In short, one more reason to vote Obama out of office.

Have you heard of Sholom Rubashkin? He is a philanthropist, father, husband, son, brother, and entrepreneur; The man who transformed a small kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa into the biggest and most successful kosher meat operation in the world. That is until he was convicted on 86 counts of bank fraud and sentenced to 27 years of prison. Murderers, like Lemrick Nelson the man who stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum to death during a Black on Jewish riot- often receive single digit sentences. The fact that this is Rubashkin’s first conviction of any sort raises the question:

Why was a 51 year old man, basically given a life sentence, (if this ruling stands Rubashkin will be 77 when he is eligible for parole), for a first offense, when others convicted under similar circumstances were not?

Many in the Jewish community have offered the hackneyed, but substantial explanation, that anti-Semitism is at play. They offer historic evidence of America's legal record of dealing with high-profile Jewish criminals. For example the Rosenbergs, Jonathon Pollard , and Bernie Madoff. All of these infamous Jews were convicted criminals, and received severe sentences. Despite what Huffington Post and like-minded commentators will have you believe, Jack Abramoff was an exception not the rule, because of his connections in the white-house.

Others, mainly a few legal scholars, argue that the judge (who also happens to be the second harshest sentence producer in the nation)didn’t really have a choice.

Still there is another possible explanation.

It takes us back to 2006/2007 when two powerful organizations, PETA and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, confronted Rubashkin.

PETA, the extremist animal-advocacy organization, has been targeting and besmirching kosher slaughter as inhuman for over a decade. This despite the fact that kosher slaughter is practiced as it is because it is considered the most humane manner of slaughter. Rubashkin's Agriprocessers, like most kosher slaughter houses practicing a millennia old tradition, refused to bow to PETA. Next, PETA turned to the far-left advocacy block to help them bring down Rubashkin.

The second organization, and by far the most significant, was the labor union which tried to shake Rubashkin down and at the same time force his employees to join their union.

This is key to understanding the Rubashkin case. After all who are the two biggest groups supporting Obama? Our president, a community activist, was put in power not so much by Jews as he was by the still-powerful unions. Who supported Obama in his bid for the presidency? The Unions and the far-left (not that the far-left is homogeneous, but PETA draws strongly from far-left ideology) of course.

This argument is bolstered by recent history -Obama has not shied away from putting his weight behind the unions before.

After a series of over-publicized Toyota brake mishaps, the administration's transportation secretary Ray Lahood, testified in front of congress on February 3rd of this year that “if anybody owns one of these vehicles [Toyota], stop driving it.” Anyone in the industry can tell you that all companies experience problems of the same magnitude.

The Obama administration had no problem interfering with our “free” enterprise and gave a tremendous edge to Toyota’s major competitor in America -owned by America- GM.

It should come as no surprise that the Rubashkin conviction was a result not only of a law and order judge gone-wild (with tenure), and residual anti-Semitism, but more so as a consequence of the unions/Obama partnership.

No I'm not saying this is Obama's fault, only that Rubashkins sentence would have been a lot less likely under a president that wasn't in bed with the Unions.

In short, one more reason to vote Obama out of office.

The Unifying Factor-To Not Love Your Neighbor as Yourself!

There is an old Judeo-Christian dictum. It is often offered in “ethical” conversation, as a principle in evaluating our actions. However is it possible? Really, is it humanly possible to love one at the same level as yourself?

Moreover, as it it so obviously impossible, why is it so often thrown around?
Interestingly what makes this principle so outrageous is that the one unifying factor of humanity is that we are separate and different. In other words what makes us human is the same thing that makes us distinct. And because we are distinct we cannot love the other like the self!

That is one perspective.
Another perspective sees our differences as a reflection of our different objectives in life, as manifest by our physical and psychological makeup. The athlete is powerful, the banker savvy, and the teacher patient. Our innate talents cause us to have different objectives. These objectives are so disparate and consuming (think of your career or lack thereof) that they define us; what makes me different is what I do.


(One can go so far and label these departments as social, ethnic, religious, geographic etc. groups,career etc.) Thus each one of these groups is made a group by their larger but most importantly discernible objective, i.e. I am American because I ascribe to certain values, or I am an employee and you are an employer.
Likewise each group defines itself as different or not part of another group because that other group has a completely different and even contradictory objective.

Now let us imagine that each group is actually working on the same objective as the next group but the objective is so large that is almost impossible to imagine. For example GM has multiple subsidiaries that all work on the same objective but never see the final product or even understand how their objective is integral to the next group's objective.

It is almost as if the hand, which uniquely can grasp, understands that it is actually part of the same entity that my foot, with its unique mobility, is. Imagine if it didn't?

Is the only difference between humanity and the body physical proximity?

I wonder, if to love your neighbor like yourself is like loving your hand as you love your foot, understanding the uniqueness of the individual objective and talents but also the larger overarching objective. If, like the body, humanity is one organism working on the same project (do we as individuals ever really know where "WE" are going), then to not love the neighbor is to not love the self!