July 1, 2008
Agriprocessors, the embattled kosher food giant, is in part fighting allegations of employing illegal immigrants in poor conditions and cruelty to animals by hiring the public relations firm 5WPR, a growing power house in the field, according to the JTA Wire Service. This is done in the face of calls by some modern Orthodox groups, Jewish vegetarians, Conservative Judaism’s rabbinical arm and others to either boycott or carefully consider purchasing foods by Agriprocessors – which represents 60 percent of the kosher beef and 40 percent of the kosher chicken sold in the country. Their products are sold under major labels such as Rabushkin’s and Aaron’s Best.
If Agriprocessors does some good community work and is a great place to be employed, then I say more power to publicizing all of that. But they have some serious questions to answer before getting to the usual corporate bragging.
Not only that, but one poor argument in defense of Agriprocessors is that critics should back off because pursuing the allegations against it could create a spike in kosher meat prices. As one who only buys and eats kosher meat, I say Jewish morality should not have a price. If people cannot eat meat or must eat less of it for a short period, so be it. If there is a market for such products, there is no doubt that other companies would step up their production to fill the void.
Reasons for keeping kosher are both varied and complicated. For certain people it is done out of a sense of obligation for following halachah. Equally important, many believe that kosher food is prepared humanely and, due to kashrut regulations, is generally healthier than many other products. The Agriprocessors scandal undermines that second belief and could damage the ability to persuade more people to consider keeping kosher. This also points to an inability of many organizations to explain to Jews why keeping kosher is important in the first place. None of these elements can be ignored as this story moves forward.
Posted by on 07/01/08 at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)
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