Can Food Made By Mistreated Workers Be Kosher?
An overflow crowd packed an auditorium at Yeshiva University Tuesday night to debate whether it’s acceptable to call something “kosher certified” if it’s produced under unethical conditions. The panel discussion was prompted in part by the high profile prosecution of the Rubashkin family, who operate a major kosher-meat-processing plant in Iowa. Federal agents raided the plant in May, arresting 389 illegal immigrants, who, according to this damning cover story in the Village Voice, were paid some of the lowest wages in the nation, and were allegedly forced to work up to 17-hour days with 10-minute lunch breaks “in a freezing-cold, dirty hallway.” Reformist Shmuly Yanklowitz, a leader of what he describes as the Orthodox social justice movement, told the audience that he visited the plant in Potsville and met immigrant employees who “worked in hot, slavelike conditions from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. so that we could have our kosher meat.” Yanklowitz argued that “the consumer of goods produced i
