Well, that just ain't kosher!

This past May, Federal immigration agents made headlines when they arrested, en masse, hundreds of illegal immigrants working at a kosher meat packing plant operated by Agriprocessors, Inc. In the weeks since, it's become clear that hiring illegal immigrants wasn't the only way that the company flouted the law. In fact, the labor conditions were so horrific that it's been called "a kosher 'Jungle,'" after the Upton Sinclair's socialist novel that aimed to play on American sympathies for the plight of labor but resulted in the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act of 1906.

Working in an abattoir is never pretty, of course, but the working conditions here seemed to have been truly deplorable. "Children as young as 13 were said to be wielding knives on the killing floor," Shmuel Herzfeld writes in the New York Times today. "Some teenagers were working 17-hour shifts, six days a week." What is more, "the affidavit filed in the United States District Court of Northern Iowa," he continues, "alleges that an employee was physically abused by a rabbi on the floor of the plant."

All of this makes Herzfeld wonder: Is a plant that treats people this way truly kosher?

Within Jewish dietary law, the designation of "kosher" primarily applies to the selection and preparation of food. In a general sense, the rules are as follows:

1. Certain animals may not be eaten at all. This restriction includes the flesh, organs, eggs and milk of the forbidden animals.
2. Of the animals that may be eaten, the birds and mammals must be killed in accordance with Jewish law.
3. All blood must be drained from the meat or broiled out of it before it is eaten.
4. Certain parts of permitted animals may not be eaten.
5. Fruits and vegetables are permitted, but must be inspected for bugs
6. Meat (the flesh of birds and mammals) cannot be eaten with dairy. Fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables and grains can be eaten with either meat or dairy. (According to some views, fish may not be eaten with meat).
7. Utensils that have come into contact with meat may not be used with dairy, and vice versa. Utensils that have come into contact with non-kosher food may not be used with kosher food. This applies only where the contact occurred while the food was hot.
8. Grape products made by non-Jews may not be eaten.
9. There are a few other rules that are not universal.

Yet, in addition to these dietary laws, Herzfeld emphasizes that the kosher tradition is inseparable from a concern for social justice. "Yisroel Salanter, the great 19th-century rabbi, is famously believed to have refused to certify a matzo factory as kosher on the grounds that the workers were being treated unfairly," he writes. Consequently, "in addition to the hypocrisy of calling something kosher when it is being sold and produced in an unethical manner, we have to take into account disturbing information about the plant that has come to light."

In purely practical terms, he notes, this makes sense: After all, if people are willing to flout labor regulations, how do we know that they aren't playing fast and loose with kosher laws? And how can a rabbi concentrate on making sure everything is kosher when he's too busy beating up the staff?

But Herzfeld reminds us that the kosher preparation of food reflects deeper concerns that resist an assembly line's demand for calculation and efficiency or an agribusiness's desire for profitability. To be kosher is to stand within a tradition that affirms the intrinsic value of persons and recognizes that there is something more important in life than meat on a plate.