Video showcases plight of Jews in Postville

Ben Harris, a journalist with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency who has been following the happenings in Postville since the May 12 raid at Agriprocessors, has released a video and news report from the community. The report, aimed at the primarily Jewish readership of JTA, has information concerning the plight of the Jewish residents of Postville and also not easily reported insights on how the Jewish community is balancing their anger for what has happened with their admiration for the Rubashkin family, owners of Agriprocessors.

Much has been reported — here on Iowa Independent and elsewhere — about the challenges facing the former workers at Agriprocessors and the immigrants returned to the community by the federal government so they can serve as witnesses in upcoming legal proceedings. If there are voices missing from the conversation, it is the voices of the Jewish community in Postville, which primarily keeps to itself and is not overtly welcoming to individuals from the outside, including reporters. Iowa Independent has felt the brunt of this “separateness” when attempting to report on Jewish workers at the plant not receiving paychecks.

Harris, a person who is Jewish, is able to provide information from that community in his report. While readers here still may not agree or understand as these Postville residents grapple with what’s happened, it is nonetheless good to have this otherwise omitted point of view.

[Former Agriprocessors executive Sholom] Rubashkin stands accused of a host of crimes stemming from his stewardship of the Agriprocessors meat packing plant in Postville. To much of the outside world he is the public face of a rapacious company that has demonstrated deep contempt for the law.

But to the several hundred Jews of Postville — home of the company’s main plant and once the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the United States — Rubashkin is a figure of reverence, a man who built a successful business and thriving Jewish community while performing countless unsung acts of kindness.

“The community cares very much for Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin,” Raices told JTA on Sunday, three days after a federal magistrate rejected the appeals and ordered Rubashkin detained until trial.

“If they didn’t trust him, and if they didn’t care for him, they would not put up their homes,” said Raices, the principal of Postville’s Jewish day school, Beis Chaya Mushka. “Do you think if we really thought he was going to run away that we would put up our homes?”

There are roughly 400 Jewish people who continue to live in Postville. Most, just like other former Agriprocessors employees, have not received a paycheck in weeks. As the primarily faith-based response to the crisis in Postville is stretched thinner and thinner, state officials have been asked to add their support.

Bret Voorhees, a spokesman for the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division, said that because the situation in Postville was not a result of a natural disaster, the community will likely not qualify for state assistance. The city has applied to the state, the City Council unanimously passing a resolution to declare a disaster area earlier this week.

Relief efforts, which had been somewhat splintered in the wake of the raid, have become more organized. Most have now been consolidated at Turner Hall, a city-owned facility. Residents in need of assistance can come there to find help with food, shelter, clothing and a host of other necessities.

Northeast Iowa Community Action Corporation, a private non-profit program headquartered in Decorah, will be administering a $698,000 grant from the Iowa Department of Economic Development that will help former workers continue to pay for housing and utilities. These funds, however, are limited to American citizens and, as such, will not help the roughly 80 undocumented workers who continue to live in and around Postville in a state of limbo.