This week we share our views of a Forward editorial that appeared in the same issue as the hit piece on AgriProcessors, and of a Forward article in last week's issue that reported on the controversy over the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's questioning the legitimacy of Diaspora conversions and divorces - even those presided over by members of the Rabbinical Council of America and certified by its av bet din.

In our view, both reflect a mindset of non-normative Judaism and provide an important context to the AgriProcessors piece.

Consider some of what the Forward's editorial on AgriProcessors had to say:

Some of us, perhaps a majority these days, take the text [of the Torah], as a general exhortation to reach upward, oblivious to the Torah's central message of daily discipline....

Others of us, sadly, manage to consecrate our lives to daily observance of Torah laws without ever hearing those larger themes. For an example... working conditions at AgriProcessor...."

The [Torah's] laws [of labor relations and business behavior] couldn't be clearer. Why aren't they upheld with the same rigor as the rules of kosher food or Sabbath?

Of course, AgriProcessors denies the charges against it. Those who run the show at the company certainly do not contend that it is permissible to violate the halachos of labor relations. Yet the Forward suggests it is okay to ignore halacha if one pursues "the larger themes."

Consider also what a front-page Forward article last week on conversions and divorce had to say:

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The move [of the chief rabbis to insist on strict adherence to halacha in conversions and divorce] is rife with ironies. It's a bid by the Israeli state rabbinate to impose its increasingly stringent approach to a key religious issue on the Diaspora. Yet it comes even as the Chief Rabbinate's stature within Israeli society continues to contract. An icon of the rabbinate drawn today would show a very small man with a very long arm.

In a further irony, American Modern Orthodoxy is one group that has remained supportive of the Chief Rabbinate through recent storms, viewing the Israeli rabbinate as an embodiment of Israel's Jewish religious legitimacy. Now the rabbinate has given a statement of no confidence to its overseas cheerleader.

So for the Forward, insisting that halachic standards are met on issues of conversions and divorce is all much ado about nothing real, only a vacuous power play and a betrayal of erstwhile allies. When The Jewish Press broke the story several months ago of the Chief Rabbinate's disenchantment with the conversion practices the RCA's av bet din, we were taken with the need to ensure scrupulous adherence to halacha in the interest of the integrity of Jewish peoplehood. As it turns out, this is in sharp contrast to the "anything goes" editorial philosophy of the Forward.