Up to 700 arrests estimated in Postville raid

This Agriprocessors plant is the source of the horrific "kosher" slaughter videos you have seen here.

Earlier this morning, a helicopter hovered over the scene, and a number of agents formed a perimeter around the Agriprocessors facility. Vehicles from ICE and at least eight cars and vans from the Iowa State Patrol were at the plant. There were also reports of two moving vans at the scene, along with an ambulance and two black Chevrolet Suburbans.

Postville, on the border of Allamakee and Clayton counties, is a community of more than 2,500 people that includes natives of German and Norwegian heritage and newcomers who include Hasidic Jews from New York, plus immigrants from Mexico, Russian, Ukraine and many other countries.

The Agriprocessors plant, known as the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, is northeast Iowa’s largest employer.

About 200 Hasidic Jews arrived in Postville in 1987, when butcher Aaron Rubashkin of Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood reopened a defunct meat-packing plant with his two sons, Sholom and Heshy, just outside the city limits. Business boomed at the plant, reviving the depressed economy while pitting the newcomers against the predominately Lutheran community.

Reminder...

No Services this Shabbat.

Change of Plans for Tomorrow...

We'll need to change plans for Tuesday - Gabriel has a fever. I *think* it's an ear infection, but on the off chance that it's not, we don't want to expose everyone.

The McDaniels have opened their home for the Feast Day @ 2:00pm.

~The Brown's

Here is a map to the McDaniels:


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1st Day of Unleavened Bread

Just so we get this straight...

Come join together to celebrate the 1st Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Tuesday, 4/22) - Matzah Day - as our boys have named it.

1:00pm @ the Brown's - covered dish

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Three Questions.... Three Answers....

Who are you? (I am Yisrael.)

Where are you coming from? (I am coming from Mitzrayim.)

Where are you going? (I am going to Yerushalayim.)

---

Who are you?

I'm Yisrael. I'm a God-wrestler. I'm someone who wrestles with the holy, with the Source of All Being, with my understanding of ultimate reality, and I expect God to wrestle back. I dance with God. I waltz with Torah. I stay up all night grappling with angels, and even if I come away limping, I know I come away blessed. I'm a wandering Aramean, and I'm wearing my traveling shoes. I'm a child of the house of Israel, and my community and I -- and anyone else who hears freedom's call -- are walking into the wilderness together.

Where are you coming from?

I'm coming from Mitzrayim. From the narrow place. From slavery. From constriction. From the birth canal. I'm coming from hard labor. I'm coming from the surfeit of sweetness that lulls me into forgetting the world's imperfections. I've been settling for what hurts, too fearful to risk something new. I'm coming from suffering and isolation. I'm coming from addiction to my work, addiction to success, addiction to separation. I'm coming from "if I stopped working, I'm not even sure who I'd be."

Where are you going?

I'm going to Yerushalayim. I'm going to Ir Shalem, the city of wholeness. I'm going to Ir Shalom, the city of peace. I'm going where talking to God is a local call. I'm heading toward my best imaginings of community and connection. I'm clicking my ruby slippers with fervent kavanah and moving toward the meaning of home. Maybe I'm going to a place; maybe I'm going to a state of mind. Maybe it's an asymptotic progression toward something that can't be reached. Maybe it's the journey that defines me.

Run that by me again?

I am Yisrael. I am coming from Mitzrayim. And the moon is almost full: tomorrow night we're packing our bags. Grabbing the flatbread. And setting out. It's time to go.

(shamelessly plagiarized from Velveteen Rabbi)