Kosher Slaughtering Methods and and the Debate Over Them | Middle East And North Africa

KOSHER SLAUGHTER

kosher butchers

Under Jewish and Islamic law, animals must be healthy and uninjured at the time of death, which usually rules out normal stunning methods that involve electrocution or shooting the animal with a metal bolt. Animals are traditionally slaughtered with a single, rapid cut to the throat in Muslim and Jewish communities. The mechanically-operated humane stunner device, commonly used in non-Kosher slaughterhouses, was introduced in England in 1929. It has been Mandatory in EU since 1979, but member states can grant exemptions for religious slaughter. The stunning method enables abattoirs to process animals more quickly Mis-stuns involving captive bolt occur "relatively frequently", according to 2004 European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) report - which leaves the animal conscious and in pain. Animals can also regain consciousness. [Source: BBC]

Jews consider meat-eating a profound act and believe it should be followed by an equally profound act of goodness. Ritual butchering for Kosher products does not allow for inflicting pain or humiliation to an animal. An animal’s life is to be taken only by a highly skilled and spiritually responsible technician, a priest called a schochet. A single cut, deep enough to take the animal’s life in an instant is the ONLY way this process is carried out. Jews versed in this matter say it is nowhere near as inhumane and highly disrespectful as way animals who are bred for mass and thoughtless slaughter are treated today. [Source: Jennifer Kapel]

According to the BBC: “Observant Jews should only eat meat or poultry that has been killed in the approved way, called shechita. This method of killing is often attacked by animal rights activists as barbaric blood-thirsty ritual slaughter. Jews disagree. They say that Jewish law on killing animals is designed to reduce the pain and distress that the animal suffers. Shechita is unequivocally humane and it cannot be compromised. [Source: July 17, 2009 BBC |::|]

Websites and Resources: Virtual Jewish Library jewishvirtuallibrary.org/index ; Judaism101 jewfaq.org ; torah.org bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism ; Yivo Institute of Jewish Research yivoinstitute.org ; Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Aish.com aish.com ; Jewish Museum London jewishmuseum.org.uk

Kosher Slaughtering Rules

Under kosher rules animals must be slaughtered according the laws of “shechitah” ; the hind quarter of animals may not be eaten unless the sciatic nerve is first remo###ved (Genesis xxxii:33); and the blood from meat must be thoroughly drained (Genesis ix:4).

The rules for kosher slaughtering are complicated. The animals must have their throats cut with a clean stroke and the blood must be drained quickly from the body while the animals is upside down. This is said to cause a minimum of suffering to the animal. The slaughtering is done by a trained butcher known as a “shochet” or rabbi who wields a very sharp ceremonial blade called a “chalaf”After the animal has been butchered, a rabbi declares the meat kosher. Defenders of the kosher slaughter say the method is humane and causes a minimum of pain to animals because the blade is sharp and death is almost instantaneous.

“These are the rules for Jewish slaughter: 1) The slaughterer must be a specially trained Jew called a shochet; 2) A shochet is trained in the laws of shechita, animal anatomy and pathology, and serves an apprenticeship with an experienced shochet; 3) In the UK, a shochet has to have both a religious and a civil licence; 4) The animal must be killed by cutting the throat with a single stroke from a very sharp instrument called a chalaf; 5) The cut must sever the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries and jugular veins; 6) The chalaf must be perfectly sharp and smooth, with no notches or blemishes; 7) The neck structures must not be torn; 8) The animal must be allowed to bleed out; 9) The shochet must inspect the animal afterwards to confirm that the killing was correctly carried out and that the animal did not suffer from any abnormality that would render it unkosher. |::|

Kosher Slaughtering Method

20120505-Kosher Bundesarchiv_Bild_.jpg The kosher method of slaughter of animals is called “shechita” . In most kosher plants, animals are tightly penned when their throats are cut, and the organs are not torn out; tearing out by the shochet is forbidden under Jewish law. In nonkosher planets in the United States, by law, animals must be rendered unconscious before they killed, which is often with air hammers, pistols or electricity — all of which are prohibited by Jewish law.

According to the BBC: “Is this a cruel way to kill an animal? Some experts say that the animal killed in this way does not suffer if the cut is made quickly and cleanly enough, because it loses consciousness before the brain can perceive any pain. Other experts disagree and say that the animal remains conscious long enough to feel severe pain.

Secular animal slaughter involves pre-stunning animals so that they are unconscious before they are killed. Jewish law does not permit pre-stunning because it requires the animal to be uninjured at the time of shechita, and all pre-stunning methods involve an injury to the animal. There is also concern that the pre-stunning might kill the animal, and so render it unfit to eat. However Jewish experts say that as shechita produces instant loss of consciousness, it incorporates pre-stunning.

Criticism of Halal and Kosher Slaughterers

In 2003, animal rights group called for a ban on kosher and halal slaughter, citing them as cruel to the animals that are slaughtered. One animal rights activist told the Independent: “Scientific evidence shows that animals that have their throats cut while they are fully conscious can suffer terribly over relatively lengthy periods as they bleed to death.” According to a report on the practice: “After the cut has been made, the animal must remain restrained until it is bled out before being released, shackled and hoisted.”

Martin Potter, the leader of a British animal rights group, argued that animals should be stunned either before they are killed or immediately afterwards. He wrote in The Independent: “Modern stunning instruments in the hands of highly skilled slaughters can render an animal unconscious immediately. We therefore, have the ability to give this animals a quick and painless death. Slaughter by Jewish and Muslim methods involves cutting the throat with a very sharp knife without any form of prior stunning...This method can result in cattle taking as long as two minutes to become insensible...The cut across the neck leads to very significant pain and distress before the insensibility supervenes.”

Muslim and Jewish groups have united to fight the ban on the basis of freedom of religion. They make the argument that stunning can be as cruel or more cruel then cutting; that the proposed use of stunning defies their religious laws by leading to the retention of blood in the meat; and say the Nazi evoked similar arguments against kosher slaughter in the 1930s.

A halal butcher in London told the Independent: “I believe it is our right as Muslims to eat halal meat, which is an essential part of Islam. I have taken part in the slaughter of poultry in the past so I know it is a quick and efficient method, not cruel at all.” A member of the Muslim Council of Britain said, “Scientific tests have shown that when an animal is stunned, small blood vessels repture, leaving meat tainted with blood which is full of germs, bacteria and waste material.”

PETA Exposes “Extreme Cruelty” at Kosher Slaughterhouse

Kosher slaughter in 1724

A secret video tape made at a kosher slaughterhouse shows the the kosher slaughter is far from humane, with animals staggering and bellowing long after their throats have been cut. Describing the tape shot by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals at the AgriProcessors plant in Postville Iowa, the largest producer of kosher meat in the United States, Donald G. McNeil Jr. wrote in the New York Times, “Each animal is placed in a rotating drum so it can be killed while upside down...Immediately after the ritual slaughterer, or shochet, has slit the throat, another worker tears open each steer’s neck with a hook and pulls out the trachea and esophagus. The drum turns, and the steer is dumped on the floor,. One after another, animals with dangling windpipes stand up or try to: in one case death takes three minutes.”

According to PETA: “Kosher slaughter is intended to minimize animals’ suffering. But undercover PETA investigations have revealed that Agriprocessors, the world’s largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse, has been ignoring both the Jewish commitment to compassion and federal law—and animals endure prolonged suffering and nightmarish deaths as a result. Kosher slaughter, or shechita, is performed by a person known as a shochet, who has received special education and instruction in the requirements of shechita. The shochet kills the animal with a quick, deep stroke across the throat with a sharp knife. When performed properly, shechita appears all but painless and quickly renders the animal unconscious. When PETA received complaints that this wasn’t the case at Agriprocessors—a massive Iowa slaughterhouse that produces Rubashkin’s, Aaron’s Best, and Iowa’s Best meats— we took action. [Source: PETA \=/]

“PETA wrote to company officials and asked them to take steps to make certain that cruelty was not occurring. Agriprocessors’ attorney, Nathan Lewin, wrote back to us, claiming that “neither Jewish law or ‘common decency’ is being violated in the Agriprocessors plant.” The tone of this letter was not convincing, so we sent an undercover investigator to see for ourselves. PETA’s first investigation at Agriprocessors in 2004 revealed almost 300 instances of inhumane slaughter, in which cows’ sensitive faces were shocked with electric prods, fully conscious cattle had their tracheas and esophagi ripped from their throats with meat hooks or knives, and they writhed in pools of their own blood, trying desperately to stand up for up to three minutes as blood poured from their throats. Read our investigator’s notes. \=/

“Rabbis, scholars, animal welfare experts, and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors have all spoken out about the extreme cruelty that our undercover investigator was able to capture on tape. The world’s foremost expert on slaughter methods, Dr. Temple Grandin, told Mason City, Iowa’s Globe Gazette, “I thought it was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve been in at least 30 other kosher slaughter plants, and I had never ever seen that kind of procedure done before. … I’ve seen kosher slaughter really done right, so the problem here is not kosher slaughter. The problem here is a plant that is doing everything wrong they can do wrong.” The USDA told the plant to immediately stop this procedure and determined that Agriprocessors employees “had engaged in acts of inhumane slaughter.” The Orthodox Union (OU), the agency that certifies Agriprocessors’ products as kosher, also told Agriprocessors to stop removing the cows’ tracheas and to stun any animals who remained conscious after throat-slitting. \=/

“In light of the cruel conduct at Agriprocessors, PETA also investigated Local Pride, a slaughterhouse in Gordon, Nebraska, that was owned by the Rubashkins (the owners of Agriprocessors) in May 2007. We found that cows were still allowed to remain conscious and in extreme pain for up to two minutes after their throats were slit. Experts in animal welfare, veterinary medicine, and slaughter systems reviewed the disturbing footage recorded inside the slaughterhouse and noted the following: “Cows remained conscious for as long as two minutes after their throats were cut open. A worker ripped into conscious cows’ throats with a metal node hook in order to make the bleeding process go faster. Cows were handled improperly, resulting in fear and stress just prior to slaughter. Workers removed identification tags by mutilating live cows’ ears. PETA’s footage led several experts to condemn the company’s practices. Dr. Holly Cheever, a large-animal veterinarian, stated, “This method of slaughter as depicted on this tape is brutal and should be amended to provide a humane end for these animals.” The USDA inspected Local Pride, and management agreed to stop using the node hook on conscious cows.\=/

“PETA returned to Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa, in August 2008 and caught workers continuing to make “second cuts” (hacking holes in the open wounds in cows’ necks after the shochet had already cut their throats). Dr. Temple Grandin has stated that these gouging, circular cuts cause the cows pain and suffering. Just two weeks prior to PETA’s August 2008 undercover investigation, Agriprocessors gave a private tour to selected rabbis, community leaders, and reporters, and video footage from that tour shows slaughter done without a second cut at all. When Dr. Grandin inspected the facility in 2006, the plant showed her slaughter that did not include a second cut at all, and she gave them her approval. It appears that Agriprocessors wanted consumers to believe that the plant had stopped the second cut, but PETA’s new investigation revealed that, behind closed doors, not much had changed. The USDA again cited Agriprocessors for violating the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. \=/

“In light of this new video exposing the gouging second cuts—and Agriprocessors’ quite different conduct during the tour—Dr. Grandin made a new assessment of Agriprocessors, stating, “The undercover video clearly showed that when they think nobody is looking, they do bad things in this plant.” Dr. Grandin asserted that the plant should install a live video monitor to be reviewed by a third party auditor to prevent further cruelty. \=/

“Cows aren’t the only ones who are being abused by Agriprocessors. The people who work there are often treated like machines, too, and denied health care. The Jewish newspaper The Forward published an article detailing the horrors of working conditions at the Agriprocessors slaughterhouse, including virtually no safety training, severe injuries that required amputations, frequent verbal harassment, and very low wages. OSHA cited Agriprocessors for 39 worker safety violations in March 2008. After a May 2008 federal raid of the plant over immigration violations, 76 percent of the 968 Agriprocessors employees were found to be using false or fraudulent Social Security numbers that were allegedly supplied by plant management. Agriprocessors also pleaded guilty to 83 counts of child-labor violations. \=/

“Agriprocessors declared bankruptcy and former owner Sholom Rubashkin was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison for financial fraud. The plant is now under new ownership and operates as Agri Star.” \=/

Attacks on Halal and Kosher Slaughterers

In 2003, animal rights group called for a ban on kosher and halal method, citing it as cruel to the animals that are slaughtered. One animal rights activist told the Independent: “Scientific evidence shows that animals that have their throats cut while they are fully conscious can suffer terribly over relatively lengthy periods as they bleed to death.” According to a report on the practice: “After the cut has been made, the animal must remain restrained until it is bled out before being released, shackled and hoisted.”

shop with kosher knives

Martin Potter, the leader of a British animal rights group, argues that animals should be stunned either before they are killed or immediately afterwards. He wrote in The Independent: “Modern stunning instruments in the hands of highly skilled slaughters can render an animal unconscious immediately. We therefore, have the ability to give this animals a quick and painless death. Slaughter by Jewish and Muslim methods involves cutting the throat with a very sharp knife without any form of prior stunning...This method can result in cattle taking as long as two minutes to become insensible...The cut across the neck lead to very significant pain and distress before the insensibility supervenes.”

Muslim and Jewish groups have united to fight the ban on the basis of freedom of religion. They make the argument that stunning can be as cruel or more cruel then cutting; that the prosed use of stunning defies their religious laws by leading to the retention of blood in the meat; and say the Nazi evoked similar arguments against kosher slaughter in the 1930s.

A halal butcher in London told the Independent: “I believe it is our right as Muslims to eat a halal meat, which is an essential part of Islam. I have taken part in the slaughter of poultry in the past so I know it is a quick and efficient method, not cruel at all.” A member of the Muslim Council of Britain said, “Scientific tests have shown that when an animal is stunned, small blood vessel repture, leaving meat tainted with blood which is full of germs, bacteria and waste material.”

Jewish View on Kosher Slaughterhouse Abuses

Shmuel Herzfeld wrote in the New York Times, In May 2008 “in Postville, Iowa, immigration officials raided Agriprocessors Inc., the largest kosher meatpacking plant in the country. What began as an immigration sting, however, quickly took on larger dimensions. News reports and government documents have described abusive practices at Agriprocessors against workers, including minors. Children as young as 13 were said to be wielding knives on the killing floor; some teenagers were working 17-hour shifts, six days a week. [Source: Shmuel Herzfeld, New York Times, August 5, 2008]

“This poses a grave problem and calls into question whether the food processed in the plant qualifies as kosher. You see, there is precedent for declaring something nonkosher on the basis of how employees are treated. Yisroel Salanter, the great 19th-century rabbi, is famously believed to have refused to certify a matzo factory as kosher on the grounds that the workers were being treated unfairly. In addition to the hypocrisy of calling something kosher when it is being sold and produced in an unethical manner, we have to take into account disturbing information about the plant that has come to light.

“The affidavit filed in the United States District Court of Northern Iowa, for instance, alleges that an employee was physically abused by a rabbi on the floor of the plant. If true, this calls into question the reliability and judgment of the rabbi in charge of making sure the food was kosher. What’s more, two workers who oversaw the poultry and beef division were recently arrested for helping illegal immigrants falsify documents. If they were willing to break national immigration laws, one could reasonably ask whether they would be likely to show the same lack of concern for Jewish dietary laws.

“Unfortunately, the responses of the leading Orthodox organizations, the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union, have, in my opinion, fallen far short of what is needed to be done and have done little to diminish the extent of the desecration of God’s name. I am a member of both groups, but I am dissatisfied with their stance, which asks us to sit back patiently and wait for the results of a federal investigation. On some level, this might be prudent, but on another it is unacceptable.

“What is needed is for the Orthodox Union to appoint an independent commission whose members have not in the past been paid by either the Orthodox Union or Agriprocessors. Such a commission would select a team of rabbinic experts to spend an extended period of time at the plant and then make suggestions and recommendations. This independent team would make sure the plant upholds basic standards of kashrut and worker and animal treatment — and that it is in full compliance with the laws of the United States.

“Hebrew National used to run a commercial that said: “We answer to a Higher Authority.” Well, we do. We need to express shame and embarrassment about the reports coming out of Iowa, and we need to actively work to change these matters. Then we shoulld ask ourselves if our behavior and our values need improvement. Only if we truly think about these issues will we truly be keeping kosher.”

Polish Ban on Kosher Slaughter of Animals Is Overturned

In December 2014, the BBC reported: “A Polish court has ruled that a ban on the ritual slaughter of animals for the needs of the Jewish community is unconstitutional. The Jewish community had challenged the ban, introduced in 2013, saying that it was discriminatory. The Constitutional Court had previously ruled that it was against Polish law to allow animals to be killed without first being stunned. But to produce kosher and halal meat, animals must be uninjured before death. [Source: BBC, December 2014]

“The ban had been challenged by the Union of Jewish Religious Communities on the grounds that it impacted on their constitutional right to practise their religion and prevented minority communities from following their traditions. The court ruled that the ritual slaughter of animals should be allowed on the grounds of religious freedom.

“The ritual slaughter of animals had been practised in Poland for centuries by both Jews and Muslims, the court's judge said. Before the ban, Poland had been a major exporter of kosher and halal meat and poultry to the Middle East. The reversal of the ban also allows for a resumption of exports, Jewish leaders say. Animal rights groups had welcomed the ban, saying the practice caused animals unnecessary suffering. Israel, however, criticised it, noting that the Nazis had done the same thing during their occupation of Poland during World War Two.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu; “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “ Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); “Old Testament Life and Literature” by Gerald A. Larue, New International Version (NIV) of The Bible, biblegateway.com; Wikipedia, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Encyclopedia.com, London, Library of Congress, The New Yorker, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024