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Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America
In 1987, a group of Lubavitchers, one of the most orthodox and zealous of the Jewish sects, opened a kosher slaughterhouse just outside tiny Postville, Iowa (pop. 1,465). When the business became a worldwide success, Postville found itself both revived and divided. The town's initial welcome of the Jews turned into confusion, dismay, and even disgust. By 1997, the town had engineered a vote on what everyone agreed was actually a whether or not these Jews should stay.
The quiet, restrained Iowans were astonished at these brash, assertive Hasidic Jews, who ignored the unwritten laws of Iowa behavior in almost every respect. The Lubavitchers, on the other hand, could not compromise with the world of Postville; their religion and their tradition quite literally forbade it. Were the Iowans prejudiced, or were the Lubavitchers simply unbearable?
Award-winning journalist Stephen G. Bloom found himself with a bird's-eye view of this battle and gained a new perspective on questions that haunt America nationwide. What makes a community? How does one accept new and powerfully different traditions? Is money more important than history? In the dramatic and often poignant stories of the people of Postville - Jew and gentile, puzzled and puzzling, unyielding and unstoppable - lies a great swath of America today.
The quiet, restrained Iowans were astonished at these brash, assertive Hasidic Jews, who ignored the unwritten laws of Iowa behavior in almost every respect. The Lubavitchers, on the other hand, could not compromise with the world of Postville; their religion and their tradition quite literally forbade it. Were the Iowans prejudiced, or were the Lubavitchers simply unbearable?
Award-winning journalist Stephen G. Bloom found himself with a bird's-eye view of this battle and gained a new perspective on questions that haunt America nationwide. What makes a community? How does one accept new and powerfully different traditions? Is money more important than history? In the dramatic and often poignant stories of the people of Postville - Jew and gentile, puzzled and puzzling, unyielding and unstoppable - lies a great swath of America today.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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625 people want to read
About the author
Stephen G. Bloom
10 books16 followersI teach narrative journalism at the University of Iowa. I'm the author of The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold (Regan Arts, 2018); Tears of Mermaids: The Secret Story of Pearls (St. Martin's Press, 2011); The Oxford Project [with photographer Peter Feldstein] (Welcome Books, 2010); Inside the Writer's Mind (Wiley, 2002); and Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America (Harcourt, 2000). I've worked as a reporter for The Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, San Jose Mercury News, and Sacramento Bee. My essays and articles have appeared in Smithsonian, Sunday Guardian, The New York Times, Best New Writing 2016, Salon, Washington Post, and The Atlantic. For more information, please see: https://clas.uiowa.edu/sjmc/people/st...
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August 27, 2025
Nightmare Neighbors
This is genuinely one of the most fascinating books I have ever read on any subject. I was glued to every single page. It was even more interesting than its striking cover.
I'm going to see if I can email the author and suggest that he write a sequel, a Postville 2: Electric Boogaloo, taking us behind the curtain (like he did so masterfully yet accessibly here) and reveal the salacious details of the momentous occurrences that have taken place in Postville, Iowa since this book's first publication in October of 2000, even if Bloom himself is no longer a participating character in this troubling drama as a uniquely vantaged observer nominally belonging to both the Jewish and Gentile worlds but feeling truly at home in neither.
The most notable example of these occurrences would be Agriprocessors (the largest kosher meat processing facility in the United States) sensationally being shut down in 2008 after the largest ICE raid in American history revealed hundreds of illegal immigrants employed in the facility, including child labor. The undercover PETA investigation revealing horrifying animal cruelty that went even beyond the usual nightmarish brutality they're accustomed to seeing in slaughterhouses. Sholom Rubashkin being sentenced to prison for dozens of counts of financial fraud, proving that the Lubavitcher Hasids who descended upon the good people of Postville were more than just abrasive nuisances and were actually tied up in organized criminality. Was there really a methamphetamine lab guarded by attack dogs in a portion of the ever-expanding premises, as reported in several credible mainstream outlets but then buried without explanation? What was the inside story behind Rubashkin being pardoned by Donald Trump in 2017, despite the latter being swept into the White House largely on a platform of strictly cracking down on illegal immigration?
What is Postville like today? Has the once closely-knit, crime-free rural Midwestern town of German Lutheran farmers with a high sense of communal feeling and trust been permanently eviscerated after being so cruelly taken advantage of repeatedly by the invasion of Hasidim completely alien to them in custom and temperament?
Did Phillip Stillman eventually get released from prison, and did the rabbis make good on their sketchy agreement to shower him with luxuries upon release for taking the fall for Pinchas Lew's share of the duo's sickening crime spree? It is true, as Rubashkin said to the author, that Stillman and Lew were a couple of bad apples who could not be fairly said to impugn Postville's Hasidic colony. It's abundantly clear that the fastidious commitment to Jewish rituals that govern Hasidic behavior and activity from the moment they wake in the morning until they go back to sleep at night simply does not leave enough idle time to go on Grand Theft Auto-like rampages of mayhem. But the community's supercilious, indifferent response to the convenience store clerk - a grandmother - that Stillman shot and damn near killed is absolutely representative of the friction-causing attitude they brought with them to Postville at large:
I could go on and on. Read this book!
This is genuinely one of the most fascinating books I have ever read on any subject. I was glued to every single page. It was even more interesting than its striking cover.
I'm going to see if I can email the author and suggest that he write a sequel, a Postville 2: Electric Boogaloo, taking us behind the curtain (like he did so masterfully yet accessibly here) and reveal the salacious details of the momentous occurrences that have taken place in Postville, Iowa since this book's first publication in October of 2000, even if Bloom himself is no longer a participating character in this troubling drama as a uniquely vantaged observer nominally belonging to both the Jewish and Gentile worlds but feeling truly at home in neither.
The most notable example of these occurrences would be Agriprocessors (the largest kosher meat processing facility in the United States) sensationally being shut down in 2008 after the largest ICE raid in American history revealed hundreds of illegal immigrants employed in the facility, including child labor. The undercover PETA investigation revealing horrifying animal cruelty that went even beyond the usual nightmarish brutality they're accustomed to seeing in slaughterhouses. Sholom Rubashkin being sentenced to prison for dozens of counts of financial fraud, proving that the Lubavitcher Hasids who descended upon the good people of Postville were more than just abrasive nuisances and were actually tied up in organized criminality. Was there really a methamphetamine lab guarded by attack dogs in a portion of the ever-expanding premises, as reported in several credible mainstream outlets but then buried without explanation? What was the inside story behind Rubashkin being pardoned by Donald Trump in 2017, despite the latter being swept into the White House largely on a platform of strictly cracking down on illegal immigration?
What is Postville like today? Has the once closely-knit, crime-free rural Midwestern town of German Lutheran farmers with a high sense of communal feeling and trust been permanently eviscerated after being so cruelly taken advantage of repeatedly by the invasion of Hasidim completely alien to them in custom and temperament?
Did Phillip Stillman eventually get released from prison, and did the rabbis make good on their sketchy agreement to shower him with luxuries upon release for taking the fall for Pinchas Lew's share of the duo's sickening crime spree? It is true, as Rubashkin said to the author, that Stillman and Lew were a couple of bad apples who could not be fairly said to impugn Postville's Hasidic colony. It's abundantly clear that the fastidious commitment to Jewish rituals that govern Hasidic behavior and activity from the moment they wake in the morning until they go back to sleep at night simply does not leave enough idle time to go on Grand Theft Auto-like rampages of mayhem. But the community's supercilious, indifferent response to the convenience store clerk - a grandmother - that Stillman shot and damn near killed is absolutely representative of the friction-causing attitude they brought with them to Postville at large:
None of the Hasidim denounced the shooting of Marion Bakken. No one apologized to her. They didn't raise money for her. No one from the Jewish community donated anything to her as a token of their sorrow or shame. None bothered to visit her or her family. They didn't even offer her free meat from the slaughterhouse. The Hasidim treated Marion Bakken the way they treated all the goyim. They ignored her.
I could go on and on. Read this book!
March 30, 2017
This is a story of intolerance. Intolerance by the Chabad community, yes, and also intolerance from the Postville townsfolk, certainly, but above and beyond it all, the author’s own. He says he walked into the world of Chabad in an attempt to search for his own Jewish identity, but in reality what he seems to have wanted was a confirmation, or an affirmation, of the way he saw the world. And when he failed to get it, he passed harsh judgment over everything in sight.
The author is what here, in Israel, is viewed as the epitome of the modern Diaspora Jew, really; quiet, unassuming, keeping his Jewishness in a little closed in the back of the house and never letting it out for a walk much. He finds these extraverted, extraneous, clearly and overtly, unapologetically Jewish Chabadnikim to be… well, frankly, embarrassing. Look at them, being Jewish for just, well, everyone to see. Look at them not trying to make a good impression. Look at them… just… just not caring! What do I do with these people who are neither nice nor deferential nor unassuming nor trying to seamlessly find a home in this new place they came to. The author is confused, he’s stressed, and he is smitten with the apparently quintessentially “nice” Iowans who never put a finger into his own private business or ask personal questions. That the Chabadnikim are essentially practicing similar abstinence in regards to the Iowans – that they just want to be left alone, really – however, only raises his ire. He could never do that.
He has the secular lack of understanding to the way that orthodox Jews (and many other non-Western religious groups) deal with their religious observance, with a mixture of absolute devotion and a casualness that is straight-up foreign to a society that solemnized Christianity as its embodiment of the sacred. The author rails, for instance, about how the shul (the synagogue) looks disorganized, plain, even a bit dirty, like, he says, “a flophouse”. He’s ever so glad that none of the townspeople were invited inside, I would just shame him! He wants his synagogues to be like churches, quiet, solemn, dignified, and he wants his Judaism like Christianity too, quiet, solemn, dignified, confined to one day of the week. But they ain’t, and it ain’t, and he has no idea what to do with that.
He can’t understand that an orthodox shul is the center of a community’s life, including meals, random social events, people trucking in to study at every hour of the day, God knows what else. Of course it’s disheveled, it’s people’s house of worship, emphasis on the ‘house’. He can’t forgive an academic colleague for ‘not answering work calls from Friday evening to Saturday night’, considering it to be some sort of extreme manifestation of insularism and hard-liner religiousity, How dare this guy observe Shabbat, one of the key tenets of Judaism and perhaps the most serious one in modern times? Look at how they made an intolerant extremist out of him. His fellow university professors, who denied him tenure for being an observant Jew, are not judged so harshly in the author’s mind.
He makes so many mistakes and misassumptions in his dealings with his own (technically) culture, and describes incidents so weird and clichéd that sometimes they just stretch the threshold of believability; I mean, Chabad is well known for prepping its schlichim and outreach people. Does it really seem likely that one of these ‘missionaries’ would, when meeting a person he knows for a fact is unreligious on a Sabbath, start purposefully muttering about ‘who is this goy in shorts?’ Is this for real? Do you think them stupid?
There is something about this book that illustrates the victory of the “nice” in people’s minds. The chasidim are bad not, primarily, because of their unethical work practices, which are barely touched upon, or their actual purposeful interference in town life, but because they fail to be nice. They fail to be “neighbourly”, they fail to adhere to norms. I care about their treatment of the animals they slaughter, their employees and business partners, but I care a heck of a lot less if they mow their lawns or fail to invite people to a picnic.
I do not exonerate the chabadnikim. Ultra-Orthodox communities are notoriously insular, profoundly fundamentalist, and hard to live with. They have problems and I can go on about them from here until next Shabbat, at least. That, without even touching upon their business practices, which, as time has proven, were anything but laudable, just or righteous. But neither can I ‘side’ somehow with the good, nice, respectable townspeople of Postville, whom the author says came to see his “being of the same faith with” the Hasidim as unimportant, because they understood he was on their side. Sigh. I don’t think them to be anti-semites, but I do think this sort of problem, or a similar, would have arisen between these nice, lovely, respectable townspeople and their non-anti-semitic worldview, and any minority of a different cultural background that would’ve come to reside in their town. They can accept any 3ethnicity so long as that ethnicity acts and thinks more or less like small-town Iowans. But the chabadnikim, with their alienation and their essential refusal to blend in, with their desire to just be left alone are just too much.
The author doesn’t really do any favours to the Iowans, much though his sympathy is engaged. He doesn’t dig under the surface of pleasant, bucolic and uniform, even in Iowa City which seems like the kind of place to have, you know, actual metropolitan qualities.
I am very interested in the other book on this subject, Popstville, America. The authors of this book include someone from the Chabad community itself, and seem to be inclined to much more objective reporting in mind.
The author is what here, in Israel, is viewed as the epitome of the modern Diaspora Jew, really; quiet, unassuming, keeping his Jewishness in a little closed in the back of the house and never letting it out for a walk much. He finds these extraverted, extraneous, clearly and overtly, unapologetically Jewish Chabadnikim to be… well, frankly, embarrassing. Look at them, being Jewish for just, well, everyone to see. Look at them not trying to make a good impression. Look at them… just… just not caring! What do I do with these people who are neither nice nor deferential nor unassuming nor trying to seamlessly find a home in this new place they came to. The author is confused, he’s stressed, and he is smitten with the apparently quintessentially “nice” Iowans who never put a finger into his own private business or ask personal questions. That the Chabadnikim are essentially practicing similar abstinence in regards to the Iowans – that they just want to be left alone, really – however, only raises his ire. He could never do that.
He has the secular lack of understanding to the way that orthodox Jews (and many other non-Western religious groups) deal with their religious observance, with a mixture of absolute devotion and a casualness that is straight-up foreign to a society that solemnized Christianity as its embodiment of the sacred. The author rails, for instance, about how the shul (the synagogue) looks disorganized, plain, even a bit dirty, like, he says, “a flophouse”. He’s ever so glad that none of the townspeople were invited inside, I would just shame him! He wants his synagogues to be like churches, quiet, solemn, dignified, and he wants his Judaism like Christianity too, quiet, solemn, dignified, confined to one day of the week. But they ain’t, and it ain’t, and he has no idea what to do with that.
He can’t understand that an orthodox shul is the center of a community’s life, including meals, random social events, people trucking in to study at every hour of the day, God knows what else. Of course it’s disheveled, it’s people’s house of worship, emphasis on the ‘house’. He can’t forgive an academic colleague for ‘not answering work calls from Friday evening to Saturday night’, considering it to be some sort of extreme manifestation of insularism and hard-liner religiousity, How dare this guy observe Shabbat, one of the key tenets of Judaism and perhaps the most serious one in modern times? Look at how they made an intolerant extremist out of him. His fellow university professors, who denied him tenure for being an observant Jew, are not judged so harshly in the author’s mind.
He makes so many mistakes and misassumptions in his dealings with his own (technically) culture, and describes incidents so weird and clichéd that sometimes they just stretch the threshold of believability; I mean, Chabad is well known for prepping its schlichim and outreach people. Does it really seem likely that one of these ‘missionaries’ would, when meeting a person he knows for a fact is unreligious on a Sabbath, start purposefully muttering about ‘who is this goy in shorts?’ Is this for real? Do you think them stupid?
There is something about this book that illustrates the victory of the “nice” in people’s minds. The chasidim are bad not, primarily, because of their unethical work practices, which are barely touched upon, or their actual purposeful interference in town life, but because they fail to be nice. They fail to be “neighbourly”, they fail to adhere to norms. I care about their treatment of the animals they slaughter, their employees and business partners, but I care a heck of a lot less if they mow their lawns or fail to invite people to a picnic.
I do not exonerate the chabadnikim. Ultra-Orthodox communities are notoriously insular, profoundly fundamentalist, and hard to live with. They have problems and I can go on about them from here until next Shabbat, at least. That, without even touching upon their business practices, which, as time has proven, were anything but laudable, just or righteous. But neither can I ‘side’ somehow with the good, nice, respectable townspeople of Postville, whom the author says came to see his “being of the same faith with” the Hasidim as unimportant, because they understood he was on their side. Sigh. I don’t think them to be anti-semites, but I do think this sort of problem, or a similar, would have arisen between these nice, lovely, respectable townspeople and their non-anti-semitic worldview, and any minority of a different cultural background that would’ve come to reside in their town. They can accept any 3ethnicity so long as that ethnicity acts and thinks more or less like small-town Iowans. But the chabadnikim, with their alienation and their essential refusal to blend in, with their desire to just be left alone are just too much.
The author doesn’t really do any favours to the Iowans, much though his sympathy is engaged. He doesn’t dig under the surface of pleasant, bucolic and uniform, even in Iowa City which seems like the kind of place to have, you know, actual metropolitan qualities.
I am very interested in the other book on this subject, Popstville, America. The authors of this book include someone from the Chabad community itself, and seem to be inclined to much more objective reporting in mind.
October 3, 2009
Having spent some time in Postville, pre-Hasidic Jew period, it was shocking to see how the town of working farmers was turned upside down and at complete odds with their new neighbors.
Now, after the fall of Agri-Processors (kosher meat plant), it gives even more perspective as to why the town was so angry about the influx of the Jewish sect that refused to interact with the 'natives'. Not only did they end up changing the landscape of the town, they have forever left a stain on the community making national news of employing hundreds of illegals. These people were treated very poorly, paid sub-standard wages and knowingly 'sponsored' by Agri-Processors to hide their illegal status. Greed know no religion.
Now, after the fall of Agri-Processors (kosher meat plant), it gives even more perspective as to why the town was so angry about the influx of the Jewish sect that refused to interact with the 'natives'. Not only did they end up changing the landscape of the town, they have forever left a stain on the community making national news of employing hundreds of illegals. These people were treated very poorly, paid sub-standard wages and knowingly 'sponsored' by Agri-Processors to hide their illegal status. Greed know no religion.
December 13, 2008
Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America looks at how tensions gradually erupt between locals and hasidic Jews who opened a kosher slaughterhouse in a rural farming community. This book was written by a secular Jew from the west coast who had moved to Iowa to take a job as a university professor.
While the author certainly has issues of his own (he actually cites the scoutmaster mentioning Jesus Christ at his sons Boy Scouts meeting as an example of anti-semitism he has experienced in Iowa!) I don't think the most rabid Jew hater could have done a better job of making the Hasidic Lubavitchers look bad. After being taken under the wing of Lubavitchers who wanted to convert him, as a secular Jew, to their Hasidic sect, Bloom in the end exposes the Lubavitchers worst traits. From their petty haggling over prices in local stores over the smallest of items, to their racist attitudes towards "goyim" and "schwartzs", while simultaneously accusing anybody who disagrees with them of being anti-semitic, to their refusal to pay debts and honor contracts in business dealings and other bullying business practices, their importation of illegal immigrant riff raff to this once homogenous crime free town to cheapen their labor costs, even their cruel way of slaughtering animals to make the meat kosher are brought to light. All of these factors, along with the Hasidic Jews refusal to participate in the community other than by using it to make themselves rich, gradually over a period of time caused major tensions between multi-generational locals and the Lubavitchers. On the other hand he does show some of their admirable traits also, like being family oriented and their obsessivly strict adherence to preserving their own culture and customs.
Overall this a very good book that I would recomend to anybody interested in Jewish culture, or anybody that wants to delve into reasons why Jews, who seem to never be able to see the reasons themselves, are often disliked, throughout the world and history, by people of many races and cultures. You can also learn a lot about the tensions and infighting that goes on between secular Jews like Bloom and the Orthodox Jews too.
While the author certainly has issues of his own (he actually cites the scoutmaster mentioning Jesus Christ at his sons Boy Scouts meeting as an example of anti-semitism he has experienced in Iowa!) I don't think the most rabid Jew hater could have done a better job of making the Hasidic Lubavitchers look bad. After being taken under the wing of Lubavitchers who wanted to convert him, as a secular Jew, to their Hasidic sect, Bloom in the end exposes the Lubavitchers worst traits. From their petty haggling over prices in local stores over the smallest of items, to their racist attitudes towards "goyim" and "schwartzs", while simultaneously accusing anybody who disagrees with them of being anti-semitic, to their refusal to pay debts and honor contracts in business dealings and other bullying business practices, their importation of illegal immigrant riff raff to this once homogenous crime free town to cheapen their labor costs, even their cruel way of slaughtering animals to make the meat kosher are brought to light. All of these factors, along with the Hasidic Jews refusal to participate in the community other than by using it to make themselves rich, gradually over a period of time caused major tensions between multi-generational locals and the Lubavitchers. On the other hand he does show some of their admirable traits also, like being family oriented and their obsessivly strict adherence to preserving their own culture and customs.
Overall this a very good book that I would recomend to anybody interested in Jewish culture, or anybody that wants to delve into reasons why Jews, who seem to never be able to see the reasons themselves, are often disliked, throughout the world and history, by people of many races and cultures. You can also learn a lot about the tensions and infighting that goes on between secular Jews like Bloom and the Orthodox Jews too.
November 20, 2017
A jaunty Jewish journalist paints a disturbing portrait of small town locals/yokels and out-of-town ultra-orthodox who open a kosher butchering plant in rural Iowa. The locals are rendered as somewhat ignorant and a tad xenophobic. The author’s descriptions of the Jews are a white supremacists’ dream: rude, unfriendly, haughty, obnoxious, pushy and disrespectful. The owners’ obsession with money, and the serial swindling and haggling with the gentiles is embarrassing. The rest of us—the vast majority, non-Orthodox Jews—have to manage the fallout from this, our conflicted feelings about rude Jewish supremacists making the locals’ mild anti-Semitism understandable. On the one hand, a serviceable portrait of pious orthodoxy; on the other, the intolerable warts of this insular community and its business practices. The story gets worse after the book was published: exploited labor, strikes, and the Chabad general disregard for law, order and non-Chabadniks. Do the Amish have such struggles?
June 8, 2012
“Postville” is fascinating…especially if you have roots in the Midwest and any experience with the customs of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Published in 2000, four newspapers listed it on their best book of the year lists. Bloom is a reporter turned journalism professor at the University of Iowa making Iowa the “heartland America” setting for this piece of personal experience nonfiction that was hard to put down.
In the late 1980s a group of Hasidic Jews from New York opens a kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. Right there you have the “clash of cultures” from the subtitle.
Recently relocating from San Francisco to Iowa City, Bloom, himself a Jew but not ultra-Orthodox, sets out to explore how things are going in Postville from all points of view. However, he remains an outsider because he’s not Orthodox enough for the Hasidic Jews and he’s not a native Iowan either.
I can’t fault Bloom – as some reviewers have – for not trying to be objective. Bloom admits his goal from the outset as one of searching for how he fits into Iowa after his recent move. At one point, he reminds the reader, “I knew in my heart that the conflict between the Postville locals and the Hasidic Jews continued to be a metaphor for my own transplanted life in Iowa. I wanted to belong, I just didn’t know to which group.”
Through masterful description and use of fiction techniques, such as dialogue and character development, Bloom immerses his readers in the lives of Postville residents right along with himself. Taken more generally, readers can understand how Postville in a microcosm of so many communities throughout our country today.
Once you’ve finished Bloom’s book, be sure to Google “Postville Iowa 2008” for an update.
Published in 2000, four newspapers listed it on their best book of the year lists. Bloom is a reporter turned journalism professor at the University of Iowa making Iowa the “heartland America” setting for this piece of personal experience nonfiction that was hard to put down.
In the late 1980s a group of Hasidic Jews from New York opens a kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. Right there you have the “clash of cultures” from the subtitle.
Recently relocating from San Francisco to Iowa City, Bloom, himself a Jew but not ultra-Orthodox, sets out to explore how things are going in Postville from all points of view. However, he remains an outsider because he’s not Orthodox enough for the Hasidic Jews and he’s not a native Iowan either.
I can’t fault Bloom – as some reviewers have – for not trying to be objective. Bloom admits his goal from the outset as one of searching for how he fits into Iowa after his recent move. At one point, he reminds the reader, “I knew in my heart that the conflict between the Postville locals and the Hasidic Jews continued to be a metaphor for my own transplanted life in Iowa. I wanted to belong, I just didn’t know to which group.”
Through masterful description and use of fiction techniques, such as dialogue and character development, Bloom immerses his readers in the lives of Postville residents right along with himself. Taken more generally, readers can understand how Postville in a microcosm of so many communities throughout our country today.
Once you’ve finished Bloom’s book, be sure to Google “Postville Iowa 2008” for an update.
July 8, 2020
I was really unimpressed by this one. The story is definitely interesting, but the author seemed to have no frame of reference for anything, and the book is full of the kind of broad generalizations Bloom seems desperate to counteract with this book. He has almost no access to the Hasidic community he writes about so a small handful of individuals are used to stand in for an entire community. He also repeatedly dichotomizes "The Jews" and "The Iowans" as though The Jews don't also live in Iowa. It may be the way many of his subjects describe the Hasidic community of Postville but it's...not great. He also spends barely any time with the only members of the community who interact with both Hasids and Christians: the lowest-level workers at the slaughterhouse. I'm not surprised so many of the people profiled in this book hated the book. I think there's a documentary about Postville, I bet that's way more interesting.
October 28, 2019
Every so often I go through my to-read list to harvest something I've forgotten about. This book was the latest. And I guess for me separating out the sides was too personal than it was for my friend Jake. And in the end the world described was just plain distasteful. Interesting sure, intriguing not really. I'm glad I read it, I'm glad I didn't live it. 3.5 of 5.
November 4, 2022
It became clear only a few pages into Postville that this was a personal essay, not impartial investigative journalism, but Bloom is very clear about that right off the bat.
Unfortunately "Postville" is the personal essay of a self loathing, proudly assimilationist Jew who spends 500 odd pages twisting himself into knots to excuse the blatant, bald-faced, vile, antisemitism of the city of Postville and the state of Iowa.
I'm sure if I moved my Jewish family from San Francisco to Iowa City I would also need to write five hundred pages over X years trying desperately to convince myself that my wife, my son, and I weren't living alongside deeply antisemitic neighbors and strangers who made me feel overtly unwelcome at every chance they got. But after the umpteenth passage that follows this exact formula:
1. Detailed description of a blatantly antisemitic event
2. Quoted goyim saying "I'm not antisemitic but God forbid you say Hitler was right about some things!!!"
3. Bloom's paragraph about how this WASN'T antisemitic because Hasidim are just awful
the whole book just starts sounding like clown honks.
Should've DNFd halfway through.
Unfortunately "Postville" is the personal essay of a self loathing, proudly assimilationist Jew who spends 500 odd pages twisting himself into knots to excuse the blatant, bald-faced, vile, antisemitism of the city of Postville and the state of Iowa.
I'm sure if I moved my Jewish family from San Francisco to Iowa City I would also need to write five hundred pages over X years trying desperately to convince myself that my wife, my son, and I weren't living alongside deeply antisemitic neighbors and strangers who made me feel overtly unwelcome at every chance they got. But after the umpteenth passage that follows this exact formula:
1. Detailed description of a blatantly antisemitic event
2. Quoted goyim saying "I'm not antisemitic but God forbid you say Hitler was right about some things!!!"
3. Bloom's paragraph about how this WASN'T antisemitic because Hasidim are just awful
the whole book just starts sounding like clown honks.
Should've DNFd halfway through.
November 11, 2008
This was an intriguing book on a subject that I've read about in the past and found interesting, the presence of a Chasidic community in Iowa that manages the large meatpacking plant (which has now become famous of late for its employment controversy, but has been troubled long before that). At times, the book seemed unfair to Jews, and it does definitely have an anti-religion bias, but at times the Chasidic Jews also behaved in embarrassing ways. Overall, whether you agree with the author's conclusions or not, it's an interesting exploration from all sides of the issue, from an author with experience on both sides of the rural and urban divide, and comfortable with Jews and non-Jews as well.
April 7, 2009
Having covered the fallout from the 2008 immigration raid in Postville as a reporter, this book was required reading - but it was published in 2001 so it was outdated in many ways. It did provide still-useful background about the Lubavitchers' early years in town and their eccentric way of life. But I was irritated that the book was as much about the author and his urban-Jew-out-of-water struggle to get used to living in Iowa after moving here from San Francisco (poor bubbala.) Bloom made Iowa City, of all places, sound like hicksville, and regurgitated knee-jerk stereotypes of Iowa/Iowans (if not Hasids) which made me question his assessment of all else in the book.
June 25, 2009
I was fascinated by this book. Having made the reverse trek, from Iowa to Brooklyn, I was totally engrossed in this book. Totally fascinating, I didn't want to stop reading once I began.
I have read reviews talking about it being dated material, too much memoir not enough journalistic rigour,and other critiques regarding its status as past tense. I can accept that, but I enjoyed the personal quality to the book and thought that was what made it timeless as one person's experience, versus the experience of reading a decade old Time or Newsweek (or whatever your preferred news service be).
I have read reviews talking about it being dated material, too much memoir not enough journalistic rigour,and other critiques regarding its status as past tense. I can accept that, but I enjoyed the personal quality to the book and thought that was what made it timeless as one person's experience, versus the experience of reading a decade old Time or Newsweek (or whatever your preferred news service be).
December 30, 2015
If you ever wanted evidence that religion does not necessarily lead to ethical and considerate behaviour, that the details can overwhelm the spirit, this book provides it in spades. The sins of blindness committed by the owners of this kosher slaughterhouse caused them to go out of business because their customers refused to support those who treated animals, employees, and neighbours so badly. They might have followed Jewish law to the letter, but they forgot to maintain a sense of why the rules exist and how they are meant to transform us.
July 26, 2014
Stephen Bloom delivers an even-handed account of a small Iowa town upended by the arrival of Hasidic Jews. My father grew up in this town and Bloom captures it well - both the narrow-mindedness of some of the residents, but also the generosity and purity of spirit. He gives a fair shake to all, and causes one to reflect on the nature of culture, tradition and change.
July 11, 2019
Wow. So many things to say:
1. Although the book was written in the 90s it’s still an important story. Especially given the more recent ICE raid that threw the tiny town into another tailspin.
2. The author truly stuck his neck out to write this. Could not have been easy and I’m sure led to many sleepless nights.
3. I took umbrage at the portrayal of Iowa City. It’s hardly a bleak dot in flyover country. No you can’t get fresh seafood often because the cost is prohibitive. But the University draws from all over the world and he certainly was not the only “outsider”. The arts are thick and plentiful: the home of Hancher Auditorium and the Iowa Writers Workshop. The hospital is one of the largest tertiary institutions in the nation. It’s a Big 10 school with notable scholars, researchers, etc.
I lived there from 1982 - 1997. As a student in the early 80s I loved Passover because the Eagle grocery store carried such a great variety of Manischewitz food - The macaroons were my favorite.
I grew up not far from Postville. The Chief of Police mentioned is a classmate. And I worked with Mrs. Bakken at a high school job.
4. I’m still torn. Do such sects have a right to keep themselves separate? Or are they creating more divisions? How do such communities deal with when laws are broken and norms are flouted? Especially “nice” Iowans who just want the neighbors to mow their yard or not park in their driveway?
1. Although the book was written in the 90s it’s still an important story. Especially given the more recent ICE raid that threw the tiny town into another tailspin.
2. The author truly stuck his neck out to write this. Could not have been easy and I’m sure led to many sleepless nights.
3. I took umbrage at the portrayal of Iowa City. It’s hardly a bleak dot in flyover country. No you can’t get fresh seafood often because the cost is prohibitive. But the University draws from all over the world and he certainly was not the only “outsider”. The arts are thick and plentiful: the home of Hancher Auditorium and the Iowa Writers Workshop. The hospital is one of the largest tertiary institutions in the nation. It’s a Big 10 school with notable scholars, researchers, etc.
I lived there from 1982 - 1997. As a student in the early 80s I loved Passover because the Eagle grocery store carried such a great variety of Manischewitz food - The macaroons were my favorite.
I grew up not far from Postville. The Chief of Police mentioned is a classmate. And I worked with Mrs. Bakken at a high school job.
4. I’m still torn. Do such sects have a right to keep themselves separate? Or are they creating more divisions? How do such communities deal with when laws are broken and norms are flouted? Especially “nice” Iowans who just want the neighbors to mow their yard or not park in their driveway?
November 10, 2018
I remember reading at least one article about Postville--perhaps in the NY Times Magazine?--years ago, and this book was in a TBR pile for a long time. The story itself is interesting, and I wonder what's happening in this Iowa town these days; even though my trade paperback was updated with an afterword, it's still over 15 years old. I also wonder how far away Postville is from Steve King's Iowa. Because as much as the folks in Postville insist--and no matter how much I myself don't always have gentle thoughts about the Hasids and other ultra-Orthodox Jews who one could say have taken over my NYC area from the just plain Jews and Catholics who lived here when I grew up--it's pretty clear that they ARE anti-Semitic. Or at least some of them are. The Jews who opened a slaughterhouse outside town saved it from slow extinction; oops, sorry if they aren't like you. Of course Bloom had to do a lot to get inside the minds of both sides, but ultimately, I found there was too much Bloom and too little Hasids and Iowans in this tale. The book was best of its year in a number of papers--interestingly, all of them in Chicago and flyover country--and got great reviews. My praise is a bit more muted. Are you still living in Iowa, Mr. Bloom? I'd love to hear what you think of Trump's America.
January 10, 2021
Overall, I thought 'Postville' was decent. I definitely did come away from it feeling like the author had conveyed the situation there clearly. However, I did not see it as representative of other culture clashes in America. These two, rural Iowan farmers and profit-seeking Hasidim, were isolated geographically from other cultures and the second of the two was insular to an extreme degree.
The Hasidim did not come off well overall due to their unjust protection of those they deemed their own, and their dishonesty in financial dealings. Additionally, there seemed to be some overt 'racism' on both sides, but it also seemed that ill feelings genuinely were created more on the basis of behavior than by religion..at least from the farmers' side.
Living in a town with a prevailing issue like that operating on a daily basis would be a nightmare, surely.
The book itself had a few repetitious parts that would have been better cut, and the repeated descriptions of blue skies, lighting, cows and cornfields speak to a lack of diversity in the scenery. It reminded me in a way of a time I lived in the desert; it's a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
And that attitude alone would make the residents glad I don't.
The Hasidim did not come off well overall due to their unjust protection of those they deemed their own, and their dishonesty in financial dealings. Additionally, there seemed to be some overt 'racism' on both sides, but it also seemed that ill feelings genuinely were created more on the basis of behavior than by religion..at least from the farmers' side.
Living in a town with a prevailing issue like that operating on a daily basis would be a nightmare, surely.
The book itself had a few repetitious parts that would have been better cut, and the repeated descriptions of blue skies, lighting, cows and cornfields speak to a lack of diversity in the scenery. It reminded me in a way of a time I lived in the desert; it's a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
And that attitude alone would make the residents glad I don't.
October 30, 2017
A jaunty Jewish journalist paints a disturbing portrait of small town locals/yokels and out-of-town ultra-orthodox who open a kosher butchering plant in rural Iowa. The locals are rendered as somewhat ignorant and a tad xenophobic. The author’s descriptions of the Jews are a white supremacists’ dream: rude, unfriendly, haughty, obnoxious, pushy and disrespectful. The owners’ obsession with money, and the serial swindling and haggling with the gentiles is embarrassing. The rest of us—the vast majority, non-Orthodox Jews—have to manage the fallout from this, our conflicted feelings about rude Jewish supremacists making the locals’ mild anti-Semitism understandable. On the one hand, a serviceable portrait of pious orthodoxy; on the other, the intolerable warts of this insular community and its business practices. The story gets worse after the book was published: exploited labor, strikes, and the Chabad general disregard for law, order and non-Chabadniks. Do the Amish have such struggles?
January 30, 2021
Fascinating, entertaining, insightful, reflective, personal, and cultural - all describe the experience of reading Stephen Bloom's book about moving to Iowa from a big west coast city and wondering how to be Jewish and relate to Iowans. His exploration of the theme is vastly enriched and his assumptions and ideals challenged when he begins spending time in Postville, where an ultraorthodox community of Hasadim have bought an old meatpacking plant and moved in, simultaneously taking over the town and remaining frustratingly and adamantly apart, from the perspective of the natives who have to figure out how to or whether they even want to share their town with their colorful but arrogant economic saviors. Bloom gets to know people deeply on both sides and shares his insights as his perspective evolves and he comes to conclusions about who he feels more at home with. Written in the 1990s before INS raided the plant and returned the town to its previous culturally homogeneous, economically depressed state. That is the subject of another book written by a different author.
April 18, 2022
An incredible book that gives you a rare unfiltered glimpse into Hassidism as well as Iowan run-of-the-mill Hank Hill townsfolk. This book has it all; it's funny, endearing, and is all-around fantastic journalism. Some chapters will make you laugh with the low stakes involved, like a Shabbos dinner between the Bloom and some Hassidic Jews. However, like Bloom writes in the book, sometimes people become nastier when the stakes are so small. This becomes evident in other chapters when he does some investigative reporting into a few, nefarious to say the least Jews in the community.
As someone raised in a Chabad synagogue, I'm obligated to say that my temple is muuuuch more accepting than the people here. I've brought my non-Jewish friends and we've partied on the holidays with no problems. Woman sat with men, too, except for the actual services, sadly. Not all orthodox Jews are this awful, basically.
Either way though, I highly recommend a read of this book. Look up what happened to Agriprocessors after the book came out, too. You'll be in for quite the surprise.
As someone raised in a Chabad synagogue, I'm obligated to say that my temple is muuuuch more accepting than the people here. I've brought my non-Jewish friends and we've partied on the holidays with no problems. Woman sat with men, too, except for the actual services, sadly. Not all orthodox Jews are this awful, basically.
Either way though, I highly recommend a read of this book. Look up what happened to Agriprocessors after the book came out, too. You'll be in for quite the surprise.
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April 17, 2020Really interesting, well written book about the Hasidic Lubavitcher Jews who settled in Postville, Iowa, in order to run a kosher slaughter house. The author, a transplanted Jewish man from San Francisco who moved to Iowa to be a professor, was able to immerse himself in both the worlds of the Jewish people and the Iowans and give a clear picture of each side, without casting aspersions either way, or at least casting the same amount.
The trouble is, this book was written in 2000, and the man clearly needs to write a follow up, since in 2008 Postville, Iowa, and that same slaughterhouse was home to the largest immigration raid in United States history. Sholom Rubashkin, whom Mr. Bloom tried to give a fair shake in his book, is currently serving 27 years in prison for money laundering charges. (Thank you, Wikipedia.) So the story certainly didn't end when Stephen Bloom ended the book.
The trouble is, this book was written in 2000, and the man clearly needs to write a follow up, since in 2008 Postville, Iowa, and that same slaughterhouse was home to the largest immigration raid in United States history. Sholom Rubashkin, whom Mr. Bloom tried to give a fair shake in his book, is currently serving 27 years in prison for money laundering charges. (Thank you, Wikipedia.) So the story certainly didn't end when Stephen Bloom ended the book.
September 2, 2020
Short and semi bitter. My assessment comes from two perspectives: 1)a trained journalist who drank the Kool-Aid of objectivity and 2) a Jewisih “baal-tschuva” familiar with most stripes of Jewish practice. Bloom gets a C+ on objectivity an A on Iowa culture, a D+ on Judaism and an D- on research regarding general Jewish orthodox practice. Additionally a D on research into the Chabad Lubovich, basing his perspectives on a community he acknowledges represents those who may often be outliers from the home community and not representative of the wider community.
July 30, 2022
Growing up in Iowa, but moving away and having a best friend of 30 plus years who is Jewish, I found this riveting and could not put it down. I thought the writer did a wonderful job of remaining objective while dealing with a complicated dynamic that is also personal to him as well. He observation that radical cultural groups who try to remain exclusive in their identity are actually so similar in their own forms of racism was excellent, and so pertinent to American today. Looking forward to sharing and discussing this with my Jewish friend for discussion as well.
September 9, 2024
Well worth reading.
It leaves me with a couple of thoughts.
Most stereotypes have some basis in fact.
Either about small towns or New York Orthodox Jews.
It is better to have a dying town than to have a meat packing plant. It may help the town financially and to diversify but it also collects a lot of people who are otherwise unemployable or out to make quick money and they bring their bad habits with them.
It was a good book. At first the author seemed a bit clueless but it improved as it went.
It leaves me with a couple of thoughts.
Most stereotypes have some basis in fact.
Either about small towns or New York Orthodox Jews.
It is better to have a dying town than to have a meat packing plant. It may help the town financially and to diversify but it also collects a lot of people who are otherwise unemployable or out to make quick money and they bring their bad habits with them.
It was a good book. At first the author seemed a bit clueless but it improved as it went.
May 30, 2018
This book was very interesting. I am originally from NE Iowa, not far from Postville, and found the story to hit close to home. I knew nothing of Hasidic Jews, but they are a fascinating people. However, I found the author's writing to almost make fun of Iowans and made it sound as if anyone who lives in Iowa is not enlightened to knowing anything else in the world. He is originally from California. Overall a good read.
February 12, 2018
Great book-I enjoyed the author's perspective of moving from San Francisco to Iowa City. Great look at small town Iowa with an interesting viewpoint from a Jewish man studying Hasidic Jewish men...I got a little lost in the last third of the book when we took a tangent...but overall, I enjoyed Stephen Bloom's writing.
November 11, 2017
I found this to be interesting yet a bit depressing. The Orthodox Jewish community who runs the slaughter house that brings back the economy of Postville isn't able -- or doesn't want to --to be involved at all in the culture of the town resulting in many conflicts of interest.
February 8, 2019
I was really impressed with Bloom’s honesty in digging into this story. It was fascinating, stuff you couldn’t put into fiction and get people to think it credible. He did a great job being fair with all sides.
January 13, 2020
On my tbr pile for awhile cause my bookclub hadn’t been thrilled with it. However I enjoyed reading it. I mean I wanted to shake all those Orthodox Jews who didn’t want to be neighborly but it was still engrossing. Also I live in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
April 17, 2021
I continue to find it amazing that society finds anyone or anything different from what they believe as being wrong/incorrect. Unsure if this is a human trait that is difficult to overcome or if it is just instilled through the generations.....
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