Penning 'Postville'

Author finds story in clash between Iowa town and Hasidic Jews

"Postville" tells the story of what happens when an ultra-Orthodox Lubavitcher population moves to a small town in Iowa to run a glatt kosher processing plant

In this story: 'A metaphor for diversity and tolerance' Learning to drive, learning to bargain Always the outsider RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Jamie Allen
CNN.com Senior Writer

(CNN) -- As a guy who spent much of his career as a journalist, Stephen Bloom knows a good story when he hears one. And when he first heard about a community of Hasidic Jews that moved to the farming town of Postville, Iowa -- pop. 1,465 -- in 1987, his journalistic antennae shot up.

The Jews had relocated from Brooklyn and rescued the town's faltering slaughterhouse by packaging kosher meat and shipping it out, making millions of dollars in the process.

But the down-home local community in Postville, who expected friendly greetings and cookouts with each new arrival to town, and the Lubavitchers, whose religious practices demand no assimilation with outsiders, didn't exactly get along. They were, in fact, an accidental experiment in tolerance.

"As soon as I heard about this band of Lubavitcher Jews moving out to this tiny rural farming community, where pigs outnumber people 10 to one, I knew I had to get up there," he says. "Like any journalist, I just knew it was a story that needed to be told."

It turns out, Bloom, who had previously moved his family from San Francisco to take a position as journalism professor in Iowa City, Iowa, committed much of himself to the story -- 50 visits to Postville, about 350 interviews.

And Bloom's years of research has resulted in a 336-page book titled "Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America" (Harcourt).

"Postville" documents the sometimes strange but uniquely American occurrences that took place as the Lubavitchers gained a foothold in the community, rejuvenated the economy, introduced a new form of business practice, and clashed with locals enough to watch them introduce political legislation that would annex land that included the slaughterhouse.

Bloom says "Postville" might be based in a small town in "flyover country," but it's much more than that through his book's filter.

Author Stephen Bloom explores the very different cultures of Jewish Lubavitchers and small-town middle America as well as the religious and economic clashes between the groups in "Postville"

"I tried to use the town and what was happening there as a metaphor for national issues of diversity and tolerance," he says. "Postville became a social laboratory."

And Bloom became the laboratory scientist, mixing with both communities as they reached a boiling point. The book is framed by the annexation vote that was fiercely opposed by the Jews -- so much that if it was approved for the slaughterhouse, the Jews claimed they would leave Postville.

Between that, Bloom digs up stories about the inevitable clashes that resulted when two communities were thrown into the same small town.

For instance, there's the story of Hasidic woman who was still learning to drive.

"She lost control of the car and drove up on the sidewalk, accidentally floored it, went 80 miles an hour, and when she was stopped by the police chief, she offered the guy a bribe," Bloom recalls. "And the cop said, 'We don't do that here.' "

Another section highlights how the Jews introduced bargaining into the local environment -- and how it didn't play well.

"You just don't bargain in rural Iowa because to bargain or dicker for a lower price would mean that the initial price offered was set artificially high," explains Bloom. "You would never do that to someone because the person you're selling the item to is a friend.

"But the Jews threw a monkey wrench into that," he says. "They didn't want to get to know the locals, and all hell broke loose because of that."

Throughout the process, Bloom was a sponge, taking reams of notes that eventually serve to bring the reader into the atmosphere of the story. He also became a known figure around town.

"Everyone in Postville knew what I was doing," Bloom says. "I couldn't walk down the street without people saying, 'You should talk to him.' "

Bloom admits he was at least partly interested in the story because of his background. He's Jewish, though he doesn't follow the strict observances of the Hasidic sect.

"I feel my Jewishness down to my corpuscles, but I represent my Jewishness in a very different manner from how the Hasidim reflect their faith," he says.

It's not for lack of trying. As Bloom documents in "Postville," the Lubavitchers wanted to take him in, and he investigated the possibility.

"I decided that (my son Mikey and I) should go up and spend a weekend with one of the Hasidic families," he says. "There were two ground rules before we were allowed to do this. One, we would shed our Christian names. I was no longer Steve; I became Shlomo, and Mikey became Moishe. The other stipulation was that we would wear yarmulkes all the time."

The idea was to mix and learn. But Bloom learned quickly how different his world was from the Lubavitchers when Bloom, his son, and their Hasidic host passed three locals fixing a sidewalk.

"Before I realized it, out from my mouth comes, 'Good morning,' " says Bloom. "About ten paces past the locals, my Hasidic host roundly condemned me and criticized me. He said, 'You do not acknowledge them. You do not say hello to them. You say hello to them and it's the beginning of assimilation. You start being friendly with them and that means our children start playing and then we are involved in social exchange with them and that's the end of us as the chosen people.'

"At that point, I really made the decision that that in itself was an arrogant, imperial way to live," he says. "I realized we might be both Jews, but we express our faith in very different ways."

Likewise, Bloom never felt as one with the Postville locals. He was always the outsider, there to capture a story as it unfolded. But Bloom, who admits he will never be an Iowan, and his family still live in the Hawkeye state.

Like the Lubavitchers, Bloom found something that he could call his own.

"I've realized that home doesn't so much depend on location or venue," he says. "Home is really dependent on your family, however you define family."

Iowa's farm state image starts to fade
January 19, 2000
What makes Iowa tick?

University of Iowa
Postville, Iowa, community information
Harcourt

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