Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America (review)

In the minds of many Americans there can hardly be two cultures more different than those of small-town Iowa and Hasidic Brooklyn. However, the two contrasting worlds came to interact with each other when Hasidic Jews bought a slaughterhouse near Postville, Iowa, and started a large kosher meat enterprise there. Lubavitch Hasidic Jews settled in Postville and have built a small community there. The slaughterhouse created hundreds of jobs and has given a new lease on life to the economically depressed town. The jobs created by the Hasidim have also brought Mexican workers to town, further altering the character of the small Midwestern community. The huge cultural gap between the Lutheran Iowans and the Hasidic Jews (and Mexicans) has created tensions, and many of the older residents of the place have come to resent what they have seen as an intrusion of their space.

Bloom does a wonderful job in describing Iowa and its culture. As a Jewish intellectual who came to teach at the University of Iowa, he, too, was singled out as a stranger. When Bloom took it upon himself to host the yearly watermelon party in his street, the neighbors shunned the event and he had to return the watermelons to the store (pp 16-18). It seems that some suspicion on the part of both the Hasidim and the Lutherans in their relation towards each other was inevitable. Bloom's treatment of the Lutheran and Hasidic communities is, however, uneven. He shows a great deal of sympathy for the Lutheran residents of the town but not for the Lubavitch Hasidic Jews who settled there. He was initially attracted to the Hasidim, he claimed, but was taken aback by what he considered to be the closeness of their world and their suspicious attitude towards all non-Jews (pp. 195-213). Bloom shows little appreciation for the "otherness" of Hasidic Jews and their insistence on maintaining their Jewish Eastern European culture regardless of the norms and conventions of the society around them. He sees no merit in the Hasidic ways. They are not really pious, he claims, and his encounter with them has brought him to discover the dark side of Judaism. Even when the Hasidim conduct acts that in their own eyes are charity, such as visiting a dying man and praying for his soul, he speculates that they have ulterior motives and views their conduct as intrusive (pp. 291-314). Their missionary activity, including calling unaffiliated Jews and inviting them to visit with them, are chutzpah in his eyes. He finds their mikvah (ritual bath) gross and points to their neglect of their outdoor surroundings. Bloom dedicates two chapters to a crime young men of the Hasidic community committed. A highly acculturated Jew, Bloom clearly rejects the Hasidic culture as a viable option for American Jews.

While the book presents the clash of cultures between Hasidic Jews and Lutheran Iowans, it raises broader questions that Bloom has largely ignored. Hasidic Jews are not the only "intruders" that "upset" the lives of older communities. New ethnic groups constantly settle in towns and neighborhoods all around the nation, challenging older social and cultural cohesions. Many of the accusations directed at the Hasidim in Postville - that they lack manners, maintain archaic lifestyles, have disregard for the customs and ways of the (older) community, and add to the crime in the area—are standard claims directed at new immigrant groups, both in America and elsewhere. Hasidic Jews are a good example of a cultural group that defies the older paradigm of the melting pot, refusing to Americanize in the ordinary sense of the word, insisting on retaining their cultural heritage intact even when migrating into a new area. In the later decades of the twentieth century, American society has shown a growing tolerance towards cultural diversity and the right of ethnic and religious groups to...