Dear Reader: Today we’re kicking off an exciting celebration – and we’re thrilled you’re part of it: The Forward turns 120 this month — it’s a milestone in Jewish years, and it’s a momentous birthday for us. We’ve come a long way: From 1897’s scrappy Yiddish broadsheet to our award-winning, digital-first, 24/7 news organization today….
Synagogues in rural Iowa are few and far between for good reason. Out of almost three million residents in the 26th largest state, there are no more than 6,000 Jews, and almost half of them them live in the capital, Des Moines. So few Jews live — and die —in Iowa that the Jewish Funeral…
A federal judge reprimanded an attorney working on behalf of jailed former Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin. In a meeting Tuesday, U.S. District Chief Judge Linda Reade told the attorney that interviews of jurors in Rubashkin’s 2009 trial on bank fraud charges cannot be used for future appeals or other court proceedings, according to The Gazette,…
Sunday, May 12, marks the fifth anniversary of the massive immigration raid that shook Postville, Iowa, in 2008. Some 1,000 federal, state and local agents descended on the tiny town, population 2,200, and arrested 389 undocumented immigrants working at the town’s largest employer, Agriprocessors, then the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse. To mark the anniversary, immigration…
This event is dedicated to a woman named Inez,? said Rabbi Ari Hart, one of the co-founders of Uri L?Tzedek, a Modern Orthodox organization that promotes social justice. Their signature program is the Tav HaYosher (Ethical Seal), a certification program for kosher restaurants that meet basic criteria for ethical treatment of their labor. Hart was…
Practices at the glatt kosher Iowa slaughterhouse once home to the scandal-ridden Agriprocessors meatpacking firm are improving, observers and plant operators say. But some techniques employed at the plant continue to draw criticism from activists. Agriprocessors, once the country’s largest kosher slaughter operation, went bankrupt in the wake of a 2008 immigration raid at its…
The city of Postville, Iowa, has settled a lawsuit charging it with discrimination against an Orthodox Jewish landlord who housed undocumented workers employed by the former Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse. The city and several local officials have agreed to pay Gabay Menahem $450,000 and to hold a community workshop on diversity issues; however, they have not…
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