Rating: 
Summary: A no-star review
Review: Stephen Bloom, a self-admitted gastronomic Jew, approached the Postville Hasidim with a bizarre mixture of hostility and awe. What was he looking for ? Validation for his bacon and eggs breakfasts? His roots? In fact, only a small percentage of pre-Holocaust Jewry were Hasidim; most of the ancestors of America's Jews were Mitnagdim, the fervently anti-Hasidic religious movement which comprised the majority of Eastern European Jewry prior to WWII. \ Mr. Bloom leaves out the fact that the kosher restaurant in Postville, one of the many "pushy" things he accuses the Lubavitch of doing, is packed on Sunday mornings, with farmers, housewives, and assorted other locals chowing down on eggs, bagels, lox, and pastrami. He makes a big deal about the Jews not eating in non-kosher restaurant, and seems to find the Iowans rejection of the baked goods offered by the Jewish ladies at the bank as some kind of evening of the score.THis is a self-hating Jew who suffers from a severe case of transference. If he didn't like the Jewish community in Iowa City, why didn't he do something to re-energize it? He faults the Iowa City community for being uninspiring, and the Postville community for too much inspiration. He devotes considerable time in his book to telling the story of the Hasidic criminals. What exactly does it have to do with the story? Was it even part of the annexation battle? Did any good ol' Hawkeye boys ever get in trouble with the law? Never? He seems to fault Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin for running a bloody business. Explain to me how animals can be turned into food with no mess, and then I'll buy his argument. There is no shame in being a Reform or even a secular Jew. Our sages teach us a Jew is a Jew, no matter what. Hitler taught us the same. But it is shameful when Jews, whether secular or Orthodox, shame each other. Shame on you, Stephen Bloom.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the most interesting books I've read in 2000
Review: My daughter goes to school in Decorah, 30 miles from Postville, so I've visited the area many, many times. (I know a lot about Iowa but very little about Judaism.) Bloom wrote a very interesting account about the inevitable cultural clashes. I could relate to the locals discomfort with bargaining and the notion that a merchant should put a fair price on the item the first time around. Bloom apparently had as many, if not more, problems with the Lubavitcher sect as the locals did. I found his account of Dr. Wolf's ( the only Jew around for many miles) happy accomodation to life in Iowa interesting...all in all--a good read.....
Rating: 
Summary: A Community Distorted
Review: While I found Mr. Blooms book interesting and enlighting I was greatly troubled by his lack of context and distortion of the Lubavitch community. I write this as a member of this community. He attacks Chassidic Jews as wanting to remain "pure" by not sending their children to the local public schools or he states that the Chassdic children would not swim with the locals. In both of these instances he distorts important communal ideals. Religiuos Jews are not afraid of remaning pure, they are concerned with their children respecting their values. They send their kids to private Jewish schools to aquire that compreheinsieve education of both religiuos and modern values. In fact many Jews in the more liberal end of the Jewish community see Jewish day schools as the key ot Jewish survivial. Again with the pool religiuos Jews, not just Chassidim have separate swimming for boys and girls out of a respect for modesty. Then again when he writes of the young Chassidic man who was invloved in crime he does not even state that such crime is almost never found, it would be safe to say that as a community Lubavitch Chassidim probably have the lowest rate of violent crime. Mr. Bloom brings his own negative attitudes about Jewish observance into play and sadly tells only part of the story.
Rating: 
Summary: Reveals more about the author than the town
Review: I think this book says more about the author than the topic he is writing about. There are some things he covers well - the two men that commit the robbery/assault, life in Iowa, the local doctor that turned out to be a Jew (I'm not giving any spoilers). It is in the latter that Prof. Bloom spills out his true feelings - that the best kind of Jew is one that remains proudly Jewish while blending in with the local folk. Of course, "proudly Jewish" to Prof. Bloom means one that adores Jewish food and knows a little Yiddish. He stops the story several times to assert that he is wholly, proudly, identifying as a Jew. But what kind of a Jew? - a "Bagels and Lox and social justice" kind of Jew. Largely ignorant of the Jewish religion (at one point he says he went up to the "alter" on his bar-mitzvah - why didn't any of his proofreaders catch that one?) like many Jews today he knows a little something by virtue of having grown up in a cultural Jewish community with knowledgeable elders. Of course, he can't see that his own son won't even have that and most likely his child will no longer be Jewish. I don't mean to personally attack Prof. Bloom - he seems a nice man with good instincts who cares about his University students and neighbors. But while his coverage of his Iowan neighbors is for the most part good, his coverage of the Hasidim, where he trys to start out fair, becomes biased and unfair. This is not to excuse the behavior of the Hasidim, which I know from my experience is probably all too true. Rather, it shows the basic flaw in his argument - contrasting good ol' Iowa farmers with obnoxious New York Hasidim representing secular versus religious culture. The trouble is that the Hasidim are really the extreme end of the Jewish world and not representative but Bloom does not understand that. Summary: if you are loking to read a somewhat interesting description of life in Iowa or the Hasids versus the farmers, read this; if you are looking for insights into Jewish assimilation or secular versus Jewish culture, skip it.
Rating:
Summary: you can tell a book by its cover
Review: As a Jewish resident of this town, I would like to report that although this book is extremely well-written and filled with some interesting information, there are significant innacuracies, short of libel. Mr. Bloom was invited into the homes of people I know well and from my experiences, his reporting is extremely exaggerated. Sure, the reader gets a chuckle but many people have been hurt by this book. Naming people and reporting on their disgraceful comments about others has resulted in creating even more hostile feelings in this community. In my opinion, Mr. Bloom is a non-affiliated Jew whose alliance with the likes of bacon and eggs eaters and snickering gossipers in the coffee shop suggest his own shame for his own heritage. This is a pity because there are so many wonderful things to be learned from this devout and sometimes extreme group of individuals. There are no examples like this in his book. At the book signing in this community, Mr. Bloom failed to explain some innacurate information he chose to read to the mostly Christian audience. The cover of this book best explains the contrived nature of this book. It is actually a computer generated montage. If portraying an accurate picture of this town was his intention, then why the fake photo? People who read this book and who get a "kick" out of the characters remember, these are real people who are hard working, who gave time to Mr. Bloom just to get kicked in the face.
Rating:
Summary: Where do I sign up to option the film rights
Review: First let me ask that reviewers not give away the ending, since the book reads like a mystery. This book was especially poignant, since I read about the slaughterhouse killfloor the day after reading about the Akedah at a synagogue, and I ate a Rubashkin chicken last week... Bloom, a journalism professor at the University of Iowa, tries to find commonalties with his own secular Jewish life and the lives of the members of a Lubavitcher Hassidic community that moved in 1987 from Brooklyn to Postville, Iowa in order to build and manage a kosher slaughterhouse. They moved to Northeast Iowa - where pigs outnumber people by a large magnitude. Aaron Rubashkin, his peanut-and-Tums-popping son, Shalom, and over thirty rabbis trained to kill livestock and inspect kosher meat, plus friends and relatives moved to the town and revitalized the boarded-up slaughterhouse, AgriProcessors. They hired hundreds of immigrants from Mexico, Central America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Some were illegal aliens, some got into brawls, but that wasn't the issue. Most residents of Postville, a town of less than 1,500 souls, most of them devout evangelical Lutheran Christians, were happy with the new slaughterhouse and its economic benefits. But as the Lubavitcher community expanded to 150 souls and many homes and buildings, suspicions and complaints by the 'older, more American' residents of Postville grew. This was a town of old ways, where success and vacations are kept quiet, and where Catholics and Lutherans banked at separate banks. Some older residents of Postville didn't understand why the Jews didn't eat in the cafes or purchase non-kosher foods, why they tried to haggle in the stores, why they wouldn't shake hands, why they didn't mow their lawns or ask for help? Why didn't the buy retail? Why didn't they support the local merchants where outward co-dependence was expected? Were the Hasidim oblivious of the unwritten code of tidiness in Postville; did they even care? Did some residents scapegoat the Jews, instead of the local WalMart, for decreasing merchant revenue? In the course of the story, the town attempts to win back control of the slaughterhouse through an annexation referendum, led by City Councilman Leigh Rekow, a farmer and former Peace Corps volunteer. The vote was a barely hidden vote on whether to expel the Jews. This is also a story of Bloom's family's move from California to Iowa, a place with small bagels, low rise buildings, trucks, fishing rods, friendly neighbors, and guns. Bloom is trying to belong to this midwestern place where the barber is confused by Mr. Bloom's dark curly hair (they are used to blondes, or maybe Bloom was a little hypersensitive), or where Jesus might get mentioned in a Cub Scouts meeting, newspaper headline, or spooky tour. But he gets drawn in to make a connection with his fellow Jews. But will Bloom let go? Will he accept the non assimilationist attitudes of the Lubavitchers he meets? Will he avoid eating ham and cheese in the parking lot of the slaughterhouse? Will the Lutheran minister be banished by his parish for preaching inclusiveness? This is a great Autumn read, even if you buy it just for the hilarious comparisons Bloom makes between Jewish kippot and farmer's caps; Jewish davening and Lutheran head nodding; and Jewish "nu's" and Lutheran "don't-cha-think's."
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Summary: Another entry for Midwestern Utopias
Review: Within a few miles of the Great River Road -- a federally designated "blue highway" along side the Mississippi, and near this Northeastern corner of Iowa, are the remains or the museums of any number of "intentional communities" or Utopian Visions that give color to mainstream American History. Postville is not all that far from Amana Colony, from the Quaker settlements around West Branch (Home of Herbert Hoover), from the site of a charismatic Swedish Utopia at Bishop's Hill, Illinois, or from Nauvoo, one of the important pre-Utah Mormon sites, later taken over by French wine and cheese making communards, and recently under restoration as a Mormon site. For many reasons, I regretted that Bloom did not explore just a little of the rich history of Utopias or intentional communities that have come and gone in this small patch of the mid-west as he examined the ongoing efforts of the Lubavitchers in Postville. Otherwise this is an amazing story, chuck full of all the tendencies and trends of global economic systems. Glatt Kosher beef and chicken is a terribly narrow nitch overall, but within that nitch, highly profitable. By comparison, Midwest family farming as well as corporate agriculture is mass market -- sensitive to the smallest jolt to Wall Street or the Chicago exchanges. Where fifteen years ago, virtually all slaughter houses in this region were fully unionized with all workers covered by pension and health benefits plus wages about triple what the Lubavitcher venture pays what Bloom describes as an essentially imported and illegal alien workforce -- one wonders how long such a venture can succeed against the interests of any community to acquire common rules, and a sense of shared welfare. It is indeed on this score that the other Utopias failed, changed markedly, or simply moved on. And at some juncture the health and safety inspectors, the Immigration and Naturalization agents, or the state tax inspectors will show up, and what the Lubavitcher communards believe is OK in splendid isolation, will be questioned and debated by others. To find significant support, they will need the Iowa neighbors, and that will require adaptation. One wonders what they will decide.
Rating:
Summary: strange stuff
Review: There is something strange about this book. Mr. Bloom seems to have researched the subject, yet there are things in this book that don't ring true at all. Mr. Bloom for example, tells us that for the chasidim, Iowa was their first contact with cars. Apparently, he is confusing Lubavitcher chasidim with Amish people; in Brooklyn, many chasidim have cars. There are other anecdotes which appear to have been added to sensationalize a rather placid story. Anyone who knows anything about Lubavitch chasidim, knows that they are the most outgoing of all the chasidic groups. Mr Bloom tells us that when he passed a native Iowan while walking with a Lubavitcher chasid, the chasid rebuked him for saying good morning to the fellow. Either that chasid was insane or the story is exaggerated. This is so far from what I know of Lubavitch chasidim, that to recount it as a representative anecdote, seems odd. By the way, the cover picture shows a chasid with a fur hat. Lubavitch chasidim don't wear that fur hat. I know that the author isn't the one who prepares the cover, but it fits with the rest of the book; it's not quite accurate. The book "Boychiks in the Hood" has a chapter on those Iowa chasidim. That one chapter captures things better than Mr. Bloom's entire book.
Rating:
Summary: It's not just Iowa......It's everywhere
Review: I read Postvile and was mesmerized as the authors guides you through an amazing story of how he explores the crazy relationship between long resident Iowa Lutherans and New York Lubavich Jews and his own identity as a Jew. The story gives an interesting insite into this Ultra-Orthodox sect of Judism. The story is easily a metaphor for every culture that has "been invaded" and often, in vain, tries to hold onto their roots. GREAT READ.
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Summary: Stuff I never knew about my own hometown!
Review: When I first heard that someone was writing a book about my town of Postville, I figured that it would be just another journalist writing a story about the foreigners and not giving a damn about the locals. I went to the author's reading of this book at Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City fully expecting to be offended. However, I was pleasantly shocked when I opened the book, and on the first page it talked about my high school and the street I live on. I read farther and the book talked about actual people and places that I knew. There was even a mention of my marching band in the Ag Days parade! I was awestruck, and happy that the book was about more than just the diversity. Professor Bloom talked about actual locals, and he added his own viewpoint, which made this book a wonderful read. It's so interesting to read about the place you've lived in for 17 years and find out stuff you never knew!
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