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On The Bookshelf

Culture Clash

In "Postville," Stephen Bloom write of conflict
between Lubavitch and locals in Iowa farming town.

city paper, the Cedar Rapids Gazette,
ran a banner headline: 'He Has Risen.'
Other than being offensive and irrele-
tephen Bloom looked at the
vant to non-Christians, the headline
first draft of his book about a
broke all the rules of news judgment
Lubavitch enclave in rural
that I preached to my students. The
Iowa and realized that it lacked
event was neither breaking news nor
something: his own personal story.
could it be corroborated by two inde-
In this early account, he wrote about
pendent sources."
the culture clash between members of
Bloom was raised in a nonobservant
the Chasidic group,
home, didn't have a bar
who settled in Iowa
mitzvah and was com-
beginning in the mid-
fortable in non-Jewish
1980s around a kosher
circles. But he was still
A CLASH OF CLITLRES
slaughterhouse, and the
feeling uneasy in his
I IN HEARTLAND AMERICA
longtime residents of
new surroundings.
the sleepy town of
So when he read
Postville. But Bloom •
about a Lubavitch
de-emphasized his reac-
enclave in the tiny
tions to his own
town of Postville, he
encounters with the
was intrigued.
town's Christian resi-
"If I was suffering a
dents and the Chasidic
culture clash, they were
Jews.
in a place where there
So the Jewish profes-
were 10 pigs for every
sor of journalism at the
person," he says in an
STEPHEN G. BLOOM
University of Iowa
interview.
reworked it.
The Lubavitch fol-
In his new draft, he says, "I try to
lowers had migrated to Postville, more
act as a tour guide who allows the
than 700 miles from their Brooklyn
reader to follow the narrator inside
headquarters, because they wanted to
this extraordinary community"
operate a slaughterhouse close to where
The result: Postville: A Clash of
beef is produced — and because they
Cultures in Heartland America
found an inexpensive slaughterhouse
(Hartcourt; $25), a book that has gar-
that had been closed for several years.
nered much praise and was featured as
Their Iowa slaughterhouse was
a Book of the Month Club selection.
immediately successful — and contro-
By weaving his own personal jour-
versial.
ney into the book,,Bloom created a
The plant brought some jobs to the
classic tale of a struggle for an
depressed town, even though most of
American Jewish identity, updated for
the employees at the slaughterhouse
the 21st century.
were immigrants. The population
Handsome, with dark curly hair,
influx increased business, even though
Bloom is both thoughtful and forceful
the Chasidim didn't always shop at the
in conversation.
local stores, preferring to make major
He was an award-winning journalist
purchases back in Brooklyn.
who worked for several major newspa-
Most longtime Postville residents
pers before he uprooted his wife and
were taken aback by these strange new-
young son to Iowa City, where he took
corners, with their beards, odd way of
a job at the university there.
speaking and desire to remain apart.
A complex move for someone who
At times, this mistrust manifests
grew up near New York and was
itself in the book as blatant anti-
accustomed to liberal, cosmopolitan
Semitism.
San Francisco, the migration was
As one longtime Postville resident
made all the more difficult by the
whom Bloom meets with at a local
monolithic Christian culture he dis-
coffee shop puts it, "They're all about
covered in Iowa.
the dollars. They do what they please
As he puts it, "On Easter, the big-
whenever they want, and everyone

PETER EPHROSS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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