Rubashkin Aquittal: Behind The Smoke And Mirrors

The dramatic vindication of Sholom Rubashkin in the state child-labor trial last week has wreaked havoc with the public’s view of him. Given his media-battered reputation, no one expected him to be acquitted of the state charges. Bias against him, especially in Iowa, was rampant. Many described their shocked reaction to the verdict.

The government had promised they had a solid case and there was no reason to doubt it.

The public had long been convinced that Sholom Mordechai presided over a crime-ridden plant where, in addition to minors being forced to work with dangerous chemicals and machinery, workers were subjected to forced labor and other outrages.

Op-Ed: Friedman and Paltiel: Chassidishe Openness or the Thought Police?

A great person once told me that whenever she enters a room, the first thing she notices is the racial makeup of the people in the room. As an observer at last night’s question and answer session with Rabbis Manis Friedman and Yossi Paltiel, I was struck by how un-diverse the audience was. The room was brimming with an almost entirely young moderate- to very-chassidish crowd or those with the hergesh to wear white shirts on Gimmel Tammuz, if you will. Mostly older 770 bochurim and yungerleit.

What was more glaring was who were not there – the so-called single working class and the young Lubavitch college students. It is ironic that a program put on by the newly founded Besht Center did not attract an audience from their target group at one of its largest events of the year. But it is unsurprising considering how predictably unfulfilling these events tend to be. I only came down there because I felt I must do something on Gimmel Tammuz and because my friend paid my five-dollar admission fee.

Op-Ed: The Never-Ending Lynching of Sholom Rubashkin

So much for Christian charity.

Sister Mary McCauley, the former pastoral administrator at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Postville, Iowa, who provided support for families affected by the Agriprocessors raid, publicly condemned the complete acquittal of Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin on charges of child labor violations as a tragedy. “I was heartsick,” she declared. “I had to just sit and deal with the heartbreak I was feeling.”

Never mind that a jury deliberated only 12 hours to reach a verdict exonerating Rubashkin on all 67 counts. Never mind that Rubashkin, a father of ten with a long of history of charitable acts feeding the hungry and the poor, has been so demonized in the press that it was practically impossible for him to receive a fair trial, and still he was found innocent. The good sister is convinced that the man should have gone down. Her heart tells her so. The jury be damned.