Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America

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Postville, by Stephen G. Bloom

Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America (ISBN 0156013363) is a 2000 book by journalist Stephen G. Bloom. The book documents the struggle been the established community of the small town of Postville, Iowa and a group of new arrivals - Chabad hasidim from New York.

in 1987 Rabbi Aaron Rubashkin purchased a disused meat-rendering plant and turned it into a state of the art facility for the production of Glatt kosher meat. A group of a few hundred hasidim joined him to manage a facility that soon employed over 900 staff. The towns population of some 1,300 Lutherans had a mixed relationship with the hasidim.

Bloom spent time living amongst the hasidim, who accepted him openly - and even tried to convert him to their brand of Orthodox Judaism - as he was a Jew. Bloom describes the power struggles between the two groups, including a vote that the town held the called for the plant to be run by the town. According to the jacket the book tries to the answer whether "the Iowans [were] prejudiced, or were the Lubavitchers simply unbearable?"

The book was published by Harcourt in 2000 and was named a Best Book of the year by MSNBC, The Chicago Sun-Times, the Rocky Mountain News, The Chicago Tribune, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.