Published: 05/22/2008
The leadership of the U.S. Conservative movement is urging Jews to consider not patronizing AgriProcessors, the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse.
In a joint statement released Thursday evening, the movement's Rabbinical Association and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism declared themselves "shocked and appalled" at working conditions at AgriProcessors, which is under federal investigation for employing illegal aliens. The groups asked their members "to evaluate whether it is appropriate to consume Rubashkin products until this situation is addressed."
The advisory extends not only to products bought retail but also to meat and poultry bought at restaurants and for private functions such as weddings and bar mitzvahs. The statement falls short of the boycott hoped for by the more activist wing of the Conservative rabbinate, and leaves the decision in the hands of the individual consumer.
Still, Rabbi Morris Allen, head of the movement's hekhsher tzedek commission, said that "it is the first statement from the organized Jewish community that reminds people they need to evaluate the food they purchase and eat" from an ethical perspective.
No other Jewish movement has issued a statement on the issue.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Union of Reform Judaism, said it was appropriate that the Conservative movement take the lead because unlike the Reform movement, the Conservative movement calls on its members to keep kosher. Noting his own "deep distress" at the news coming out of Postville, Iowa, where AgriProcessors is located, Yoffie said it is "absolutely" time for the Jewish community to demand similar investigations into all kosher slaughterhouses, because the case "has raised suspicions about all kosher food."
Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of the Orthodox Union's kosher department, the largest kosher certifier of AgriProcessors, said the O.U. is awaiting the outcome of legal proceedings against the company before coming to any decision. If AgriProcessors is found guilty of criminal charges, he said, the O.U. will withdraw its kosher certification. Meat and poultry produced by AgriProcessors is sold under the following kosher and non-kosher labels: Aaron's Best, Aaron's Choice, David's, European Glatt, Iowa Best Beef, Nevel, Rubashkin's, Shor Habor, and Supreme Kosher.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Reconsidering AgriProcessors Products
You Shall Not Abuse a Needy and Destitute Laborer (Deuteronomy 24:14)
And the Rabbinical Assembly
Regarding Rubashkin's Meat Products
New York, NY (May 22, 2008)
In light of continuing disturbing allegations of unacceptable worker conditions at the Agriprocessors Plant in Postville, Iowa, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Rabbinical Assembly are united in calling for a thorough evaluation by kosher consumers of the appropriateness of purchasing and consuming meat products produced by the Rubashkin's label.
Rubashkin's produces kosher meat primarily under the Aaron and David label at the Agriprocessors facility. It is a major producer of kosher meat and poultry in the United States. The allegations about the terrible treatment of workers employed by Rubashkin's has shocked and appalled members of the Conservative Movement as well as all people of conscience. As Kashrut seeks to diminish animal suffering and offer a humane method of slaughter, it is bitterly ironic that a plant producing kosher meat be guilty of inflicting human suffering.
The Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism will immediately release an advisory to its members and constituents to evaluate the appropriateness of consuming Rubashkin products until the current situation is addressed. This advisory extends not only to products purchased on the retail level but to meat and poultry consumed in restaurants and at private functions, such as weddings and bar mitzvahs.
As the month of Sivan approaches, Jews throughout the world are mindful of the Torah's message of the power of Kedushah, holiness as it applies to all aspects of our lives including the ethics of worker treatment and food production. It is hoped that Conservative synagogues, schools and summer camps engage in a study of this important topic in honor of the festival of Shavuot which begins on the sixth day of Sivan -- commemorating the giving of the Torah.
A valuable source for such study is the paper written by Rabbi Avraham Reisner , entitled Hekshsher Tzedek Al Pi Din. This paper is a companion to the Hekhsher Tzedek Policy Statement and Working Guidelines. The paper is available on the websites of the Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism [and here].
By releasing this advisory, the Conservative Movement endorses the vision and guidance of the Hekhsher Tzedek commission. Hekhsher Tzedek is an initiative of the Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue that seeks to create an ethical certification process for kosher food. Through its work, Hekhsher Tzedek seeks to strengthen the bond between Halakha and Social Justice.
The reports of unacceptable worker conditions at the Agriprocessors plant demonstrate the pressing need for the sort of ethical oversight which might be provided by Hekhsher Tzedek.
For further information about the advisory being released by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Rabbinical Assembly, or to request an interview with any member of the Hekhsher Tzedek commission, the Rabbinical Assembly or United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism please call or email: Shira Dicker (212.663.4643) or Steve Rabinowitz (202.265.3000).
ABOUT THE UNITED SYNAGOGUE OF CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism represents and supports the synagogues of the Conservative movement in North America. We work with lay leaders and Jewish professionals on the national, regional, and grassroots levels to teach, inspire, and motivate Conservative Jews to live lives increasingly filled with Jewish learning, ethical behavior, spirituality, and mitzvot.
ABOUT THE RABBINICAL ASSEMBLY
Founded in 1901, the Rabbinical Assembly is the international association of Conservative rabbis. The Assembly actively promotes the cause of Conservative Judaism, publishes learned texts, prayer-books and works of Jewish interest, and administers the work of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards for the Conservative movement.
Rabbis of the assembly serve throughout the world in congregations, on campus, as educators, hospital and military chaplains, teachers of Judaica and officers of communal service organizations. Its membership spans over 20 countries and numbers 1600 rabbis.
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Sunday, May 18, 2008
Many Recent News Articles
UFCW v. Agriprocessors business-as-usual - Union News, May 18, 2008
Experts: Kosher slaughter house owners may be indicted - Jerusalem Post, May 16, 2008
For Shame - New Jersey Jewish Standard, May 16, 2008
Ask the Rabbi: Not Sporting - Jerusalem Post, May 15, 2008
Raid on Kosher Slaughterhouse Sparks Fears of Meat Shortage - Forward, May 15, 2008
Business as usual after Rubashkin raid, New Jersey Jewish Standard, May 16, 2008
Nation File :: Feds Conduct Largest Raid Of Illegal Workers In US History At Kosher Plant, Also Cite Possible Drug Activity - dsjv: Deep South Jewish Voice, May 14, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Widespread Worker Abuses Alleged At AgriProcessors
Federal affadavit could open door to indictment against top kosher meat supplier.
by Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Staff Writer
The Jewish Week
May 14, 2008
Two legal experts suggested this week that the federal government could be laying the groundwork for possible indictments against the owners of the country’s largest kosher meat manufacturer.
The comments come in the wake of Monday’s raid on AgriProcessors’ slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, when federal authorities entered the plant and arrested 390 workers — more than a third of the company’s workforce — on illegal immigration charges. On Tuesday, 29 workers were charged with crimes including identity theft and using false social security numbers, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
“It’s clear [from the affadavit’s allegations] that the government is thinking of an up-the-ladder chain of getting either the whole corporation or some senior managers,” said Marc Stern, general counsel to the American Jewish Congress, who reviewed the affadavit. “There are clearly some supervisors who are at great risk with being charged with harboring aliens in systematic fashion. There’s also a tantalizing thing in there about different-colored paychecks that suggests a slush fund for paying illegals.”
“Whoever from the corporation is involved with that is at great risk,” Stern continued. “They [the government] lay the groundwork for such a charge. But whether they can prove it beyond a supervisory level or will even attempt it is too early to say.”
The affidavit filed by a senior special agent of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement department lists dozens of pages of allegations against the company’s owners and supervisors. The document portrays them as exploiters of a vulnerable illegal immigrant work force, and it could be seen as setting the owners and supervisors up for possible indictment.
Allegations include that company owners and supervisors physically abused and exploited workers; knowingly hired workers without legal documentation; altered work records; paid some off the books; and paid them below minimum wage (starting workers at $5 an hour).
In addition, the affadavit alleges that company owners and supervisors fraudulently and forcibly sold them used cars and trucks, threatening that they would be fired if they didn’t buy the vehicles.
“Our company takes the immigration laws seriously,” AgriProcessors said in a statement, adding that it cooperated with the government “in the enforcement action” and will continue to operate during the investigation. It also assured consumers that it is continuing to supply glatt kosher meats and poultry.
AgriProcessors produces about 60 percent of the kosher meat and 40 percent of the kosher poultry in the U.S market.
Washington attorney Nathan Lewin, who has represented AgriProcessors and its owners, the Rubashkin family, in the past, conveyed surprise this week at the breadth of the affadavit’s allegations.
The “fact is there was a lot of material in there that did not seem to be relevant [to the immigration charges]. It has all sorts of allegations [against the owners and supervisors], all sorts of information gleaned from all sorts of places,” he said.
“Whether or not charges are brought against the Rubashkins, that remains to be seen,” Lewin said. He said he does not yet know if he is representing AgriProcessors in this current matter.
He added that he did not believe the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Rubashkins were in talks at the present time.
The affidavit also alleges that an informant saw evidence of methamphetamines being manufactured at the plant.
In the wake of Monday’s raid, the country’s leading kosher supervising agency, the Orthodox Union, expressed concern about the situation.
“The different issues, like immigration, we don’t have expertise or authority in that area but will follow the authorities’ lead,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, the OU’s kashrut administrator. The OU is one of the two current kosher certifiers of AgriProcessors products, and the most widely accepted.
“We’ll see where this leads in terms of determinations the government makes,” Rabbi Genack said. “If they find that the company is culpable we will respond. In terms of some of the claims, like drug use, they [the Rubashkins’] say that it’s not true, but I will wait to see what the determination is. If workers there make drugs, whatever it is, and without sanction of management, then it wouldn’t affect us. But if it was with the knowledge of the company then it would affect us,” he said.
If the government concludes that the company’s owners were culpable, “It certainly would be something we would be concerned about,” he said.
The federal investigation dates back to last November, and involved sending in undercover workers who recorded conversations about buying false employment documents.
Beyond the challenge of finding new (and legal) workers to replace those arrested this week, the incident and other related investigations could mean major problems for AgriProcessors’ owners, Brooklyn-based Aaron Rubashkin and his son, Rabbi Sholom Rubashkin, who runs the Iowa plant.
Officials at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement department and the U.S. Attorney’s office said that they could make no comment as to whether the Rubashkins will be charged.
Sholom Rubashkin did not return a message left on his cell phone.
At the same time, the U.S Department of Labor and Iowa Department of Labor are investigating AgriProcessors practices. In March, the Iowa Division of Labor Services levied $182,000 in fines against AgriProcessors for 39 health and safety violations.
There are troubles for the company even beyond the realm of the government. One of the company’s three kosher supervising agencies recently terminated its relationship with the meat maker.
K’hal Adath Jeshurun, based in Washington Heights, ended its supervision of all AgriProcessor products effective April 15. Rabbi Moshe Edelstein, KAJ’s kashrut administrator, would not say why the step was taken. A letter KAJ officials sent to Aaron Rubashkin in December, however, made it clear that the AgriProcessor owner had appealed the supervising agency’s original decision to terminate the relationship, a conclusion it upheld.
These are far from the first problems AgriProcessors has faced over the past few years.
Aaron Rubashkin bought the Postville plant in 1987 and brought in people local Iowans had never before seen — Lubavitch chasidim, along with an influx of Hispanic workers.
There were tensions between the locals and their new neighbors. Then the vegetarian group PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals took aim at AgriProcessor’s practices.
PETA sent an undercover worker to the Postville plant in 2004 who videotaped what the organization describes as inhumane treatment of still-sentient cows during their slaughter.
PETA did the same at the Rubashkins’ Gordon, Neb., plant in May 2007. AgriProcessors eventually changed the way it slaughters cows in response to the criticism.
The United Food & Commercial Workers International Union has been trying to organize factory floor laborers at AgriProcessors as well, with an aggressive campaign that includes a Web site and an automated phone call campaign to people they identified as leaders in the Jewish community, warning them against AgriProcessors’ meats.
But despite the crises, AgriProcessors’ business has recently been on the upswing, said Menachem Lubinsky, editor of KosherToday.com, who also has a public relations firm and is representing the Rubashkins.
(Lubinsky said Agriprocessors is not the only slaughterhouse to have been recently raided by immigration authorities. “It’s not an aberration for I.C.E., they do this all over at meat plants.”)
AgriProcessors kosher meat brands are: Aaron’s Best, Aaron’s Choice, Rubashkin’s, European Glatt, Supreme Kosher, David’s, and Shor Habor. Two-thirds of their product is non-kosher (since kosher meat can come only from part of an animal), and is sold through retailers including Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s and Pathmark.
While no one knows for sure what the privately held company earns, a Dunn & Bradstreet report pegs Rubashkin Industries’ annual income at $84.9 million. Family members’ business interests are diversified beyond meat, and into real estate and other ventures. Sales of kosher beef and poultry in America are about $300 million annually, according to industry sources.
What remains unknown is the impact of this week’s raids on AgriProcessors’ short-term business. The company released a statement this week stating, “there will be no shortage in the supply of glatt kosher meats and poultry.”
According to Lubinsky, “They have a lot of different resources at their disposal.”
In addition to the Iowa and Nebraska plants, the company also owns slaughterhouses in Uruguay and Argentina.
“As a company, they have more than the usual number of resources to tap into. It’s not as if even if this plant shuts down they’re out of business. The company thinks it will be able to maintain the level of production and supply. I don’t know how, but that’s what they say,” said Lubinsky.
But it is having an impact. While AgriProcessor was up and running, though at reduced production, on Tuesday, the Midwestern cattle markets were down “because AgriProcessor wasn’t buying,” said Bob Teig, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The plant had halted operation on Monday after the federal raid.
Local distributors and retailers predicted that prices for kosher meat will rise even more as a result of the AgriProcessor problems.
AgriProcessors’ problems could be a boon for one new group, feeding demand for a “Heksher Tzedek,” or “Just Stamp of Approval.”
The nascent Heksher Tzedek Commission, which is affiliated with the Conservative movement, intends to ensure that companies to which it awards its approval meet a range of ethical, as well as ritual, standards.
“This underscores the need for it,” said Rabbi Morris Allen, a Conservative rabbi in Minnesota who is director of the Heksher Tzedek Commission. “The fact that the Jewish community has seemingly allowed kosher food to be produced in a way that potentially exploited laborers, this is the reason we need to be reassured that when we buy kosher food, it’s with the best values being employed, both in ritual and ethical aspects of Jewish law.”
His group issued a statement this week saying they “condemn the corrupt practices of AgriProcessors which resulted in a raid by government agents. The actions of this company have brought shame upon the entire Jewish community.”
Thursday, May 1, 2008
About People
(As reported in the American Jewish World newspaper, Wednesday, April 30, 2008 )
Rabbi Morris Allen, of Beth Jacob Synagogue in Mendota Heights, has been invited to join Israeli president and Nobel laureate Shimon Peres in next months' "The Israeli Presidential Conference 2008: Facing Tomorrow" event in Jerusalem. The three-day conference will take place May 13-15 and coincide with Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations.
Allen was invited to the conference because of his leadership with Hekhsher Tzedek, a national initiative to ensure that kosher food not only meets the ritual requirements of Jewish law, but also the ethical demands with which people live.
Along with Allen, the list of 1,000 leading politicians, scholars and scientists scheduled to attend the Presidential Conference convened by Peres includes Mikhail Gorbachev, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
According to a press release, the Presidential Conference agenda will be set by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank that brings together Jewish scholars and leaders to discuss the future of the Jewish people.
The conference has been described as a "Jewish Davos" (referencing the legendary annual gathering of world leaders in Switzerland) and "a synergistic gathering of major world leaders, Jews and non-Jews, thinkers and doers, poets and physicists, rabbis and entrepreneurs."
Most of the meetings and addresses at the event in Jerusalem will be simulcast on the Internet. Click for information.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Jews going beyond ‘kosher’
Food producers would win seal for business ethics
by Ed Stannard
New Haven Register Metro Editor
Sat, Apr 19, 2008
For a number of Jews, however, the rituals of kashrut do not go far enough. The working conditions at the kosher slaughterhouses and other food-processing plants are also important, they say.
Concerned about labor issues, corporate responsibility and environmentalism, Hekhsher Tzedek, a project born in Conservative Judaism, plans to certify companies that fulfill ethical standards. The name translates as “justice certification.”
“The Hekhsher Tzedek project is still relatively new and it’s not completely defined,” said Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen of Congregation Beth El-Keser
Keeping kosher requires observant Jews to avoid “unclean” foods, such as pork and shellfish, to separate meat and dairy and to use only foods that have been prepared according to rituals of purity. Many Jews have separate dishware for meat and dairy meals, and two additional special sets for Passover.
The Hekhsher Tzedek Commission has been meeting with companies and labor organizations and plans to release a list of products that meet the ethical standards, though using the Hekhsher Tzedek seal will be voluntary. Rabbi Morris Allen of
Hekhsher Tzedek expands the ethics of eating beyond kosher rituals to include other Jewish laws dealing with treating people fairly and dealing honestly in the commercial sphere.
“Traditionally, people have looked at these Jewish texts as silos — one in this field, the other in that area,” said Allen.
The Hekhsher Tzedek seal will be given to foods produced according to standards of fair wages and benefits, worker training, ethical corporate behavior and environmental impact, according to a policy statement issued by the commission.
Some Jews believe certification should be limited to the kosher laws, that other issues are addressed by state and federal laws and regulations.
Tilsen disagrees. “The idea is that there are a number of laws, particularly labor laws and environmental law, that are part of Jewish law, just as much as the law of kashrut, kosher law,” he said.
While voluntary, “It’s kind of like a Good Housekeeping seal for labor practices and environmental practices,” Tilsen said.
It would help Jews, as well as non-Jews, who are concerned about how their food is prepared to know what products to buy. “It really is the law already, but we really have no way to know whether we’re complying with it,” Tilsen said. “This will give people a way to comply with this area of Jewish law.”
Tilsen said the connection to Passover is easy to see. “Part of the message of Passover has to do with the dignity of labor, the meaning of labor. There’s nothing wrong with working, but it’s a question of working traditions and who you’re working for.”
Another concern is, “At Passover time, many Jewish families invest a great deal of attention into the details of food — ‘kosher for Passover’ — and it’s easy to lose the greater picture.”
Allen said, “What Hekhsher Tzedek really represents is an attempt to demonstrate that Judaism at its core wants us to be concerned with ritual as well as ethics and vice versa. Both ritual and ethics need to be present at all times.”
Rabbi Lina Zerbarini of Yale University Hillel said she is not involved with Hekhsher Tzedek but sympathizes with the project’s intent. Even as a vegetarian, she must deal with the complexities of the supermarket, she said.
Zerbarini said she buys eggs from cage-free chickens rather than from commercially farmed chickens confined to small cages. “One of the downsides of cage-free eggs is (the hens) are running around with the roosters, which means half of them are fertilized, so they’re not kosher,” she said. It’s a difficult choice to toss out fertilized eggs versus buying the commercial brands, she said.
Admitting that “I’m not where I’d like to be in my personal observance of these issues,” Zerbarini said everyone should grapple with them, though many do not.
“I think some of it is how much we’re willing to know. It’s very easy not to think about where our food is coming from. It just shows up in the supermarket. But how we spend our money is important.”
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Compassionate Conservatism
by Jane Calem Rosen
Movement creates hekhsher based on ethics
When you buy food certified as kosher, how do you know that the manufacturer offers its workers a fair wage and benefits package; provides safe working conditions; doesn’t pollute the environment; engages in honest business practices; and, in the case of meat, treats the animals humanely before and during the slaughtering process?
And should you care?
The answer to the last question is an unequivocal "yes," according to a paper written by Rabbi Avram Reisner on behalf of the Hekhsher Tzedek Commission, an initiative of the Public Policy and Social Action Commission of the Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
And if the Conservative movement has its way, consumers will someday be able to easily ascertain the answer to question No. 1. The commission is close to concluding work that will enable kosher food purveyors to submit to a review that will deem their products ethically fit for consumption. Such approval is intended to supplement, rather than substitute for, a label that indicates products have met ritual requirements for kashrut certification.
In his document, Reisner, a former religious leader of the New Milford Jewish Center who is also a member of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, the movement’s legal body, details the halakhic — Jewish legal — underpinnings of five specific areas the commission has identified as appropriate for setting standards of ethical kashrut. The five are wages and benefits; health, safety, and training; corporate integrity, i.e., issues around working cooperatively, sharing information, honest reporting of data, and the like; product development, which includes aspects of animal welfare; and environmental impact. In each area, Reisner cites biblical and rabbinic sources, as well as medieval and later commentators.
For example, regarding the obligation of an employer to fairly compensate workers, including sick and vacation pay, Reisner builds an argument based on the law in Shulchan Arukh (Choshen Mishpat 331:1), which states, "One who hires employees should treat them in accordance with local custom," followed by Joseph Caro’s injunction from the same source, "When the custom was to provide their meals, he should provide their meals, to provide figs or dates or something similar, he should provide it — all in accordance with local custom."
(To read Reisner’s arguments in their entirety, log onto www.rabbimorrisallen2.blogspot.com.) [Al Pi Din]
"We believe that for a majority of Jewish people, regardless of their denomination, the gold standard is tzedek, righteousness. And [with hekhsher tzedek], we make a statement that is uniquely ours, as Jews, to make, since food is so central and tzedek so a critical part of our orientation to the world, that where ritual and ethics really meet is at our dining room tables," said Rabbi Morris Allen, religious leader of Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights, Minn., project director of the Hekhsher Tzedek Commission, co-sponsored by the two organizations that represent Conservative rabbis and the Conservative laity. (The six-member commission is composed of rabbinical and lay representatives.)
In a recent telephone interview, Allen told The Jewish Standard that the Conservative movement is uniquely positioned to insist that both producers and consumers of kosher food heed Jewish ethical standards. "There is no bifurcation of ethics and ritual" in the Conservative approach to Jewish practice, Allen said. On an interdenominational panel on the topic in Chicago in January, Allen said that an Orthodox rabbi expressed embarrassment that "the Orthodox community has refused to address these issues [of social justice in kashrut] all these years," while Allen’s Reform colleague, said Allen, noted that ethics, rather than ritual, was of greater appeal to his constituency.
Allen first used the term hekhsher tzedek in a High Holy Day talk he gave in 2006 after spending that summer chairing a movement commission of inquiry into reported complaints by workers at one of the nation’s leading producers of kosher food, AgriProcessors of Postville, Iowa.
"I came to understand [from my summer experience]," said Allen, "that as someone who promoted kashrut observance, it is not possible to just focus on the ritual aspects, if the production of kosher products are inconsistent with Jewish values and norms from an ethical perspective.
"We need to get across to much of the kosher food industry," Allen continued, "that this [hekhsher tzedek] will be a reward for good work they are doing, an indication that observant Jews can feel really good about buying products produced ethically as well as ritually in a kosher way. So one important message to really reinforce is this is not a replacement for [an] already existing hekhsher, but a secondary statement about this food that is ritually kosher, that you can feel good about the way workers have been treated, the environmental impact of the company, and so forth."
"Unfortunately, we know there may be some companies where ethical shortcuts have been taken [that are] inconsistent with the values that Jewish people know to be correct," said Allen, noting that the absence of a hekhsher tzedek would alert the public to the potential for such abuses.
While the Conservative community is in full agreement on the ethical dimensions of kashrut, said Rabbi Elliot Dorff, chair of the law committee, a question yet to be settled is one of nomenclature. Some movement legal experts have expressed misgivings about applying the word "hekhsher," a term that conveys certification with the full force of halakha, Jewish law, behind it, in this context, said Dorff. These members of the law committee, Dorff explained, say they prefer the designation "siman," which means sign or symbol and therefore would be less authoritative and presumably carry less weight with consumers who observe strict standards of kashrut.
Reisner’s paper, while legal in nature, is "not a tshuvah [a Jewish legal responsum with the force of law]," agreed Allen. "All the areas addressed [in Reisner’s paper] have already been addressed halakhically. We’re not asking the movement or the Jewish people to do something beyond what is required [by Jewish law]. It’s not question of whether there are ethical underpinnings on labor relations or for keeping kosher, for example. These already exist. The movement is already on record against hoisting and shackling in upholding the ethical treatment of animals," another area addressed by Reisner’s legal arguments.
Whether the new label is ultimately called a hekhsher tzedek or a siman tzedek may turn on how broadly or narrowly kashrut is understood, an issue that has come before the law committee in the past, Dorff said, most recently in 2003 with the publication of a responsum co-authored by him and Rabbi Joel Roth against hoisting and shackling. Reflecting Roth’s narrower interpretation of kashrut in this instance, Dorff observed, "Joel was very careful to say that shackled and hoisted animals were still [ritually] kosher," adding, "I went along with his language [in order to] rule out the practice."
But however the name game eventually ends, with its latest foray into kashrut certification, the Conservative movement has made another important statement, Dorff suggested. "Until recently, not officially, but in fact, the Conservative movement ceded to Orthodoxy the control of kashrut." He added, "That no longer is the case."
Article Series
This article is part 1 of a 2 part series. Other articles in this series are shown below:
Compassionate Conservatism
A look at sources
