The ethics of laying off employees are of general concern, but Jewish organizations face the additional burden of publicly representing Jewish ethics and values – a burden that many communal insiders say is too frequently ignored. more>

Workers at one of the nation’s largest kosher meat producers have voted against joining a union, though the union that led the drive is contesting the vote and accusing the company of foul play. more>

In developments that are already crippling the availability of kosher beef in large parts of America, three of the nation’s five largest slaughterhouses producing kosher beef halted production in the first week of November. more>

Agriprocessors and its owners, Aaron and Sholom Rubashkin, were charged with more than 9,000 counts of child labor violations by the Iowa Attorney General. more>

Judaism has always put a spiritual value on food, but controversies at the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse – along with the publication of several best-selling books on the safety and humanity of food processing in general – have led to a push to infuse kosher food with the values of organic and free-range products. more>

The Pew Research Center released what is being billed as the first comprehensive demographic survey of American Muslims. The survey reports a figure of 2.35 million American Muslims, significantly lower than the estimates ranging from 6 million to 12 million that have been cited by Muslim advocacy groups. more>

Between 200 and 300 employees left their posts last Monday during the morning work shift to protest a May 4 letter sent by the company’s management to employees, many of whom are believed to be undocumented immigrants. The letter asked workers to verify Social Security numbers. more>

This past August, an Orthodox meat distributor was discovered using fraudulent labels to pass off non-kosher chicken as kosher. Since then, kosher meat companies – along with the rabbis who oversee them – have been scrambling to find technology that will ensure customers that the meat under the deli window is, indeed, kosher. more>

Orthodox Jews and Pakistani Muslims normally live side-by-side with no problems in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. But the beating of a 24-year-old Pakistani by a group of Jewish teenagers who hurled ethnic slurs is causing tensions to rise. more>

Economists and social-service workers say that the jobs being created are overwhelmingly in low-wage sectors like manufacturing and retail, while high-wage positions continue to disappear. This is a particularly acute problem for the Jewish workforce, which is concentrated in white-collar professions. more>

More Jewish households are headed by single moms, representing 17 percent of all Jewish households with children. But Jewish agencies have more experience working with the elderly than impoverished families. more>