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Demonstrators rally in

Postville, Iowa, on July 27.

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A24

July 31 . 2008

Jewish activists rally in Postville to support
arrested Agriprocessors workers.

Sue Fishkoff

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Postville, Iowa

w

hen busloads of Jews from
Minnesota, Illinois and
Wisconsin started pulling
up outside St. Bridget's Catholic Church
July 27, and more than 350 people, some
sporting yarmulkes, poured out to take
part in a big immigration rally planned
for Sunday afternoon, locals noticed.
"We weren't expecting so many Jews to
show up," said Alicia Lopez.
A Mexican native and former employ-
ee of Agriprocessors, the nation's larg-
est kosher meat plant, Lopez was one
of nearly 400 undocumented workers
arrested in a May 12 immigration raid at
the factory.
Like four dozen other women released
to take care of dependent children, her
right ankle is encased in a heavy track-
ing device that keeps her under virtual
house arrest as she awaits trial and, likely,
deportation.
Lopez never met a Jewish person in
Mexico, and the impressions she devel-
oped during her seven years here were
not flattering. They were her bosses, the
guys who didn't give her raises, the guys
she blames for not warning her and
the other workers that La Migra — the
immigration police — was on the way.
"I thought badly of them," she said
bluntly, speaking through a Spanish
interpreter.
But after marching with Jews on

Sunday afternoon, praying with them in
her church and hearing their shouts of
solidarity with her plight, Lopez changed
her mind.
"I could see and feel they were differ-
ent," she said. "I really appreciated them.
It was like an injection of adrenaline'
That's why 22-year-old Tamar Pentelnick
came on one of the buses from
Minneapolis.
"As Jews, hearing that other Jews treat
people like this, I wanted to show that not
all Jews are like this, that we care about
others and human rights are important
to us," she said.
The interfaith service, march and
rally represented the largest and most
public demonstration of Jewish support
for those affected by the massive raid
two months ago by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, an agency of the
Department of Homeland Security. Police
estimated the crowd at more than 900.
Agriprocessors first gained national
attention in 2000 with the publication
of the book Postville, which described
the tensions between the Iowa farm
community and the company, owned by
Lubavitcher Chasidim from Brooklyn.
Since then, Agriprocessors has come
under fire over its slaughter methods
and labor practices, as well as health and
safety violations.
The May 12 raid added new layers to
the controversy, with federal authorities
coming under criticism, the plant's for-
mer workers facing economic problems
and the company scrambling to keep up
production.

Through it all, the company has denied
any wrongdoing and vehemently rejects
the claim that it does not look out for its
workers.
Sunday's events — spearheaded by
the Minnesota-based Jewish Community
Action and the Chicago-based Jewish
Council on Urban Affairs, and sup-
ported by a number of other groups
including the Jewish Labor Committee
and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
— focused on the affected workers and
their families as a way of generating sup-
port for the larger goal of comprehensive,
national immigration reform.
"The Agriprocessors raid is the legacy
of a failed immigration system:' said
Gideon Aronoff, the president and CEO
of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Aronoff told the crowd that immigration
reform is something "that matters" to the
Jewish community.
"Instead of a national solution to a
national problem, we have a mishmash
of local responses, a border fence that
doesn't work and millions of dollars
spent chasing down immigrant workers:'
he said.
Athough virtually all the workers
arrested in the Postville raid were from
Mexico and Guatemala, the Jews who
participated in the rally say this is a very
Jewish issue. Text study and discussions
of immigration policy were held on the
buses coming in from Minneapolis and
Chicago, emphasizing the Jewish values
and teachings that informed the rally's
organization.
"We're here because we care' said

Demonstration on page A27