Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America
Encyclopedia
Postville, Iowa
Postville is a city in Allamakee and Clayton Counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. It lies near the junction of four counties and at the intersection of U.S. Routes 18 and 52 and Iowa Highway 51, with airport facilities in the neighboring communities of Waukon, Decorah, Monona, and Prairie du Chien....
, and a group of new arrivals: Lubavitcher
Chabad
Chabad or Chabad-Lubavitch is a major branch of Hasidic Judaism.Chabad may also refer to:*Chabad-Strashelye, a defunct branch of the Chabad school of Hasidic Judaism*Chabad-Kapust or Kapust, a defunct branch of the Chabad school of Hasidic Judaism...
Hasidim
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
who came to the town to run Agriprocessors
Agriprocessors
Agriprocessors was the corporate identity of a slaughterhouse and meat-packaging factory based in Postville, Iowa, best known as a facility for the glatt kosher processing of cattle, as well as chicken, turkey, duck, and lamb. Agriprocessors' meat and poultry products were marketed under the brand...
, the largest kosher meat plant in the United States.
The book was published by Harcourt
Harcourt (publisher)
Harcourt was a United States publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. The company was based in San Diego, California, with an Editorial / Sales / Marketing / Rights offices in New York City and Orlando, Florida.In 2007, the U.S...
and was named a Best Book of the year by MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
, The Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, the Rocky Mountain News
Rocky Mountain News
The Rocky Mountain News was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As of March 2006, the Monday-Friday circulation was 255,427...
, The Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...
. It was also made into a documentary.
Background
The author travelled to and from his home in Iowa City and Postville, acquainting himself with the local native Iowan and Hasidic populations. Initially, Bloom sought out the Postville Hasidim in his quest to connect to his Jewish heritage in a largely Christian area, and to understand how the community adapted to life in small-town Iowa while surrounded by an insular, homogeneous and occasionally antisemitic culture. The Hasidim, who are involved in Jewish education and outreach initially accepted Bloom because of his Jewish heritage (though they viewed as a "wayward Jew" due to his secularism). Upon deciding that the Hasidim offered little enlightenment on either issue (as their sole concern was his religious awakening), Bloom's mission quickly changes from a personal quest to a journalistic exploration.Summary
Bloom describes the arrival of the Hasidim in Postville. In 1987, Aaron RubashkinAaron Rubashkin
Abraham Aaron Rubashkin, or Aaron Rubashkin, an ultra-Orthodox Jew of the Lubavitcher hasidic movement born in the Russian town Nevel in the former Soviet Union, is the owner of a kosher butcher shop in Brooklyn, New York, opened in 1953...
, a Lubavitcher Hasidic butcher from Brooklyn, purchased an unused meat-rendering plant and turned it into a state-of-the-art facility for producing Glatt kosher meat. A group of a few hundred Hasidim joined him to help manage and operate the facility, which grew to employ 900. The town's population of around 1,300 had a mixed relationship with the Hasidim.
Throughout the book, Bloom describes the power struggles between the two groups, culminating in a ballot referendum held by the town calling for annexation of the land where the plant was located, which permitted the town to gain the ability to tax and regulate the plant. According to the jacket, the book tries to the answer whether "the Iowans [were] prejudiced, or were the Lubavitchers simply unbearable?"
Bloom chooses sides in the culture clash. In the book, Bloom voices his opinions on the vote (he supports annexation) and his condemnation of the Hasidic community (whose behavior towards the local native Iowans he frequently describes as "despicable", and whose beliefs he characterizes as "racist"). At one point in the book, Bloom compares Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Menachem Mendel Schneerson , known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe or just the Rebbe among his followers, was a prominent Hasidic rabbi who was the seventh and last Rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was fifth in a direct paternal line to the third Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Menachem Mendel...
, the Rebbe (religious leader) of the sect who died in 1994, to Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan Muhammad, Sr. is the leader of the African-American religious movement the Nation of Islam . He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, before his death in 1975, as the National Representative of...
, asserting that their messages of separatism are nearly identical.
In the Afterword of the updated edition of the book, Bloom describes the receiving in the aftermath of the book's publication frequent accusations of airing the Jews' "dirty laundry", and betraying his brethren.
Reception
Like other Jews who have taken on controversial or taboo issues regarding Jewish culture, Bloom became a lightning rod, accused of disloyalty and slander toward the Jewish people. The book became an important, if not unbiased, reference point in the wider perception of Orthodox Jewry in the United States. The book became especially well-read among liberal Jewish circles in the early 2000s. Many readers of American Jewish backgrounds found the book in tune with their sentiments toward the "ultra-Orthodox", reflective of the uneasy and occasionally antagonistic relationship between the modern and the HarediHaredi Judaism
Haredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....
Jewish communities today.
The book led many American Jews to rethink their assumptions about kosher meat. A movement toward kosher organic and free range
Free range
thumb|250px|Free-range chickens being fed outdoors.Free range is a term which outside of the United States denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals are allowed to roam freely instead of being contained in any manner. In the United States, USDA regulations apply only to poultry and...
meat was fueled by allegations of slaughterhouse conditions at Agriprocessors reminiscent of those described in Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
's book The Jungle
The Jungle
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by journalist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel with the intention of portraying the life of the immigrant in the United States, but readers were more concerned with the large portion of the book pertaining to the corruption of the American meatpacking...
. By 2008, leaders within Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
had called for an advisory against eating meat products from Agriprocessors, due to continuing allegations of mistreatment of workers. Also in 2008, the Postville Agriprocessors plant was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in what would be the largest such raid in American history. Hundreds of undocumented workers were arrested. In 2004 and again in 2008, the Postville Agriprocessors facility was shown to use slaughter methods that opponents claimed were inhumane and therefore contrary to kosher law.,
External links
- Harcourt Publishers page on the book
- Amazon page including reviews
- The University of Iowa, School of Journalism & Mass Communication: Reviews of Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America
- Richard Bernstein: New York Times review
- Bob MacDonald: Boston Globe review