I choose not to comment on the legal troubles of the Rubashkins - atleast for now. For the news, well...it's available everywhere. I feel like hiding in a mountain cabin somewhere --- I'm sickened by what they've wrought on themselves, and on the furthering of the image of the Jew as money-grubbing thieves.
Thank you - the OU kashruth organization for your complicit involvement in this scandal. Were you to get out when the KAJ did - we would perhaps have avoided the "blood libel" media frenzy. They would have been unable to sell their foodstuff as kosher - and perhaps would have been just another slaughterhouse, not an ultra-orthodox Jewish owned - rabbis endorsed - Torah sanctioned business.
But of course, the rabbis always do what's best for the Jewish community.
To Hersh Weinreb - The executive vice president of the OU, once again you've sold out the interests of the Jewish people for your personal benefit, as you did in Baltimore when you were a rabbi there.
You were aware that Moshe Eisemann was a very ill person that was a danger to children, and you did nothing! Your retirement from Jewish communal life can not come too soon. Good riddance to another Shea Fishman type despicable criminal bozo!
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Here Comes Steve: (I think he wants my job.)
"The OU is in the licensing business, first and foremost. To them it has nothing to do with kashrus, ethics or the prevention of chillul hashem. It's all about making a buck and the marketing of the OU brand. With Rubashkin, it was a no-brainer for them. They were cashing in for years, based solely on the OU brand, rather than actual hashgocho. For hashgocho, they relied on others, first the KAJ and then Weissmandl.
How reliable was that hashgocho, especially when the owners were of questionable integrity to begin with and the fact that non-kosher meat was constantly in contact with kosher? It didn't matter to the executives at OU Licensing LLC. They were making money and the fact that their logo was on millions of tons of "glatt kosher chicken" and beef was something for them to be proud of. Their executive board headed by CEO Menachem Genack and Kashruth Committee Chairman, the (dis)Honorable Dr. Steven Katz was turning a huge profit with this low-risk, low overhead enterprise.
Their logo became the Versace of the kashrus industry. Or so they tell people. Never mind that they had no presence whatsoever at the Rubashkin plant (Seth Mandel's occasional visit to pick up his check doesn't count), never mind that they affix their logo on thousands of products where they have no presence at the respective factories, never mind that they affix their logo on products that absolutely do not need any hechsher, WHO CARES? They made money and that's all that counts. When they had to actually hire a mashgiach for a restaurant that was under their "supervision", they pulled a Weissmandl and muzzled him! An injunction!
They shut him up! How dare Isaac Bitton state that the chef at Le Marais violated kashrus rules? Isaac is our employee and he must toe the company line. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil! It would be hefseid merubah to lose an account like Le Marais, or chas veshalom, Rubashkin. Kashrus? Ethics? Chillul Hashem? Newspaper articles? They can handle all that. That was until the Rubashkin scandal reached epic proportions this past summer and Genack needed to save face by stating that they must hire a new CEO. No problem. In stepped Sholom's lawyer Bernie, the guy that helped get him out of the Allou money laundering case.
Problem solved!
Rubashkin is all kosher again. Meat for Yom Tov he claimed was the issue. Everybody go back to fressing on their salmonella and feces infested treife. Lawyer Bernie made everything all better, so now the OU can continue cashing in their licensing fees. Genack pulled off what he thought was a brilliant PR stunt.
I'm sure Katz helped him come up with it. After all, Dr. Simcha is no stranger to kashrus scandals. He himself was (is?) owner of Central Glatt Meats, partnered with Brach from L.I. In 1985, there was a small, minor problem, something about a truckload of treife meat, labeled as kosher, headed to NYC from Ohio that was luckily caught by government officials before it made its way onto our dinner plates. It's nice to know that the OU is always looking out for our best interests and making sure we only eat "strictly" kosher products. That's why they only hire the best in the business--that is the licensing business."