POSTVILLE HERALD-LEADER • WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2008 • PAGE 7
Opinion www.postvillenewspaper.com
Letter to the Editor:
Re: Agriprocessors
It is absolutely frightening
to me that those who tortured
animals and abused people at
the Postville “kosher” slaugh-terhouse
raise the specter that
those who don’t like this are
anti-Semitic.
Conversely, it is state-ments
like this that cause
anti-Semitism, as these hor-rid
people try and make the
general populace believe that
this is behavior that Jewish
people sanction.
Nothing could be further
from the truth.
Jews are at the forefront
of all humane movements,
be it rights for children, or
for animals. Read the names
of all those who rush to the
aid of the oppressed and you
will arguably always fi nd a
disproportionate number of
Jewish names.
We Jews around the globe
are truly and deeply mortifi ed
that people would abuse peo-ple
and animals in our name.
My family also escaped
from he pogroms of Russia.
My own blue-eyed great,
great uncle infi ltrated, and ran
with, a mob of “Jew-killers”,
running into Jewish people’s
homes fi lled with cowering
children, running out shout-ing:
“No Jews here”.
So I don’t think that any
of these animal torturers can
claim a closer tie to losing
family members to Russian
anti-Semites than can I; but
growing up with the knowl-edge
that there are people in
this world who can do these
kind of things to others has
made the rest of the Jewish
people more empathetic to-wards
others, not less. as the
owners of this slaughterhouse
are sadly trying to make the
world believe.
Jayn Brotman
Cincinnati, Ohio
513 961-5555
Dear Letters Editor:
The continuing widely-reported
stories about your
local Postville, Iowa “kosher”
slaughterhouse, Agriproces-sors,
may give people a false
impression about Jewish law
regarding treatment of work-ers
and animals.
The commandment to
avoid cruelty to animals (the
requirement “to prevent the
suffering of living creatures”)
is one of the most important
codes of Jewish law, which
also requires fair treatment of
workers.
Indeed, the Jews pio-neered
the concept of kind-ness
to animals some 3,500
years ago, and it is mandated
throughout the Bible and Jew-ish
law. Even the holiest of
our laws, the Ten Command-ments,
requires that farmed
animals be allowed to enjoy a
day of rest on the Sabbath. So
the Almighty must have felt
that kindness to animals was
not a trivial matter.
Signifi cantly, the fi rst
commandments given by
the Lord (Genesis 1:22-28)
concern the welfare and sur-vival
of animals, and human
responsibilities toward them.
God’s very fi rst command-ment
(Genesis 1:22) was to
the birds, whales, fi sh and
other creatures to “be fruitful
and multiply” and fi ll the seas
and the skies. His fi rst com-mandment
to humans (Gen-esis
1:28) was to “replenish
the earth...and have domin-ion”
[stewardship] over other
creatures.
Jews are not allowed to
pass by an animal in distress
or to ignore animals being
mistreated, even on the Sab-bath.
Yet this is exactly what
we do when we certify as ko-sher
products from animals
that are treated cruelly.
It is truly a “shanda,” a
shameful thing, that a kosher
label can appear on products
resulting from the massive
abuse and suffering of bil-lions
of factory farmed crea-tures,
many of which spend
their entire lives in misery,
fear, and anguish, in addition
to the often painful way they
are killed.
Some rabbis and Jewish
leaders have even character-ized
this as a “chillul Hash-em,”
a desecration of the
name of the Lord.
As an editorial in the Jew-ish
newspaper “The Forward”
observed on 13 November,
“The behavior attributed to
Agriprocessors...ought to dis-qualify
its products from re-ceiving
religious certifi cation
by any standard worthy of the
name.”
It is hard to imagine that
abuse of animals would be
pleasing to a merciful God.
Can this truly be the will of
the Lord, whose fi rst com-mandments
concerned ani-mals,
who called each animal
He created “good” and the
Creation itself “very good,”
who instructed us in the Bible
to allow our animals an entire
day of rest on the Sabbath, to
leave some crops in the fi elds
for the wildlife, to allow oxen
to eat while working, and who
repeatedly prohibited cruelty
to animals ?
As Proverbs 10:12 tell us,
“A righteous man has regard
for the life of his beast.”
Thank you for taking the
time to consider this mes-sage.
Sincerely yours,
Lewis Regenstein
Atlanta, GA 404-814-
1371
The writer is the author
of “Replenish the Earth: The
Teachings of the world’s Re-ligions
on Protecting Animals
and Nature,” and president
of The Interfaith Council for
the Protection of Animals and
Nature <icpanonline.org>.
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