Orthodox Jews Flock To SD, Support Leader On Trial

NIGEL DUARA

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — In the musty conference room of a South Dakota hotel, Sholom Rubashkin helps a disheveled man in a hooded sweat shirt wrap black bands around his left arm and head. Attached to each is a black box containing inscriptions from the Torah.

"It's on your arm close to your heart, on your head close to your thoughts," Rubashkin, a leader in the Orthodox Jewish community, tells Robert Graham in a thick Brooklyn accent. Graham nods.

For the 50-year-old Rubashkin, and the dozens of Orthodox Jewish men who arrive almost daily from across the country to support him, such spiritual guidance is partly why God led him to his federal trial in Sioux Falls.

The former manager of Iowa kosher slaughterhouse Agriprocessors Inc. is accused of defrauding a St. Louis bank and, if convicted, could spend the rest of his life in prison. But for now, he's spreading his spiritual message to people like Graham, a South Dakota Jewish man who was only remotely familiar with the broadest outlines of his religion's traditions.

That devotion and respect for the Rubashkin family is what draws the men to support a fellow member of their Hasidim, a branch of Judaism that translates to "the pious." Its members are easily identifiable in long black coats, fedoras and beards. They know Rubashkin more as the former teacher at an Atlanta Jewish school explaining his faith to young pupils.