New York City – The JTA is reporting the following, Several prominent Jews signed on to a boycott threat against the kosher meatpacker Agriprocessors.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Ruth Messinger and Rabbi Avi Weiss are among the 1,000 signers of a petition organized by Uri L’tzedek, according to its co-director, Shmuly Yanklowitz.
“We believe we have the right as consumers to be assured that Agriprocessors, a company that controls 60 percent of the kosher beef market, is committed to protecting its workers by upholding the law,” Yanklowitz said in a statement.
Uri L’tzedek, a group founded by students at the liberal Orthodox seminary Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in New York, says the company must set up a transparent and accountable department to ensure compliance with the labor requirements of both Jewish and secular law.
If Agriprocessors does not, the group will begin to boycott the company and businesses that purchase from it on June 15.
How about we investigate “Yeshivat” Chovevei Torah with regards to their religious practices?
The characters mentioned speak for themselves; a bunch of worthless self righteous anyone-whos-frumer-than-me Jew hating bums
Avi Weiss is the Jewish version of Al slim shady sharpton
Rachmana Litzlan me’hai gissa!!
Let them eat cheese!!
To bad we as frum haimisha jews have to accept almost all types of jews, Conservative, reform, and now another type of jew “The liberal jew” as part of Klal Yisroel. Just keep in mind the biggest Sonai Yisroel are the LIBERALS. As the great one said “LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISSORDER”.
who the hell are these people that they get the name rabbis
Shame on them!
since when is ruth messinger so worried about kosher when was the last time she ate kosher
avi weiss and schlomoh riskin kiss woman in public this is a known fact
but what they say about rubashkin is hearsay for sure
nobody forced the people to work there and for sure they paid the minimum wages which the law required
workers always say the deserve more what i say find a job who wants to pay more dont force rubashkin to pay more for none skilled workers minimum wages is the law and i know they respect that law
I don’t think these 1,000 guys eat Rubashkin anyway, they eat Hebrew National
How can WE bombard these business terrorists with our views? I couldn’t find a website or #.
We need to harrass them & the other 997 “Rabbis” (Ruth Messinger probably thinks she’s one) to make THEM see sense & stop their politically-correct grandstanding. Are THEY all clean? Give me a break!
Good point, Lets get 10,000 to Boycott Hebrew National
the only time i hear these people is when they are mentioned in newspaper articles blameing orthdox jews for somthing
Hey fellas, come to think of it, you don’t really know them, and already you accuse them of eating Hebrew National!!! Obviously they are frumer than they sound to you. For all you know, they may have a larger Chelek in Gan Eden than you.
Never mind the Loshon Hora, Motzi Shem Rah and Richilus!!!
Raboisai, You’re all talking narishkeit. Their( the boycotters) frumkeit, or lack thereof in your eyes, should not impact policy on this issue. The meat is kosher, we have Rabonim upon whom we can rely….but the company’s being run like a Mom and Pop butcher shop of 70 years ago when it clearly no longer is. Either upper management, or the people they delegate to are accused of doing things that should distasteful to Bnai Toirah of any Kipa or hat style.
Hahaha, Shlomo Riskin lives in Israel. But I guess he’ll boycott Rubashkin from Efrat if his name gets in the paper again.
Did they raid Hebrew National and find Illegal immigrants with no papers working off the books?
No.
Did Agri break the laws of the USA/
Yes.
Can such people be trusted for their kashrus?
No.
Would you enter into business dealings with Rubashkins?
I doubt it.
So go Direct your “beef” to the OU and Weissmandel that hecherize meat that stems from these illegal business practices.
I agree that they have to hire a better p.r.for the company,but lets all together boycott chovivie whoever they are (I never heard from them)lets let them know that we WILL eat Rubashkins meat, let them go with the hecher lo’tzedeck. We will not be sceard from all thease crazy heads that call themself rabbi.WE WILL EAT RUBASHKIN LET THEM PLOTZ…
these are the same liberal crazy jews that will vote for the hater of jews barack husein obama. EVERYONE SHOULD SUPPORT RUBASHKIN AND BUY THEIR PRODUCTS.
How come everyone who personally knows Rubashkin and has visited Postville can testify what an ehrlicher Yid he is, and everyone who shrys about how terrible Agri is, has never been to Postville?
I visited Postville once and met Rubashkin and his wife at their house, they live in an ordinary house NOT IN A PALACE and they are very nice people not monsters.
In the US you are INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY I think the same applies in halachah. Everyone here who is ready to pitch Rubashkin feet first into the woodchipper only knows what they know from reading JTA and The Forward (spit)
avi weiss is a tzaddik
that being said he still is a liberal and as such who cares what he says
Hate to break the news to you but you are WRONG!!!
Go raid any other large factory in the US, and you will find illegal workers… (yes the cleaning lady in your house counts as well)…
Kshot Atzmecha, Veachar kach Kshot Acherim…
dont force rubashkin to pay more for none skilled workers >>>>>>
At one point in your life you were also unskilled.
You think anyone who made it big in the business world was a “genious” or “skilled’ from the first day they walked into the business?
It comes a time where people are taken advantage of wether you want to admit it or not.
I agree Rabbi Weiss and all the other bozos listed in the article are just a bunch of clowns running around looking for attention but that does not mean they are wrong on this particular issue.
The bottom line is workers MUST be treated like decent human being.
If you were treated like garbage in your office, how would you feel if someone walked over to you and said nobody is forcing you to stay there?
PS: Rubashkin HAS not lowered the prices of anything and kosher chicken should not cist the kosher consumer 2.19 a lb.
And Satmar which charges 2.79 a lb are also ganavim for taking advantage of the kosher consumer.
In the US you are INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY I think the same applies in halachah.
————
Would you eat food that allegedly has poison?
Yeshiva? Chovivei Torah? has a visiting “rabbi” that has a website that espouses apikorses.
As such any Rabbi/ Rabbiset from that place is suspect of the same mental illness.
Their agenda is definitely anti-Torah.
I can’t wait to hear their next boycott. I needed this laugh.
Shouldn’t these boycott threaters be more concerned about people from Mexico and other countries who come to the U.S. and are denied a G-d given right to work? Their ancestors probably didn’t have to suffer from such work hardship when they came to the U.S. and their employers didn’t have to deal with minimum wage laws.
Anon.
0neg613:34
“Would you eat food that allegedly has poison?”
I eat fish from the Great Lakes and I am not dead. It depends on who is spreading the “poison” rumor.
In the US you are INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY I think the same applies in halachah.
————
Would you eat food that allegedly has poison?
___________________________
In fact, according to halacha, as I am SURE you know, it is perfectly ok to eat such food. If any one person feels uncomfortable with it, let him stop using it until the facts are known. Until then, any official action against it is based on pure accusation, and that is meaningless.
If I accuse YOU of being a michalel shabbos, and tomorrow, you are the tenth for a minyan, should you be excluded? I think not.
Sorry folks, but I agree to the ban. Here you show the typical stuff. Anyone who says anything against AGRI/Rubashkin is bashed and made out to be a crazy person, a rosha, a liar, a sonai Yisroel, or other horrific things.
The bottom line is these rabbonim, and many others, have come to realize there is something amiss over at Rubashkin’s plant. I don’t care if they are “Liberal” … that is not the point.
I don’t want to eat meat from a plant that has been doing the things they are accused of.
I am a Rubashkin customer. At least I have been up until now. But, I changed last week. This is enough. I don’t believe the cover ups anymore.
We don’t believe his carefully engineered PR that is trying to cover it all up.
and, YES, I would happily pay 50% more to eat meat from a Mentch I could trust.
and, by the way, I was eating Rubashkin for the price. His quality is NOT as good as some of the others.
do you think meal mart or satmar or empire
are mentchen
you think they dont have Polsh Hungarian Mexicans
illegal workers ????????
you must be insane to believe they dont
the whole jewish comunity have illigals cleaning ladies and they rase their children
that makes evreybody not honest
why is evreybody say rubashkins are not honest
If I held by Avi Weiss and his Yeshivat Chovevei Torah this boycott might mean something to me, but I don’t hold by them at all.
rubashkin is a great person .his house in boro park is open for everyone who has no house to come and eat and feel like they have a home.
remember that the goverment has been wrong – they gave the kids back to their parents in the polygamist town – no abuse was noted, just some unfounded allegations.
remember the rosenbergs?
remember pollard?
I rest my case
Everyone should switch to Rubashkin now, even those who don’t normally eat it. Lo Sa’amod Al Dam Raecho.
Avi Weiss has done worse than this for publicity.
He threw aside his Kehuna when he publicly stood on the ground in Aushwitz!
everyone buy rubashkins!!!
this is an attack on all the frum jews now!
Whatever happened to due process? What kind of ‘ETHICS’ is it to try to run a company into the ground over wild, unsubstantiated rumors? Or is it just because they employed illegals? If that is the reason, then they have 1,000s of other companies to boycott as well… So the liberals are now AGAINST giving jobs to illegals? Hm…
These people are crazy!
All us sane ones MUST write letters of support to Argi so that they know there are more yiddin in support of them.
The unions are trying to undermine
rubashkins and now they have help
with our so called rabbis. shame!
silly ad hominem attacks on a person don’t really disprove their argument. i know avi weiss personally and while i certainly don’t agree with his hashkafos, i can tell you with great certainty that his heart is in the right place. all the big intellectuals on this page who borrow curtis sliwa’s or mark levin’s antics and style of denigrating people simply displays their own lack of intelligence or at least their lack of ability/desire to make an original, logical, cogent argument. he certainly does not eat treif, comparing him to al slim shady sharpton shows that one knows absolutely nothing about avi weiss. i am not a posek but what he did at auschwitz is not pashut, there was an element of ais laasos; if someone put a convent on top of your relative’s grave you would prob. think diff. if he went to protest. (it so happens to be that avi weiss’s father moshe weiss was bor in oswieczem, the polish name for auschwitz.) he certainly is not a seeker of publicity for his own self aggrandizement, he does these things to bring attention to issues that others in klal yisrael are ignoring. he has a heart condition and has had one for many years yet he still is out there, risking arrest, to bring important issues to the public eye. i don’t always agree with him, but i am confident that what he does is l’shem shamayim.
addendum to last comment:
what have all the avi weiss bashers on this page done to be moser nefesh for klal yisrael? what have they risked to stand up publicly for what they believed in? hopefully you all will be zocheh to be judged l’kav zchus.
Most of those who eat Rubashkin will contiue regardless of the aausations. I would say to boycott Hebrew National but no one eats that trash anyways.
There was a bakery in BP that had to close down for a while because of illegal workers. The reason why these people are making a stink is because they are card-carrying PETA members!
To quote President Bush “These illegals do the jobs noone else wants to”. Even though I’m really right wing, I agree with Bush to let these people in to work, though they shouldn’t be able to become citizens! BTW, No company has to let Unions in, if they don’t want to. This is one of the Gestapo tatics that Unions use to pressure the company to let them in -BOYCOTTS!
is ther even one religious jew working at Hebrew National?
Thank you, anonymous of 12:36 and 12:39 AM. I could say the same thing, if I were more eloquent.
First of all I would like to thank Rabbis Riskin and Weiss for having the courage to publicly stand up for the the liberal conservative standard of Schechita and therefore seperate themselves from orthodox Jews. see: http://hekhshertzedek.org/
>>Pastor Wright Says:
Did they raid Hebrew National and find Illegal immigrants with no papers working off the books?
No.
No, but Swift beef and pork was raided by the same Iowa ICE on Dec 13, 2006 and they arrested 1300 illegals. Did you call Swift and demand better treatment of illegals? (from ICE.GOV website) Secondly, you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth. “Rubashkin broke the law because they hired illegals, and they should give the illegals better pay and treatment. Make up your mind. Unless of course the bottom line is to bash Rubashkin any way it comes.
Did Agri break the laws of the USA/
Yes.
Yes?? They Did?? They were convicted of knowingly employing illegals?? I can’t remember seeing the trial results in the newspaper or on the web. Exactly on which day were they convicted?
Can such people be trusted for their kashrus?
No.
Learn a little halacha pastor. If a guy is known pickpocket he still has ne’emonus in issur v’heter, even if he doesn’t have ne’emonus in choshen mishpat. AND… even if I didn’t trust Rubashkin, I know some of the mashgichim personally and I trust them explicitly. So Rubashkin’s personal ne’emous has no bearing on kashrus of the plant.
Would you enter into business dealings with Rubashkins?
I doubt it.
In a second! The guy’s worth a mint. I would love to. Is he looking for a partner?
So go Direct your “beef” to the OU and Weissmandel that hecherize meat that stems from these illegal business practices.
Being as they have not been convicted and the state still has to prove that they knowingly employed the illegals (they are required to ask for ID and and SSN) They are not required to hire a private detective and conduct a three month background check. The only thing I see wrong, is you bad mouthing Rubashkin in the worst way with nothing but a newspaper report for evidence. Tell me Ztaddik, (with a pey) When Rubashkin is aquitted will you post your apology for being choshed b’kasherim all over the web too? or have you already decided even if he’s acquitted he’s guilty? And BTW, “hecherize” sounds like a term a real pastor would use. Are you even Jewish?
Yes, there frum yidden working at Hebrew National.
The Hashgocha is given by Rav Ralbag ( father – Manhattan -and son – Flatbush).
While frum ppl don’t eat it….Why pile on the insults? What do you really know about it?
12:36,
What moser nefesh ? want to talk moser nefesh ? talk to chabad shluchim around the world.. talk to jews living in border towns in israel..
Risking arrest ? yeah ok I was arrested twice protesting the expulsion of gush katif.. dont remember seeing him.
Plenty of jews stand up for issues, but this is not a issue…
Its a mental disorder! the guys that claim “if we cant trust his hiring.. we cant trust his kashrus”
That has no place in judaism sorry..did they beat the workers ? enslave them?
Where in judaism does it say, that one must pay a worker a certain salary? garbage!
You are all nuts. Instead of Bashing Rabbi Weiss and Rabbi Riskind why not look at what was found at Rubashkin, animal abuse, abuse of the workers, a meth lab. The food I am sure is 100% kosher but the methods of attaining it are not. Perhaps if we DID boycott rubashkin after the countless animal cruelty charges were shown against them they would have cleaned up their act years ago. Now is a time to put preasure on Rubashkin to CLEAN UP THEIR ACT.
to: Pastor Wright
Does the store you buy your food from pay all its taxes to the dime?!?! if not, how can they ne trusted????? do they keep the side walk in front of the store clean all the time???? if not how can you trust them? maybe they are selling you pig???