big that would drop out of school to go work at the plant. And that was common knowledge to everybody in town in the school system that everybody knew that happened. that was the worst kept secret possible. Um, and my one of my main duties was to try to create a trusting relationship with the middle school students and their families to help that transition from middle school to high school. That's where we lost most of the kids after 8th grade.
Between 8th grade and 9th grade, that transition just for some reason was not happening. They'd prefer to go to work at that point. So, that was one of my main responsibilities was to try to keep the kids in school instead of working at the plant. But I have young workers saying that they got hurt. They were not sent to the hospital. They were just put a band-aid and sent back to work. Uh there's two workers. One of them lost two fingers and another one lost an arm and they were both um uh one of them was underage. I heard anecdotally an anecdotally people who talked about having different payments coming out of their paycheck that they didn't really you know supposedly were for healthare or for some kind of premiums but when it came to receiving care you know that wasn't really available to them. Uh if they got injured at work they often would be poorly cared for at that moment and then sent back to the line.
>> Guys get up to $850 maybe $9 an hour. I never heard of anybody getting $9 an hour. Not the common line workers, at least not the Hispanics anyhow. But I think that once you reached a certain point where you've been there so long and it was time to change that document again or that identity, I think that was just kind of a way of again putting somebody back in that starting wage again and start all over again.
>> It was horrifying. It was. So, I set to work trying to verify as much of that as I could. First call I made was to a friend of mine who operated the Postville bakery, Elver. Um, Elver was a Guatemalan immigrant himself and had worked at the plant for a number of years. And I asked him if he would come in and talk to me about some of this. We were talking and we were on air and I asked him about the the allegations about the plant manufacturing IDs and and he said on the air. He said, "Yeah, there was no doubt about it. Um they offered me a position on first shift and said I could have it if I wanted it, but I needed to get a new ID."
And he said that he told him he didn't have one and they said, "Well, don't worry. we can get you one for $150.
And this went out live on the air after the plant shut down. They were scrambling to get laborers in. So they employed a couple of labor supply houses. Um, one of them very unscrupulous. Imagine that. And they would reach out to they they'd put their buses outside of prisons and and the guys coming out of prison getting on parole, they'd put him on the bus and say, "Look, we got work in Postville."
It's not just that he committed bank fraud or wire fraud or whatever, which was that he faxed, you know, false information, which is wire fraud. It's not just that, you know, the man lied to the feds. The man obstructed justice. He destroyed evidence. He bribed the mayor of Postville. There are dozens and dozens. You have aggravated identity theft. of dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of crimes that this man is alleged to have committed besides the ones he was charged with. There were two of them operating in cooperation with Agra. The first one was out of uh Waterl, Iowa. Um they brought in 150 people within the first week. local people or these >> these were all local Iowa people um mostly from Waterl and Cedar Falls where they could draw from a lower income market.
>> Um they brought them up, put them to work immediately and within oh two or 3 weeks pulled every one of their employees who would go citing safety concerns. So then they reached out to this labor supply company out of Indiana uh by the name of One Force.
Um they were the ones who were subcontracting and and recruiting from other labor supply groups in Texas where they did the the recruiting at the excuse me the recruiting at the homeless shelters uh the prisons. So we were getting people in town with dependency problems, medical problems, and to be brutally honest, mental problems and no services, nothing within 100 miles. So I did an interview with one of these girls that came in from Texas from one of the homeless shelters. She was diabetic, schizophrenic, manic depressive, which I guess now is bipolar. That's the proper way to say that. um a litany of drug abuse and alcohol abuse.
They brought her in, put her in a house with nine men to start with.
She went to work, used to being on the streets in Texas where it was probably in the '9s most of the time and then immediately began working inside the plant where it was 55. So, she contracted a cold or she got a cold.
She didn't go to work. She had a doctor's excuse, but they fired her right away. So, I tracked her down to get her story and put her on the air.
As soon as one of my board members heard it, he immediately contacted him Abramson at the plant, who was also one of my board members, and said that I was dividing the community by broadcasting unsubstantiated stories.
But hers was just one of many. Um, there were others that were just as as as ridiculous. These labor supply companies were working in in tandem in partnership with with the realy companies in town, the two Jewish realy companies in a house that ordinarily rents for 300 $350 max in that town. they would jam in 10, 11, 12, 14, 16 people and charge them $125 a week. So, in some cases, they're getting $3,000 a month for a house that's falling falling apart around these people. Right after the raid, the the connection between the company and housing was very obvious because they were actually taking out the money out of the out of their paycheck. They had contracted with a kind of like temporary work uh organization to try to find workers for them. And so they would bring people and tell them all kinds of things about what they would receive, you know, by coming here. So they brought people from whenever they could find them. But along with that, the temporary agency then as a subcontractor was taking out, you know, a fee for housing, a fee for this, a fee for that, finders fee, whatever it was, you know. And so by the time people actually were here, the conditions that they were told they would receive were not at all what they expected. And then oftentimes there were so many deductions from their paychecks that they ended up with absolutely nothing. And so you have a community that's already quite burdened trying to support others with workers working 40 hours a week and then going to the food pantry to try to get just something to eat. You know, I mean it's and that again that's documented at least in in newspapers uh following the the months of the raid.
>> Well, Neville Properties and they were a division of aggra processors as well as another man um Goodbye Manahham was his name. I'm not certain if I'm pronouncing that correct. He was a Jewish man.
Although he and he had come here as part of the Jewish community to send his children to the but I don't think that he was ever employed by the plant and he owned a lot of property here.
>> How much?
>> Oh, a lot. I I and I'm guessing but 20 30 40 properties.
>> I talked to people who were living in the homes owned by the Jewish re real estate companies, one of which was also owned by the Ruboskin family.
>> Neville Properties was owned by the Ruboskans and Manakam Gabby, everybody called them, had a place called uh I don't recall off the top of my head, but those places, the top-of-the-line homes, their best places went to the Jewish employees, the rabbis and their families, and the slums and the fall apart houses and the shacks went to everybody else.
>> But certainly uh you know that that was one of the issues we dealt with prior even to the rate you know people paying large amounts of money for very inadequate housing and again now unique to that community. It's unfortunately the history of towns and communities that have become dependent on a single employer that kind of controls everything. So yeah, I don't know that agree processors as an official company owned housing, but I do know that people who work there and we're quite connected would own most of the housing and the rental housing in the community. I know that one set of apartments which is a group of four buildings um was owned somehow or another by the Roboskans or a group that Robashkin was in with and I don't understand that whole organization but he had the majority at one point as far as apartment dwellings are concerned he had the majority of the the apartments in town and yes very limited landlords and and and I pretty much they pretty well named their price I think on on what rents would be in the community. The other contact that I had with the Jewish community would have been with some of the landlords that would come at the time when our people were not able to pay their rent. And because of the generous donations of other people, 49 of our 50 states we received donations from.
And because of that generosity, we were able to assist people pay a portion maybe of their rent for a given month.
And sometimes the the Jewish landlords would wonder when they were going to get paid and things like that. I had some contact then with a couple that owned some properties.
>> Each one of those guys, each one of those companies wanted the most rental units so they could get the most money out of what they were doing.
And they bought houses that were already in need of work that ended up being in need of more work than you could ever imagine. And these are competing competing Kabad guys.
>> Yeah.
>> And so how much influence did they have in the real estate in the town then at the peak?
>> At the peak.
>> Yeah. Any idea?
>> I think at one point they owned 130 out of 276 homes in that town.
So that's almost 50%. But they owned other property. Cabay went outside of Postville and bought properties all over >> in local towns.
>> Yeah. Yep.
Oh, they had a great deal going with the banks. The banks would give them whatever they wanted. That mortgage money was coming in. Everybody was happy as a clam.
>> And at sometimes the rent that they charged was ridiculous. I can give you one specific example of something that I came across just in the days following the raid. So I um got a call at we got a call at the church from the one of these two women who finally after a few days felt courage enough to sort of figure out is it safe for me to even go out you know and so she called uh I went over to their home. Uh they lived uh above one of the rental offices in this one building. Their apartment was significantly substandard. I mean you know that just quite a bit of smell to it. The whole building had just not very little maintenance had been done to it.
They handed me a stack of bills that had been things that had been piling up that hadn't been attended to, not only in the days after the raid, but even, you know, they were a little trying to figure out just trying to make sure that all the paperwork was done properly. You know, they're quite conscious about how we paid all our bills or whatever. Well, I started looking through their bills and first the amount they were paying for this dinky tiny apartment was $800 a month, you know, and this is a small apartment and it's it's a humongous amount of money. And then I started looking at their bills because they were cut they were they were getting threatening notes that they were going to cut their their uh electricity. Well, what h happened as we did the research into it is that they were paying for the electric bills not just for their little tiny apartment but for the entire building complex. The way that this was supposed to be done is that there was one meter and so the meter was a was a commission meter. When I called the TRA to figure out where they were at, had they been paying, what they did is they would pay with the rent, they would also pay the owner, you know, the rental company for the bills and then the rental company supposedly would get the commercial billing and split it by apartment and then pay it all off. Well, evidently this the the the company was charging them not only for their electricity to their apartment but through the entire building including their rental office. And not only was he charging them for it, but he wasn't paying them. He wasn't paying it on. He was keeping the money. And so what was happening is now that the entire building electricity hadn't been paid for months. And so what they were receiving was this threatening letters about that they had to pay rent. So the abuses around housing were just astonishing. Not only in just the basic contracts, of course, most people could say, "Well, they paid for it." We dealt in the days after the raid with the fact that the owners of the apartments were moving into the apartments prior to the close of any contracts with the employees. You know, there were people, of course, lots of people had been detained and left. And so the the people who were renting supposedly had to figure out which apartments were still occupied and which ones weren't. But in that process, they were trying to evict basically people who were paid through the end of the month. We have learned what we're up against.
>> Could you discuss that? What are you up against?
>> We know that uh they have a very strong financial base and that they're very conservative group. And like most conservatives, that means you have a restricted vision which is according to your interpretation of the scriptures and that uh financially you use other people and consider that a wise thing to do.
Make money from ways of dealing with people that other people would not do.
They promised them cash when they get here to get started. They promised them food for a week to get started. They promised them the world to get them here. They came and they didn't get any of it. They were mad. And they started spending a lot of time in the bars and raising hell and and causing problems.
And it just went on and on all summer. And then some brilliant strategist hit on the idea of recruiting people from the island of Palao where they'd never heard of Postville or Agra processors or seen snow or anything. And these people are all subsistence farmers and fishermans fishermen and they come to Iowa to go to work at Agra and two weeks later the plant shuts down and so we got 250 people from Palao with nowhere to go.
Now they flew them here at the company's expense. But what the company did was they got together with all of their friends they could find in the Kabad community and and pulled together all the frequent flyer miles they could got them free tickets over.
No tickets home. Uh we asked that uh Mr. Rabashkin give us some aid because in the beginning this is a small little parish and we were taking care of hundreds of people feeding them housing them we couldn't do this. We asked him for some help. He never gave a single penny. Whereas other groups uh and churches the area churches were just Christian beyond belief. Well, they said we're giving we're going apartment to apartment to give them meat that taking out of our freezer at the plant were giving this meat. It never worked because the ladies who run the uh food pantry here told us most of that meat was spoiled.
Uh they because they dropped some off at the uh food pantry and they said the minute you open the carton you could smell it. We threw it all away.
>> Did the synagogue across the street help provide anything?
>> Um not that I'm aware of, but it's been it's been kind of the um the understanding in in town that uh at the synagogue they take care of their own and they say, "Well, you can take care of your own." So, uh, they they definitely, I'm sure, provided help for the Jewish families who were affected, uh, by the bankruptcy, the raid itself.
There I think there was at least one or two, um, who were Israelis and, uh, if their families needed support, I'm sure they received it.
>> Were they illegal, those Israelis >> there? Yeah, there were there were I think it's it was one or two Israelis who were caught up in the raid as well.
They believe they are God's chosen people and they should reign over all the earth. They believe that. They live that. They eat it. They breathe it. They sleep it. That's what they are. I finally understood after many conversations with Morai and many conversations with Getel and and watching what was going on in town that it was their very ignorance of prejudice and ignorance of abuse and ignorance of all the things that they were doing that allowed them to continue to do it because they didn't recognize it. And I truly think it was pathological. They did not recognize it.
And every time they did something good, they would do it for the the Jewish community, especially the Kabad community.
And they would just they would swell with pride. But >> how was it what's the difference between them and the Kukas clan? I mean, say they they have the similar similar ideas. They have their idea. They're they're special.
>> I mean, I that's the only thing in all discussion that that throws them a little bit.
>> Truthfully, there is no difference. I see no difference. I mean, it's the same thing. Again, with the KKK, it's the same thing. That's what these people are brought up on. They're brought up on hate and derision and prejudice. And I learned that you could not talk to a hidic high school student.
They looked upon you as one of the lowest forms of creature on earth. There was a period uh of time in Postville where the community was being uh flooded with anti-semitic and neo-Nazi white supremacist literature and uh it was very disturbing stuff. I still have a lot of it actually. It's I you know I keep it locked away but um very disturbing stuff. Everyone in town was very upset. So what happened is that a member of the city council asked me to draft for them a response and I didn't and they ended up uh uh passing a formal resolution against hate and against bias and then the next step in all that was to actually uh create a joint statement against bias and against hate. I'm I'm suggesting they have a pathological deficiency.
Um it's way more than a blind spot.
Blind spots are something we create to to soo our own consciences.
I think as as a faith, as a as a denomination, as a as a cult, whatever you want to call kabad, I think they actually have a pathological deficiency because they cannot recognize wrongdoing because they've never quantified it. So they don't have to suffer the fact that they might have some guilt.
>> Wrongdoing to non-Jews.
>> To non-Jews. Yeah. Well, they recognize wrongdoing to Jews. Yeah. Believe me.
But those people who performed the actual work, the the nameless people who were doing the the the hardcore nuts and bolts work at that plant. Were nothing but slaves to them.
Um, one interesting tale I like to recount occasionally, I was walking back to the station one afternoon. I had actually I'd gone to the Jewish market to pick up a corn beef and rye and some bagels and I was coming back. There's a little community park on the corner on the way back to the station. So, as I was walking back, I found a couple of empty soda bottles and some paper on the sidewalk. And I picked them up and tossed them in the garbage can. And a little Jewish boy came by and said, "My daddy says that's what the should do all the time. They work for us."
>> So that that was one of my personal experiences.
>> What did you say?
>> I was flabbergasted. I I didn't even have a response. You know, usually I'm pretty quick and I'm a bit of a smartass, but I had nothing for him. I mean, he couldn't have been more than 9 or 10 years old. They requested permission from the local high school to hold some of their uh classes. I think mostly uh physical education classes in the high school. And I was told by the staff at the school that they never ever cleaned up.
They ate candy when there was for the rest of the school there was no eating candy. They threw the wrappers on the floor and they walked out of school and never cleaned them up. It was like we don't have to do that.
Well, yes, you should. Just human courtesy says you should. They didn't show it.
>> What? What does go mean? Go.
>> You know what it means? You lived in Israel for 3 years.
>> Yeah, I do. I like >> No. What do you think it means?
>> Well, serve my movie to have me talk.
>> That's You're right. Right. That's right.
>> What do you think it means?
>> Well, uh, is a term that depending on who you ask can have it can be playful. Uh, depending on who you ask can be rather derogatory.
>> It could be. It could be. Uh, depending on who you ask. I mean, uh, I've actually uh had these conversations with uh people who just think it very use in a very playful way. Here comes the again. You know, they just they're messing with me and I'm messing with them. There have been times when people have been uncomfortable to discuss it with me. And I'm also know of instances in which it's been used regular uh rather derogatorily.
I've also been called a white guy. In those same vein, >> I have never heard mentioned in a positive fashion except in connection with the Holocaust.
When you have a righteous is like shika, it's instantaneously negative because he didn't like the guy.
My father used to spit every time he saw a nun. My father would walk a block and a half out of his way so he wouldn't have to walk in front of a church.
>> Ultra Orthodoxy tends to turn everything into a cartoon. So for them if if this could be if this is idol worship then you have to reject it. Well you have to reject you have to spit on it. Right? So there's that kind of an attitude within the Yiddish language. And I'm not a linguist and I don't know other languages except Yiddish. And I only this much Yiddish.
The language is so specific in its dismissal of non-Jews.
You cannot avoid it. Like in a in English, you could say someone is a Christian or a non-Christian and it doesn't have any emotional meaning.
in Yiddish to be a Jew or non-Jew has tremendous emotional meaning.
>> Uh we already spoke we already spoke about the fact that some people just speak only Yiddish and Hebrew. So how do you think that bodess for social mingling when they can't speak English?
Secondly, their hours are very long.
Thirdly, Orthodox Jew prays three times a day in a synagogue.
There's a there's a Spanish termo which strictly means white or blonde and it's a term that is often used and again it can be very playful. It can be used very derogatorily and everything in between.
I'm often called that in Mexican by Mexicans. There are a lot of terms like that. I don't uh that's not the sort of thing that I can let bother me. Then I have to you know what I have I have excuse me in a typical week in my life I'm going to work with people from 10 to 15 different cultures who speak I can't speak all these languages going to speak 30 40 different languages I have to be able to to navigate to chart a course through those among those cultures where um if they have any particular biases or they want to u make fun of me behind my back I I've already moved on >> the way the the post fahidum the way the lubaters operate is if you disagree with us you're an anti-semite pure and simple what's the discuss people call me an anti-semite all the time they call me a Nazi all the time there's a guy that's been leaving comments lately comparing me to to uh to um capos who were the uh the head of the the um in in in the concentration camps and the death camps camps. There were Jews who cooperated with the Nazis in terms of running the camp. And they were often cruel people.
They may not have been in real life, but by the time they got into Ashwitz or whatever they whatever happened to them, it happened. And anyway, and they a lot of them did some very terrible things.
Most of them were ended up being killed like everybody else was. But so I've been called uh a capo just like a capo in that in in Ashwitz. how much I would have loved to, you know, throw fellow Jews into the ovens. Um, whatever you can possibly imagine. And that's because they can't they can't combat they can't fight me on the arguments. They can't fight me on the facts.
>> You say about this. You say years ago when when Jews parked their cars illegally, the Postville police were reluctant to give out tickets because they might be accused of anti-Jewish bias.
>> Oh, well, that's that's common knowledge. I mean, part of it, too, is that you got to remember that a lot of the folks didn't quite know what parking legally was versus not parking legally.
Got to remember, too, the lot of the the initial uh the initial influx of Jews, those were folks who came from cities where they actually many of them didn't even have cars. They didn't need them. I was accused of being anti-Semitic so many times that it just rolled off my back like water off a duck's back. It it came to the point where it meant nothing because it was nothing. um his defense, Shalom's defense, the lawyers have cried anti-semitism so many times that it's almost pointless now. Um it got to the point in Postville where if you just even mentioned the word Jew or Kabad, you were accused of being anti-Semitic.
>> This happened over and over again with with the Lubovich.
If you are accurate, if you are truthful, if you report what is there, you're labeled an anti-semite. This is textbook. This is exactly what Raashkin has said over and over again. Whether the accuser is the EPA, whe whether the accuser is a judge, whether the accuser is a a businessman who wants to get what is owed him, if you say anything against the Lubovich, the number one textbook response immediately is you are an anti-semite.
This is textbook.
This happens over and over again.
You The argument is immediately reduced to you're an anti-semite.
No, no, no. I'm I'm a Jew. I am not an anti-Semite. Trust me, I am not an anti-semite. I'm trying to get at the truth here. No, you wouldn't raise that unless you're an anti-semite.
HEY, FIRE.
TOMORROW.
YEAH.
GOD.
WOW.
I would say I speak for the Jewish community by default and uh and it's not official but people go to me and uh largely I've heard from the community they're supportive of the things that I say but there is no formal community there is no formal appointment it's by default it's >> very very interesting uh even though the book uh uh was about postville and focused focused heavily on the Jewish related issues and postpone what happened with the plant and the response and so forth and even though it was co-authored with a Jew uh we were accepted into the Jewish Jewish book council okay Jewish book council puts together an annual uh author's tour and we were invited to become part of that we did become part of that and interestingly uh so we Michelle and I actually went to New York and and presented ourselves and talked about the book and and said, "Yes, we'd love to, you know, you're you'd like to invite us to one of your book fairs or something.
That'd be fine." But interestingly, uh the vast majority of the people who actually are involved in the organization are not orthodox and so they tend to be very secular or they tend to be conservative and uh once many of them frankly realized that Aaron uh was a co-author uh they lost interest and we did not receive one invitation.
>> Why? because the secular uh Jews and the organization had no real interest in hearing about the Orthodox experience or that experience from an Orthodox perspective. Interestingly, I think that the mainstream Jewish publications out there and there are quite a few boycotted the book. They didn't want to have anything to do with the book. They didn't review the book. They didn't publicize the book. They had nothing to do with the book. That's exactly where the Lubich family was with mainstream Judaism in America. You didn't want to condemn them because they after all are Jews. They are part of the family. With the the conservative Jews, Kabad is is appreciated.
With the middle of the road Jews, Kabad is tolerated. with the liberal Jews, they're despised.
>> Uh some of the biggest uh ethnic challenges that came about and conflict really that came about after the raid was not between Christians and Jews or Ians and nonowins and and other groups. It was actually Jewish groups against other Jewish groups. And after the raid, you saw an immense level of uh you know, people coming in and out of the community, arguments, uh newspaper editorials, uh lectures, presentations, and things going on by and between and against uh Jews that were more secular, more reform in their belief versus Jews that were, you know, ultraorththodox. some of them, you know, Haredim and and Hidic members and Habad members rather. And so you had a large amount of uh conflict and really questioning among Jews of many different levels of you know religious faith about what do we do now in this kind of situation?
What's the appropriate action? What was going on in the plant? Is that ethical?
Is that appropriate? And I think I I those kinds of questions I really want to defer to Aaron.
>> And I I was shocked later in my life when I saw that there was a a view by many people to look with disdain at each other.
And it's it's part of the schizophrenic quality of Jews that a lovehate relationship with each other. And there's a long history of competition with Zionism in general and even religious Zionism uh for um making the claims that they represented a a new form of Judaism that there was uh messianic significance in the activities of the Jewish state and of the Israeli army.
um they uh they don't go they don't agree with the idea of pluralism in the Jewish world. They believe there's only one kind of Judaism that is uh authentic and appropriate and that is their version of Judaism.
>> He talked that the Jews are civily disobedient. They don't want to follow the law. They don't care about the laws.
They don't care about the Gentiles.
These are just, you know, David Duke could have written the script himself.
The difference is because he wrote it and he's a Jew, the publisher was accepting to let him do it. If David Duke had written and said the same things he said, they would have thrown the book in the garbage and they never would have printed it. How many people do you know who've used sold themselves to make a name for themselves. That's what Mr. Bloom did. He didn't dishonor me. He dishonored himself >> and the Jewish community.
>> And the Jewish community. What happens most commonly in small communities when you have this level of ethnic diversity very quickly coming in is that you have in these towns what we called in the book champions of diversity. They're local people as well as immigrants that are heavily involved in immigration issues. They love they love the issues of multiculturalism and and tolerance and immigration. They want to make it work and they really become de facto champions of diversity. The signs on the outside of town says Postville, hometown of the world. Well, you know what that is? That's like frosting on a cake. It's sweet and it's pretty, but it really doesn't add that much. And nobody ever really meant it.
But that's what they wanted. That's the view they wanted to project. Basically, within that town, the whites would interact with the Jewish community or the Latino community, but never both.
And they would only do it when it would serve their own purpose. The Jewish community would interact with the white community, but never the Hispanic community. The Hispanic community would interact with the white community when they needed to or had to, never with the Jewish community.
So you had all these factions working all together.
So to say it was a perfect storm I I think is not a bad way to describe it because when everything came together, everything coalesed, the plant closed down, the the people who were being brought in lost their jobs and threatened the security of the town. People were were reaching out and grabbing straws for for blaming whoever they whoever they could.
So, some of them blame the Latinos, some blame the Jews, some blame the government.
>> Sounds like a recipe for hell.
>> It's not a bad way to describe it.
Multiculturalism doesn't come that easy.
>> Um, you know, these were mostly Lutheran people who were proud who had lived in that community or their, you know, their relatives live their ancestors lived in that community for a long time. They weren't going to take easy to a a group of people who would come in um shelter themselves, isolate themselves, and call themselves power brokers. Immediately, I knew that there was going to be a civil war. But the press really didn't want to look at that. You know, it was a negative story.
You know, the press in America, much of the press in America doesn't like those kinds of stories. They're like feel-good stories. And Postfill, what I wrote isn't a feel-good story. It's a truthful, it's an accurate story, but certainly not a feel-good story. I do intercultural relationships as a professional. I have for almost 25 years now. I uh my job is in part to understand the dynamics of those of the changing human communities. I I don't again I don't think it's fair to ever uh uh point fingers at any particular group because there's plenty of bias to go around among everybody. Uh that's going to manifest itself in various ways. It's going to u express itself in a variety of different ways. But again, I'm not I really don't want to set up this kind of artificial juxtaposition between the Jewish and the non-Jewish community because I don't think it's valid. Well, I mean, one thing that we really try to avoid is try to set up this what I consider to be a relatively artificial juxtaposition between uh the established resident postillions and and Kabad um and really try to point out the fact that within both of those communities which have often been portrayed as actually being very distinct and they are distinct in many respects. I I get that. But I think what's been exaggerated is is is the point that um what what I think gets exaggerated is I think that juxtaposition is is is made too sharp. Um what we have tried to point out in the book is that you always have diversity within diversity. So I think I think it's always been a bit artificial to set up you know these these these sharply contrasting worlds.
Uh I understand I certainly understand and respect the fact that um the Orthodox Jewish community again very broadly defined it has its own certain diversity and the established resident community were sometimes at odds but I don't I think the degree to which that has happened has uh has been exaggerated. So, in the United States, which is not a Jewish state, they're all in favor of pluralism because it allows them to express their way of being and emphasize that uh and and have equal access to all of the benefits of uh American state and society. But in a Jewish state, by no means are they willing to allow and give legitimacy to alternative versions of how Jewish life should be expressed, whether it's through secular Zionism or other forms of Jewish religion. So when it comes to a Jewish state or a Jewish society, they're not pluralist. Um and that of course has made them uh an ef a power in Israel among other things.
>> If we're talking about someone even more extreme than Schneersonen for example, Yeetsk Ginsburg who is a Kabad rabbi who does live in Israel. He's an American.
He came from Cleveland. He lives there.
He's one of those rabbis who still supports uh uh the killing of those 29 Muslims in the mid 1990s uh by an Orthodox Jewish doctor from the States who went into a um uh into a mosque uh that was in a place that the religious Jews consider religious and killed those people. Um uh uh this rabbi Ycott Ginsburgg well uh he's really an extremist um and he believes that um uh uh it's perfectly legitimate for Jews to kill non-Jews if the Jew really has some good reason to believe that that non-Jew might might in the future try to kill Jews.
And he goes even further than Schneersen in talking about the superiority of Jews as opposed to non-Jews. Later when I went into college, I heard about the Labava Trevy and I heard lots of different things, but the most impressive thing that I heard is the guy never took a vacation. He's first and foremost, every person he had contact to, he asked, "How can you make the world a better place? What can you do for your fellow brethren? What can you is there more work can be done? He was never satisfied. Enough is enough. He always encouraged in a possible way for people to go higher and higher. I realized that there was somebody in the world who lived ate and breath breathe the concept I'm going to do everything I can for the benefit of my people and it was extraordinary. I thought well we have bigger heroes than Sandy Kofax and and I was impressed by the fact that somebody gave his whole life for the welfare of his brothers. When I when I go to a synagogue, I wear keepa that's out of respect. When I used to march community people through agrop processors, the men wore kipas period.
You will show this respect. This is a Jewish installation. Uh it's run by orthodox Jews. You will wear kipa. You will you will show that respect. Uh there's a new mosque in town. Uh there was an open house uh I don't know two weeks ago or something. Uh and the invitation very clearly said women in who enter the worship area will be asked to wear a headscarf. I don't have a problem with that. Not they don't have to wear hijab. I mean it's just again it's it's just out of politeness. It's out of respect. I don't have a problem with that.
>> Have you ever invited members or leaders to come to the church?
>> We have. We've had uh and generally for them it's a difficult thing to come into a Christian setting. We've had a a few um Jewish rabbis come into our building and meet in our fireside room that has no no uh religious iconography at all or religious symbols. They're coming onto the church property, which for some they wouldn't do.
>> How do they communicate to you that they don't want relig religious symbols?
>> Usually it's it's been uh can we meet at such and such a place? Well, you know, we we I'm not allowed to go into a a sanctuary. Um, so they'll just ask questions. Are there any religious symbols there? Or from from my perspective, I would offer that. I would say we could meet in our fireside room.
Worship services do not happen there and there are no uh religious items in that particular room. Uh and again that would be part of being a good host too trying to now if you don't know that um you know the thing to do is to not act insulted if they say I can't meet in this room >> what it's not good enough for you is that is that going to be the response or is it going to be what can we do to change it is there something we can move or can we meet at a at a neutral site >> have you been invited into their synagogue >> I haven't but I I can't really think of a reason why I would be or would have been >> just to be neighborly, right?
>> Uh well, but I've met Rabbi Reces. I've I've met several members of the Jewish community in in other places.
Ultra Orthodox Jews believe that when a Jew is in prison, it is mandated by the Bible as well as by the Talmud. That it is an obligation of one Jew to always raise bail to release that person from incarceration or confinement.
That's what's going on with Rabashkin, that ultraorththodox Jews are leaning on other Lubovich Jews to raise funds for attorneys uh for bond so that Rabboskin can be released. You know, you have no idea what what the Lubage community has done in terms of trying to raise money for for Rabashkin's defense and trying to raise consciousness that anyone who opposes Raboskin, of course, as an anti-semite, is a Jew hater. Um, they've done a whole bunch of things.
One thing they've done is they have well they've organized a very effective internet campaign. It almost looks like a you know an Apple versus um uh Microsoft ad hip-looking guy who gets on the internet and says uh you know we need your support we need your dollars.
Rubashkin is being railroaded. Send us your dollars. There was a a campaign so that every Lubovature in the world would pray at exactly the same moment for the freedom of Raashkin.
Rabashkin has taken on martyr status.
He is an example of someone who has done nothing wrong.
His accusers are all anti-semites.
Textbook Bottom line, >> I don't think I have to say it. Yeah, it's I mean that's you can buy anybody and if you're Kabad, you got money to throw away to buy people.
>> They've been doing it for a long time.
Ask Bob Penrod >> um >> or Arlland Spectre. Ask Arl inspector >> or Patty Judge, Lieutenant Governor of Iowa.
>> In terms of the >> buying them off.
>> Yeah. But not related to Kabad. You mean generally speaking?
>> No, I think it was very much Habad related. It goes to Kabad and and the the the organization that that that supplies the kosher certification process. There was so much financial uh inroads in the banking system here that uh we ask the president of the bank, how is it when we come over here with an innocent Hispanic lady who has a state treasury check for $183.
You won't cash it even though she has a valid ID.
And in your office, you're sitting and talking with Shalom Rubashkin, the acidic man who has caused all this pain to this town. Which is better, the check from the plant or the check from the state? And the president of the bank said, "The one from the plant." And at that point, Paul left. He couldn't take it. I stayed a little longer because I wanted to see what he was going to say.
He said just enough to let me know.
Money talks and we're not in the same category as they are. They have a lot of funds that are not here in the city that were shipped out and put in different accounts. Habad has set up for itself a very very strong network of >> the right people in the right place to help show the support that they that they spread around the world. Um Kabad houses in almost every major community in in every country of the world Mumbai India.
>> Look at the Kabad's success worldwide.
There's presidents almost every country that have welcomed Kabad into their respective cabinets into their into the White House and other places that honor Kabad's action.
>> I don't think it's an opinion. I think it's a fact. Um the Reboskans did their work and did it well before they came into that community. They knew who they needed to buy and at what level. Now, I mentioned earlier this goes from the federal government to the state government to the county government to the local government. Even Lee Reiko when he ran for county supervisor 25 years ago was given money by the Ruboskans to help his campaign.
>> They have a very successful outreach.
They're not only in the Oval Office, but they've been in state capitals. I mean, uh there are lots of pictures. Maybe one of the more uh striking one is a picture of the Kabad emissary in LA dancing with now former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger uh surrounded by guys in black hats and coats. So they are very successful uh in reaching out to uh uh people in the political and and uh the power sector.
uh they found a lot of support uh uh economically from people who are uh supportive of Kabad but not necessarily members of it. They've been tremendously successful in the former Soviet Union and finding these so-called oligarchs who are willing to support their outreach efforts in Russia and in Ukraine. Um they've always been successful or not always but in many cases been successful in finding friends even in places like the Oval Office. Um and um I think that uh that's a testament to their dedication and their political savvy. Nobody seems to want to go into this uh prejudice and and uh immoral actions.
And I I trace it also to Washington that the the lobby must be a lot more powerful than I even thought.
>> Which lobby?
>> The Jewish lobby.
And as far as uh the religious faith as it was practiced here, I I could not believe some of the things I was hearing. I always told uh Sister Mary who was the administrator before I came or while I was retiring, you'll never have to worry. The biggest lobby in the United States is a Jewish lobby.
They'll never raid that plant. Well, when they eventually did, it really wasn't a raid of the plant. It was a raid of the people and the town.
Um and the justice department was involved in some of this that uh making it possible for the deportation of the uh potential witnesses without batting an eye. So what's behind it is that there we're discovering that there's a financially a lot of money behind it uh that was trying to rescue Robashkin. You know, America has changed from the melting pot ideal uh to allowing for what we sometimes call the salad bowl that uh you can be different and unique in America. Uh although there are limits on that too.
And that's been very good for groups like Kabad that uh seek to emphasize Jewish u particularism and that seek to emphasize uh Jewish difference. I mean Kabad, one of Kabad's goals is for Jews to be aware of their own uh Jewish particularity and uniqueness and not to be swallowed up or assimilated by American secular modern culture.
In that respect, Kabad is sectarian.
It's like other forms of orthodoxy and that it aims to emphasize the Jews should not be like everyone else. They should not intermar. Uh they should emphasize their unique practices and identity. Um and uh in that sense they support the idea of multiculturalism because it allows Jews to express that distinctiveness without at the same time necessarily sacrificing their attachment to America and all that America offers.
uh they don't really want to be like everyone else and they think that Jews ought not to be like everyone else.
Kabad individuals on an individual basis they've been violent.
They've protested and made political efforts to shut down places of worship.
Um Israel is a place of free speech. They have the right to free speech, but they don't have the right to try to remove another person's free speech. And that's what they try to do. And they do not curb their violence. And that's a problem. They don't try to the leadership is not making an effort to curb their own individuals from violence. And there have been violence by some people in Kabad >> against >> against Jews who believe in Jesus.
The biggest figure in the radical settler movement rebbitically is Yeetszak Ginsburg who was a Kabad ordained rabbi. Um, two of his students um, Ellit Sur and I forgot the other guy's name offand um, it'll come to me maybe. I'm seeing his face but I can't remember his name right now. But anyway, they're also again kabad rabbis. When I came back from those three weeks in uh in Palestine, I um I made an appointment to speak with every rabbi in town, the uh the conservative rabbi Doberson, the reform rabbi Levy, and the um Orthodox Rabbi Goldstein. And uh in all three cases, they listened to what I had to say, made some comments. Um Goldstein has in fact said uh we you know you're not portraying Palestinians in a human light are you? You know and it was like really shocking to me you know he literally said that >> he literally said that you know because I was asking them if if if I could address their conver um congregation. example, there's a video of uh people coming out of the courthouse the first day of the Rabashkin, the first day of the trial.
And I took one look at it and well, there's Manis Friedman, Rabbi Freriedman, the rabbi who had just said not long before that that uh we should be killing Arab babies to uh you know, and there was a whole thing about this about you can look him up mis r-an.
You look him up on my website, you'll see the stuff. Manis used to be a friend of mine, lived around the corner from him. uh you know I think well there's Manis there's this guy there's that guy I'm looking at it and that so I had context immediately that that nobody else reporting had and here he is with he's he's right with Raashkin he was there for he's raashkin's close friend he's there as Rabbashkin support you how dumb can you be this is the guy that just said this stuff it's it's you know true he's you know he's he only he's only quoting what Kabad says it's true that that you know it's a ridiculous you know whatever but anyway So, and there he is. You can't get better than that.
>> They always have been successful in being participants in the Kaneka uh commemorations in the Oval Office. uh uh they managed during the Reagan administration to get their late rebba uh given a congressional award uh by the president in the congress without their reba leaving uh his own uh uh office in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Um they a lot of that is really a testimony to the successful work of uh one of the current heads of of Kabad Lubavich of Reml Shtov who is the emissary in Philadelphia and also whose son uh is an emissary in DC.
So they've been very successful in that kind of work. When the Soviet Union began to fall apart, Kabad rushed in there in an attempt to quote unquote save Soviet Jews, which means they really wanted to bring them back to religion, but not just the Jewish religion in general, but to the Kabad understanding of the Jewish religion, which has its own peculiarities.
They have made a political alliance with the Russian government particularly with Vladimir Putin which is continued with his successor Medve. Namely, they have basically taken over all of the synagogule and rabbitic positions in Russia, not in Ukraine, in order to dominate Jewish religious life there. In return, they provide a cover for Putin and others against any charges of anti-semitism. For example, when Putin went after the so-called oligarchs who included a large number of Jews or halfjews, people like Baris Berzovski, Vladimir Gusinski, Mika Khadarovski, all of whom were either jailed or forced to flee the country or Leonid Nevlin, another one. uh he thought probably that he might be open to charges of anti-semitism because he was going after Jews. Now he wasn't going after Jews per Jews but as people who in the case of Gusinski was running a media empire that was critical of Putin and in the other case as people who had funded or were said to fund opposition parties to Putin.
But to pose in front of the cameras with a bearded blackheaded rabbi is proof positive that this man couldn't possibly be an anti-semite. And Kabad was willing to get into bed with Putin and play this role of the house Jew in return for which uh Putin helped them achieve a monopoly over well a near monopoly over Jewish religious life.
>> He's Yeah, he's a thug. Name is Barl Lazar. He's a real thug. He's the worst.
He's he's the closest thing to a mafia Dan Kabad has.
That's a and he was he basically he and his oligarchs cooperated to keep to get Putin in power and to keep out the the successors to Yeltson that were democratically inclined.
>> Where do you stand on a a group like Kabad? Do they are they I've talked to some professors who have been very critical of groups like that. Do you have a perspective on that?
>> For what reason are they are they >> in terms of bigotry?
>> How are they bigoted?
>> Yeah.
>> Are you familiar with them? I I've I've run into them. They they they they do a lot. Tell me what uh >> No, I'm asking. No, this is what I've heard from professors.
>> But but what what is it about?
>> Well, they're um Rabbi Mahuman. Are you familiar with this his writings and teachings? I've interviewed a couple scholars who read his text. I >> I'm not I mean I obviously know who Rabbi that their view is uh that uh there's a there's a Jewish soul and then there's everybody else.
And I've talked to some people who are troubled by that, some Jewish scholars, too. So my my interactions with with with folks from Kabad, you know, have, you know, I if that exists and look, I I I'm reform >> and uh I've I've dealt with, you know, wonderful Kabad rabbis. Uh so if if if that's the overriding message, it's been lost on me and it's certainly not been one that's you know, but look, let me just say this.
In any faith you will find those who will maintain that um some kind of exclusivity.
So modern Jews like me I think uh you know can take that not only with a grain of salt but but you know but rejected. I have not heard that. Um, the rabbis that I have met from Kabad have been just incredibly compassionate people.
Raberson. Well, yeah, certainly. I mean, he's the spirit. He's the spiritual father of the movement, very well respected. I think uh again, I am no expert on Kabad. Part of the part of these inference that they perfectly segregate themselves. have actually had interactions with some Kabad uh members who uh actually actively outreach to uh to the Christian community. Um because if you go back and you read you know carefully some of the things and again I'm not an expert on on schneerson I'm not an expert on kabad but you know but the rabbis said you know that uh anytime you share the truth of Torah then you are you're you're spreading God's word.
The role of a Jew is is in part to be part of the chosen people to and chosen people means to set an example and and there were the examples that the Loveruch and Postville set were over and over examples of greed, hypocrisy, um avarice, um lying, It was really the worst sense of humanity and it caused me to examine what is religion, what is faith.
Um, in many ways I felt that the postvahidum were deeply religious men and women, but did they share faith?
Did they did they share a sense of of goodness of creating good? You know, there's a mandate in Judaism called tunam, which is to repair the world.
The hassidum really didn't care much about the world at all.
They cared about their own world.
But I I think we're at a point now where many mainstream Jews can say what the postfilled Jews have done actually spurs anti-semitism.
And if we keep our our voices quiet and we don't condemn what the Jews in Postville have done, we in turn are fostering anti-semitism.
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