From Darfur to Beijing to Postville

IN DARFUR, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the portly president of Sudan, who has been accused of genocide in Darfur by the International Criminal Court, performed a dance in front of thousands at a mandatory pep rally July 23, jutting his cane, rolling his hips, as the crowd chanted: “Go, go Mr. Bashir.” Talk about obscenity.

In Beijing, China prepared for the opening 2008 Olympics, while its diplomats at the United Nations attempted to have the Security Council suspend any actions against the Sudanese leader for a year.

As Barbara Fields recounts in her column this week, her father, who fled Nazi Germany to go to Shanghai in 1938, always believed that “the beauty of graceful athletes and heated competition on the field would always trump the ugly side of immoral leaders.”

Yet, as we cheer the athletic accomplishments, there are hard questions to ask: Can we both celebrate China’s showcasing as the host of the 2008 Olympics and criticize China’s role in supporting Sudan’s continued genocide in Darfur?

There are equally hard questions to ask about the events in Postville, Iowa, the home of Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher meat plant.

The controversy following the May 12 immigration raid, during which nearly 400 undocumented workers were arrested by authorities, continues to radiate aftershocks throughout the Jewish world. The world of kosher meat has found itself at the center of the “legacy of a failed immigration system,” said Gideon Aronoff, of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Agriprocessor owners deny that they have done anything wrong. In a prepared statement, Aaron Rubashkin, who founded the company two decades ago, said he and his family were immigrants themselves, escaping first Soviet and then Polish communism to find “freedom and opportunity” in America. Yet there have been serious allegations made about the plant’s operation and its abusive treatment of workers.

Last week, the Conservative movement released a policy statement and guidelines for its much-anticipated ethical kashrut certification, outlining the social justice standards companies are expected to meet if their foodstuffs are to qualify for the designation. According to the document, products will be evaluated in five main areas – employees’ wages and benefits, employee health and safety, product development, corporate transparency and environmental impact.

Stay tuned. This controversy promises to reverberate here in Rhode Island and be an important debate for the Jewish community nationally.