This is my second blog on Postville by Stephen Bloom. Since the year 2000, much has happened to the kosher meatpacking plant in Postville including an immigration raid targeting undocumented immigrants, bankruptcy, imprisonment and new ownership. Google Agri Star for an update; things are back to 'normal' with 100 new Somali employees, a total of 700 employees.
Postville written by an assimilated American Jew still raises fundamental questions about what happens to an extreme almost cultic brand of religion which is consumed by greed, the pursuit of money, but neglects justice and the love of God. The Hasidim desire to remain separate and pure, degenerated into a religious ethnocentrism.
This ethnocentric degeneration has happened many times throughout history. It is almost inevitable if justice and love are not at the forefront of religious theology and practice.
A few examples:
1. The Jews in the synagogue at Nazareth. When Jesus showed up, they tried to kill him on the spot. (Luke 4:25-30). He challenged their deep-seated ethnocentrism; they saw Jesus as a heretic and tried to throw him over a nearby cliff.
2. James and John, two of Jesus disciples. Because Samaritans did not allow Jesus to stay overnight in their village, they wanted to destroy the Samaritan village. Jesus rebuked them for their ethnocentrism. (Luke 9:51-55)
3. Peter withdrew from Gentile Christians. Paul rebuked Peter to his face for compromising the gospel; he did this publicly because mixing the gospel and ethnocentrism was unacceptable.
4. Flawed white American evangelical gospel. Divided by Faith shows the damage done by an individualized that does not teach about love and justice.
5. Hasidic Jews in Postville. Extremely religious but extremely ethnocentric.
6. German Lutherans in Postville. Also combined religion and culture that created a less extreme form of ethnocentrism, but quietly it was still present and damaging. If you fit their norms, you were O.K. If not, . . . .
After teaching sociology for 35 years to white evangelical students, after living in black communities for 35 years, I have concluded that most American whites, including most evangelical whites, American whites seem incapable or unwilling to think clearly about complex social problems. Is it basic ignorance or willful ignorance or a deliberate, knowing oppression? Probably a mixture of all three. Also, in part, a deeply flawed, almost non-existent, theology of oppression and justice.
Even if some white evangelicals do confess their social sins, admit their guilt, even issue a public apology, few go further and restitute and repair. Few whites know what to do and how to do it wisely. They need extensive training in Christian Community Development.
Back to Postville. Postville was a very religious town, full of German Lutherans and Hasidic Jews. Both groups were hardworking, relatively prosperous, and worship oriented; both also were materialistic, self-centered, self-righteous and ethnocentric. Self-centered in the sense that they did not reach out much beyond their own group.
In Bloom's book about Postville, I don't recall seeing much about love and justice as principles that either German Lutherans or Hasidic Jews lived by. According to the OT, the Law and the Prophets were built around the principles of love and justice. In the NT, the kingdom of God should be characterized by love and justice.
Without a major emphasis on love and justice, ethnocentrism and oppression can sneak in and get mixed with worship and prayer. In Mississippi, this syncretistic mixture of worship and ethnocentrism and oppression was so pervasive that John Perkins said that Mississippi would have been better off without the church. Unfortunately, I think this is generally true of all of America, North and South.
In defense of the Hasidic Jews. For centuries, Jews have suffered from anti-Semitism, often much more than nasty words; think murder, slaughter as in the Holocaust, in Russian pogroms. Jews have two choices: separate or assimilate. Bloom has chosen assimilation; Hasidic Jews, separation.
Hasidic Jews regard assimilation as "a spiritual holocaust." So they have chosen extreme separation in an effort to preserve their Jewish identity.
Bloom also had a personal agenda in addition to his professional interest in writing a book. Could he find a spiritual depth, a religious wisdom that his cultural Judaism lacked? He didn't find it because spiritual depth wasn't there---religiosity and ritual, but not wisdom. Bloom may have been looking for biblical love and justice; he found it neither in German Lutheranism nor in Hasidic Judaism.
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