Twin Cities Jews join hundreds in support of Postville workers

More than a decade ago, Maria Morales entered the United States illegally. It was an arduous journey, one whose memory still conjures up feelings of intense trauma. As a university student in Ecuador, she did not see a path out of poverty. Morales is now an actively engaged American citizen. Last weekend, Morales joined a group of Twin Cities Jews with the Jewish Community Action (JCA) on a trip from Minneapolis to Postville, Iowa to protest a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on AgriProcessors, a kosher meatpacking plant.

Two months ago, immigration officials arrested and charged 270 men and women with aggravated identity theft, improper use of Social Security numbers, and use of false identification cards. The raid has left the small town of 2200 deserted and desolate.

Protesters from Minneapolis marched in Postville.

Fundraiser for Postville Voice of a Mountain is a documentary of the lives of rural Guatemalan coffee farmers who took up arms against their government in a civil war that lasted 36 years. Tuesday, July 29, 6:00 - 8:00 pm Main Street Project 2104 Stevens Ave So., Minneapolis RSVP Kathy Hiltsley 612-879-7571 kathy@mainstreetproject.org Suggested donation $5.00 or more.

About 1200 people, including the JCA group from Minneapolis, descended on the small town on Sunday, calling for comprehensive immigration reform and the enforcement of workers rights. The rally, attended by Jewish and Catholic religious leaders, called on legislators to give legal status to undocumented workers.

A counter-protest group of about 150, organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, rallied for the immediate deportation of illegal immigrants. Chanting "Illegals go Home" and "American Jobs for Americans," they waved placards that read, "Ask Me Why You Will Go To Hell" and "Stop the Illegal Immigration.”

Vic Rosenthal, the executive director of the JCA, stood to speak to the charged crowd of protestors.

"We are here because we care about how workers are treated in this country," Rosenthal said. Referring to an article in Sunday's New York Times that alleged that AgriProcessors had underage employees, and underpaid workers, he spoke about " troubling reports of treatment of workers that is unconscionable.”

Gideon Aronoff, the President of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, explained the presence of Jewish groups in the campaign for immigrant rights, saying, "It is simple. Jewish values call for the care of the stranger.”

Postville Mayor Robert Penrod addresses protesters.

The town’s mayor, Robert Penrod, also spoke out against the raids. He called on congressional representatives to seek solutions towards immigration reform, lamenting the loss of jobs in an otherwise vibrant Hispanic community in Postville.

Rabbis from Minneapolis at interfaith prayers at St. Bridget's Catholic Church in Postville.

Citing the principles of kosher observance, the Jewish leaders made clear that the obligations these placed on Jews did not just apply to the food that they ate, but the humane treatment of all humanity. The Jewish-owned plant in Postville is the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the United States, producing about 60% of kosher meat, and 40% of kosher chicken in retail stores from Wal-Mart to Albertson’s.

Getzebel Rubashkin, the grandson of Aaron Rubashkin, the owner of Agriprocessors, denied claims that the plant acted illegally in any way.

On the undocumented workers and alleged reports of underage workers he said,"They deceived the supervisors and provided documents that looked good. ... People are being fed lies about my family."










Twelve-year-old Pedro Lopez, who declared his identity was both Mexican and American, spoke with great emotion to the already electrified audience, saying, "I was only three when my parents and I came to this country."

Diana Lopez, whose husband was arrested during the raid, with her daughter Arayly.

Diana Lopez and her daughter Arayly also worried about their future. Lopez's husband was one of the arrested plant workers. Like all the others, he was convicted on felony charges and will be jailed for at least five months, after which he will be deported. This is the first time in U.S. history that the government has used criminal charges as a deportation tactic in an immigration raid. The Lopez family, who have lived in Iowa for at least 16 years, have few ties outside of the United States. Rendered destitute by the incarceration of her husband, the family’s sole bread-winner, Lopez seeks support from St. Bridget's Catholic Church, where she is fortunate to receive food, shelter and clothing for her daughter and two sons.

For more on Postville, see Postville takes center stage in immigration debate by Deborah Rosenstein, Workday Minnesota

St. Bridget's now serves as the refuge for the families of the arrested factory workers. Organizations such as JCA have contributed thousands of dollars, and in-kind gifts that have allowed the church to meet the daily needs of the broken community.

The Postville rally was organized by the Jewish Community Action (St. Paul, Minnesota), the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (Chicago, Illinois) and St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church (Postville, Iowa). Together these groups met with representatives of AgriProcessors early Sunday afternoon to demand that the company respond to the needs of its former employees by creating an emergency fund. Aaron Goldsmith, a businessman associated with the plant, reported that 360 of the employees have been paid money owed to them, and that the company has been delivering food to about 30 of the affected families.

Writing about Postville: A bus full of immigrant stories by Julia Opoti, TC Daily Planet This past weekend, I took a bus ride to Postville, Iowa with members of the Jewish Community Action and other representatives of the Twin Cities Jewish community. The group was going to protest a recent immigration raid (see main story). The ride from Uptown to Postville, Iowa was like a history refresher course led by Peter Rachleff, a history professor from Macalster College. Rachleff compared the bus rides to the Freedom Bus rides during the Civil Rights Movement, when black and white Americans rode across the states in solidarity to speak out against segregation and racism. Folks in the bus then engaged in conversations telling "their story," how they or their ancestors immigrated to the U.S. Most people on the bus, it seemed, were second or third generation Americans whose parents had come to the U.S. for better economic opportunities or to flee political persecution. "Nativism, fueled by economics and labor situations at different times in history, was and continues to be the biggest driver against immigration," observed Gideon, one of the bus riders. Rachleff talked about the history of illegal Jewish immigration into the U.S.: in the 1920s the US government passed immigration laws that created nation-based quotas, to slow Eastern and Southern European immigration and to eliminate Asian migration. As a result, thousands of undocumented Jews came into the US. Rabbi Harold Kravitz, from Minnetonka, spoke passionately about Kashrut and ethics. He argued that dietary laws are important in defining ethics. It is not just that Jews eat meat from an animal that has been cut the right way, but that by slaughtering the animal humanely, Jews are displaying a reverence for life. My knowledge of the Jewish culture is very limited, so it was interesting to hear in great discussion the dietary laws. Hekhsher Tzedek is a new initiative "to improve the working conditions, treatment of employees, environmental standards, and business practices in kosher food-producing businesses." With a few minutes left to get to Postville, someone with on the bus shared an anecdote: "When plant workers wanted to form a union, some of them received physical threats, when he had his garage set on fire." Perhaps it was this story, perhaps it was the massive numbers that began to descend on Postville as we did, but the group from Minneapolis was soon filled with an energy that continued for the next couple of hours as they walked and chanted around Postville.

Nekessa Opoti is the publisher of kenyaimagine.com, a Kenyan online magazine and newspaper.

All photos ©2008 Nekessa Opoti.