Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin and Twitter

Okay, this is more than a little funny. As part of the utterly doomed campaign to free Sholom Rubashkin, a FriendsofSholom Twitter account has been set up.

On January 29th, the following was Tweeted:

# RT @shdeen: Rabbi urges non-Jews to have 7-14 kids; rabbis demand Sholom Rubashkin be released on bail; Ed Koch doesn't like... http://b ... 9:29 AM Jan 29th from web

Now, the incompletely linked bit.ly post by shdeen does indeed say Rubashkin should be freed before sentencing. But it says it like this:

A number of rabbis traveled to D.C. to demand that Sholom Rubashkin be released on bail as he awaits sentencing on the 86 counts of financial fraud that a federal jury found him guilty of last fall. He might end up with a particularly harsh sentence, 21-27 years in prison, and as a father of ten, that would be seriously hard on his family. And while we’re no fans of felons, Chasidic or otherwise, whatever happened to ankle bracelets? Let the gentleman get some quality time with his family before being gang-raped in the slammer.

All significant U.S. Orthodox Rabbinates Together for Releasing Rubashkin

A Press release from DJC Communications says the following

A group of the nation's most prominent Rabbis will hold a news conference Tuesday to oppose the premature imprisonment of Sholom Rubashkin, former vice president of Agriprocessors, Inc., once the country's largest kosher meat processing plant. The Rabbis will urge the U.S. Department of Justice to closely scrutinize the demands by federal prosecutors in Iowa that Rubashkin be imprisoned before he is sentenced. The group also will request a meeting with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

They've got the National Council of Young Israel, Agudath Israel of America, the Rabbinical Council of America, the Rabbinical Assembly of America, and then two more local NYC rabbinates who decided to come down as well.

And yes, I am aware that their protest is that he should be allowed out until he gets sentenced. The reason they have not let him out is that he is most definitely a flight risk, and the rabbis are not going to change anyone's mind.

But seriously, do they not realize how bad it is for kashrut and for them to be defending Rubashkin?


On another note, it's kind of ironic that they are using a communications firm run by a female who probably doesn't meet standards of tznius in her picture on her website to do their press work.