An Orthodox ‘We Are the World’ for Sholom Rubashkin

By Josh Nathan-Kazis October 8, 2010

The latest effort to rally supporters for jailed Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin comes in the form of a six-minute music video posted online yesterday, featuring a who’s who of Hasidic music stars.

The video mixes slo-mo shots of Rubashkin with “We Are the World”-style clips of the all-male cast of singers in the recording studio.

Rubashkin is serving a 27-year sentence on bank fraud charges relating to his leadership of Agriprocessors. Immigration charges against Rubashkin have been dismissed, and he was acquitted of child labor charges.

The video features Lipa Schmeltzer, the Hasidic pop star whose Madison Square Garden concert was famously cancelled in 2008 in the face of rabbinic censure; Avrohom Fried, and Mordechai Ben David, among many others. The lyrics call for Rubashkin’s release. A sample, sung mostly by Schmeltzer:

Eagles soaring by
Could you lift him up with you now
And fly him home with justice pride and freedom?
His eyes are gazing wide from behind the bars he prays, now
With faith with joy,
oh how we wait to greet him.

The video asks viewers to donate to Rubashkin’s legal defense.

According to the clip’s website, www.UnityForJustice.com, the effort was sponsored by a firm called TelTech, which appears to make calling cards. The company has marketed a product called SpoofCard, which allows callers to change or hide their caller ID, and another called LoveDetect, which, according to a 2006 press release, allows callers “to determine their love interests’ true feelings.”

Check out the video here:

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO