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I picked this book up randomly, at a thrift store, but I am always fascinated by non-fiction books that offer glimpses into other cultures and in books that look at the assimilation or non-assimilation of various groups into the American mainstream. POSTVILLE: A CLASH OF CULTURES IN THE HEARTLAND OF AMERICA is the portrait of a typical small midwestern town (almost stereotypical, as the author waxes on about parades, agricultural festivals, and kids who don't have to lock up their bikes in front of the corner stores) trying to come to grips with a settlement of militantly anti-assimilationist settlers in their midst: a group of Hassidic Lubavitcher Jews who have purchased the closed meat packing plant and reopened it as kosher slaughterhouse, bringing economic life back to the town but unearthing a host of conflicts with the locals over a host of issues of custom and lifestyle.
Many of the reviews of POSTVILLE here take issue with the author coming down on one side or the other of the division in Postville, Iowa and thus finding the book flawed because it is not objective.
But Bloom never pretends to be writing an objective or sociological treatise. The book is as much a memoir of his own coming to terms with his internal conflict between his Jewishness and his feelings of being a fish out of water in Iowa, and his longing to find a place that he fits in--is it by a deeper embrace of his Jewishness and thus his differences, or by further assimilation? A main part--if not the main point-- of the story is his own developing attitudes and his eventual realization that he has chosen to support one side--and thus one way of life--over the other.Read more ›
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48 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Stephen Bloom's book proved to be a quick and interesting read about a subject to which I can relate. Like Bloom, I am a secular Jew who moved to Iowa City a number of years ago and who has taken an interest in how the Hasidim and local Iowans in Postville have gotten along. I have visited the community on several occasions and have informally talked to a few of the Hasidim. I was even approached by two of them while having lunch at the kosher delicatessen and asked to put on tefillin (the Jewish "good deed" that Bloom himself performs with the owner of the slaughterhouse). My impression is that Bloom's portrayal of the transformation of the town as well as the clash of cultures is accurate. It is also valuable from a number of perspectives, including how it addresses the issue of assimilation. Jews, as well as other strongly identified religious and ethnic or cultural groups, have a difficult balance to strike in rural areas such as Iowa: retain (at least some) of their unique identity while also becoming a part of the community. Postville is an example of a place where the strongly identified newcomers, the Hasidim, choose not to even acknowledge the locals and their customs or way of life. This has dire consequences for all involved, although, paradoxically, the success of the Hasidic owned and run kosher meat packing plant has invariably influenced the local economy. For the better. While this book was informative and enjoyable to read over a weekend, I hesitate to recommend it whole-heartedly because the author's voice got in the way. Mr. Bloom seems to have concluded that he, as the narrative observor, was entitled to inject his own internal conflict about being a Jew in rural Iowa into the story as if it is of particular interest to all readers.Read more ›
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32 of 35 people found the following review helpful
This is a good book and Mr. Bloom has done a very good job putting it together. The basic focus is on a group of ultra-orthodox Jews who set up a kosher meat-cutting business in little Postville, Iowa. I lived for a number of years in nearby Decorah, Iowa so I was interested in reading it as soon as I heard of it. I glanced at some of the reviews in Amazon and I could tell that the author has raised quite a bit of controversy over his approach to the subject. What is interesting is that he is accused of being biased both for and against each side of the controversy. Personally, I think he has done a good job of staying in a sort of middle ground approach. Let's face it, his Jewish background was a strong point given our current societal tendency to blame differing opinions on racism, sexism, anti-semitism, etc. Bloom is, thus, uniquely able to approach the subject unincumbered in ways that others would have been. As one who is proud of his Iowa roots, I felt proud of the praise Bloom gave my home state and some defensiveness when he was critical of its' citizens. I attended a junior high school in Des Moines that had two or three of the citie's synagogues in its' territory. In or around 1967, the junior high school was spray-painted with hateful ant-semitic statements. As I came to school that day, my reaction was one of great surprize. This was something that was obviously the work of someone not in touch with the mainstream of thought in our community. However, I learned that day that not all Iowans are perfect. Mr. Bloom has reminded us of that (not that we REALLY think of ourselves that way). The interactions of the two societies; rural Middle-America and Orthodox Jewish, did not go well in little Postville.Read more ›
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