My family and I are planning a roadtrip through the heartland of America - from Dallas to Minnesota via Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa and returning via Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri. I know I'm paranoid, but I have this terrible feeling that people are going to stare at us and ask where the hell did you come from....are you people Hebrews?

As it turns out, right on our route (between the Field of Dreams and the Mayo Clinic) is the small town of Postville, Iowa, home of the most important Kosher meat processing plant in the country. Apparently a dozen or so Lubavitch families bought an abandoned meat processing plant and brought in immigrant labor from all over the world to work it. I won't have the courage to take pictures of the people, like this one below, but I'm hoping to get some unusual snaps nonetheless.



Apparently the town is also the subject of a PBS documentary and a Hallmark special that will be aired on May 23.

Thanks to Protocols for making me aware of the town.

UPDATE: Here's an odd news story I just found while searching for Agriprocessors, Inc. the company formed by the Hassidim that owns the plant. It just happened a few days ago.

100,000 chickens lost, building razed in fire

It was the largest Gold'n Plump barn in the Arcadia area. The birds were destined for Agriprocessors, Inc. in Iowa. Gold'n Plump has eight barns solely dedicated to Agriprocessors. The Schultz farm is basically two of the eight.

I wonder if the price of my chicken dinners are going up.

More UPDATE via Protocols. Apparently, while all of this lovey-dovey stuff is being broadcast, the author of the book above actually believes that the chasidim brought terrible problems to the town.

"I am deeply disappointed in Hadassah Magazine. The story, Torah Amid Corn (April), is a woefully one-sided portrait of an crucial and confounding issue facing American Jewry today. In the news business, we call Jennie Rothenberg's account of Postville, Iowa, a "valentine." Nowhere was there any mention of the appalling surge of crime, substandard living conditions, alcoholism, drug abuse, or ground-water pollution in Postville - all spurred on by the operation of the kosher slaughterhouse.