Dear friends
I am writing to you about an issue that is of great urgency with regards to the plight of a fellow Jew, an individual in the American Jewish community, that you can do something about. It is unusual for me to send out such a letter, but a life of a father of 10 (with one autistic child) is at stake. I write this not in an official capacity but as a personal letter by a fellow concerned brother; and I send this to you in trust of your sense of fairness, and quite honestly, of your warm Jewish heart that will compel you to read the information sheet below to see the other side of a story you may have seen propagated and inflated in the media.
It is regarding the handling and sentencing of Sholom Rubashkin, manager of the Aarons Best-Rubashkin kosher meat plant, who has been held in terrible conditions awaiting sentencing, without bail or even an opportunity to spend Passover with his family. As one who has followed the case since its beginning it is obvious that the treatment was and still has been highly unusual.
World Jewish leaders have carefully researched the prosecution of Sholom
Rubashkin and are deeply disturbed. In sending you this email, I am joining
thousands of other Rabbis and organizations who are urging their communities to voice their concerns.
The federal government has been zealous in pursuing Mr. Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin and has submitted him to considerably more severe restrictions and potential punishment than others in similar cases. Mr. Rubashkin, a father of ten including an autistic child, will be sentenced on April 28 and faces the possibility of life in prison and the probability of a 27 year sentence, far beyond the sentences imposed on others whose crimes were significantly more severe than anything Mr. Rubashkin may have done.
In issuing this call, we are in no way condoning any criminal conduct. Rather, we are asking that Mr. Rubashkin be treated like any other American. We are asking you to communicate your respectful concern over the handling of the Rubashkin case, and the excessive sentence being considered. (For more details about this, please see the memo on the website below.) Rubashkin did not gain personally from the legal mistakes he made and had no intention of causing any monetary loss to anyone. (Notably, Mark Turckan, who pled guilty to a 21 year cover up of misapplying funds from the SAME bank, and was found to have caused a 25 million dollar loss, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.)
Please sign an online petition available at www.justiceforsholom.org and please call or email the Justice Department's Intergovernmental and Public Liaison Office 202-514-3465 /[email protected] (please cc [email protected] with your concerns.
These emails are important and will be forwarded to the US Attorney handling the case. Please consider forwarding this to your family and friends as well.
Thank you
Rabbi Uriel Vigler