Reb Avrohom Aharon Rubashkin Z”L unfortunately died from COVID-19. He was 92.
The Niftar was born in the 1920’s in the Russian town Nevel in the former Soviet Union. He is the son of Reb Getzel and Rosa Lubavicher Chasidim, who raised their two sons and daughters as observant Jews in spite of the anti-religious repression in the Soviet Union. When the Germans occupied Nevel in July 1941, the Rubashkin family fled east, eventually reaching the Uzbek city of Samarkand, where he married Rivka Chazanov of the Chein family of Nevel.
After the war, the Rubashkin family left the Soviet Union via Lemberg and spent time in Austria, before they settled in Paris in 1947. In Paris, his father ran a grocery shop and his mother served as a cook at a Jewish girls school, and he became a butcher. In 1953, the family moved to New York City, where he and his partner opened Lieberman & Rubashkin Glatt Kosher Butchers on 14th Avenue in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn.
But he was best known for the slaughterhouse and meat-packaging factory Agriprocessors, that he founded in 1987 in Postville, Iowa. Managed by two of his sons and a son-in-law, it was the largest kosher meat operation in the country with distribution centers in Brooklyn and Miami, Florida.
The New York Times dubbed the family a “kosher meat dynasty.” With the operation of the plant, Rubashkin employed many Jews who moved with their families to the remote city, a 90-minute drive from the nearest shopping malls. He and his family built for there a vibrant Jewish community with a shul, schools and a host of institutions.
The Rubashkin family was also known for their generosity, giving tzedaka to many Jewish institutions and causes. This was in addition to the steep discounts he gave to families in need and shuls around the country.
Boruch Dayan HaEmmes…
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