Review by Choice Review
In 1987, a group of Lubavitch Jews purchased a defunct slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, transformed it into a kosher slaughterhouse, and turned it into a thriving business. Their success redounded to the benefit of this small decaying Iowa community, but relations between the Hasidim, who embrace the values of an enclave, and the Iowa Lutherans, who dominate Postville's rural midwestern culture, quickly deteriorated. Journalist Bloom, himself a secular Jew, seeks to explain the cultural clash that divided Postville. Through observation and interviews, he uncovers some of the reasons why the Hasidic newcomers and the Lutheran old-timers could not get along, while exploring his own place as a Jew in the Iowan subculture. Bloom writes very well, but his journalistic dispassion conflicts with his growing personal antipathy toward the Hasidim. By the book's end, he openly reviles them, though the mistakes he makes in depicting their practices and his inability to distinguish their ideals from the boorishness of some of their followers suggest that he did not fully do his homework. Nor does he fully comprehend the clash of cultures that he describes. Still, he tells a good story and raises significant questions. For all libraries. J. D. Sarna Brandeis University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Few ethnographers would select a small Iowa farming community as a likely locale for studying ethnic conflict. But when devout Lubavitcher Jews decided in 1987 to locate a large kosher slaughterhouse near Postville, Iowa, this obscure town grew taut with ethnic tension, as easygoing locals suddenly found themselves confronting a militant religious community indifferent, at times even contemptuous, of their long-standing traditions. As a recent transplant from the West Coast and as a Jew skeptical of Lubavitcher theology, Bloom chronicles Postville's culture wars with a clear-eyed objectivity. Recoiling from both redneck anti-Semitism and Lubavitcher self-righteousness, he ferrets out the truth about how rabbis conspired to shield a favored son involved in a local robbery and shooting. He likewise exposes all the political maneuvering behind a referendum intended to drive out the Lubavitchers. Yet in probing the suspicions that separate Jew from Gentile, he also uncovers surprising affinities between the two communities. In our national struggle to bring harmony out of ethnic diversity, Bloom offers an antidote against both illusion and despair. --Bryce Christensen
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bloom's account of a vicious clash between the residents of a small, intensely Christian town and the group of Lubavitcher Jews who open a highly successful kosher slaughterhouse there is a model of sociological reportage and personal journalism. In 1987, after a Hasidic butcher from Brooklyn bought a slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, and began to relocate Jewish and immigrant workers to the area, the town began to change. While some residents were suspicious and anti-Semitic, most were happy to see the town rise above its previous financial destitution. But the Lubavitchers, who traditionally live and work within their own closely knit communities, were not interested in fitting into Postville, and many were dismissive of, or overtly hostile to, its original citizens. After the Lubavitchers started buying real estate and exerting greater influence on the town's finances, longtime Postville residents began to feel marginalized, yet their reactions caused the Jews to become more isolationist. The slaughterhouse also caused problems: workers were paid below minimum wage and were uninsured, women workers were sexually harassed and fighting among the (often illegal) immigrant workers escalated. Finally, the town took legal action to gain more control over the slaughterhouse. Bloom, a professor at the University of Iowa, writes cleanly and with great insight and temperance about these events. As a secular Jew, he also weaves in his own story as he tries to find some common ground with the Lubavitchers. His book proves an illuminating meditation on contemporary U.S. culture and what it means to be an American. Agents, David Black and Gary Morris. BOMC and QPB selection; 8-city tour. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
When a group of Hasidic Jews opened a kosher slaughterhouse just outside the small, financially struggling town of Postville, IA, their arrival brought financial benefits as well as cultural conflict with the locals. In order to force the slaughterhouse administration to pay taxes to the town, the Postville authorities decided to annex the land where the slaughterhouse was located and held a vote to see whether the townspeople support this idea. Bloom (journalism, Univ. of Iowa) came to Postville not just to investigate the story but to reach out for a bit of his Jewish heritage, which is hard to maintain in Iowa. He was frustrated by the Hasidim, who at first wanted no part of him and then sought to convert him and his family, and they were angered by his refusal to take their side. By the end of the story, Bloom realizes that he can maintain his Jewish identity and live in the middle of the Iowa farmbelt, the Hasidim realize that they may have to make adjustments to stay in Postville, and the people of Postville realize that the Hasidim are there to stay. Part cultural history, part search for identity, this book makes for balanced, interesting, and insightful reading, but a glossary of Jewish terms would have been extremely helpful. For American studies, Iowa history, Jewish studies, and social studies collections.ÄDanna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Talk about strangers in a strange land: Blooms story of the heartland Lubavitcher meatpackers and the waves they caused to ripple across the rural Iowan landscape is an immediate, elegantly personal piece of reportage. In 1987, a Brooklyn, New York, butcher bought an abandoned slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, and turned it into a kosher meatpacking plant, owned and operated by the Hasidic Jews known as the Lubavitchers. The largest such operation in the US, it was (and is) hugely successful, bringing money into the Postville economy at a time when every other Midwestern downtown was being killed by Wal-Mart, and it helped to stabilize the skewed agricultural economy that was sending one family farm after another down the river. Bloom (Journalism/Univ. of Iowa) was a piece of flotsam himself, having recently washed up in Iowa after he and his wife had concluded that San Francisco was no longer a fit place in which to raise a family. Just then the Lubavitchers were having a hard time with the locals in Postville (who wanted to annex the land the slaughterhouse sat on, exert a little control over the business, and tap into its profits). Bloom was curious. Was it that the Jews had become a ruling class that the locals found grating? Was there hard-wired bigotry at work all around? Why did the Lubavitchers refuse to acknowledge even the presence of anyone who wasnt Lubavitcher? Had they too moved to Iowa for the same reasons Bloom had? What did they make of this white, Christian kingdom, this place of soft summer nights, fireflies, and swings on the front porch? Blooms exploration of the antagonisms between the two groups is subtle and canny, not aspiring to great truths but revealing of all the little miscommunications, unintended slights, expectations, and prejudices that rally round when very distinct cultures meet. A rural canvas of extremesfrom hard-bitten bigots to the naïve, the sure of faith, and the latitudinariansdisentangled by the author with deft, probing strokes.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
