In Pittsburgh a couple of years ago, a Rabbi told me a fable that involved the training of a shochet (a kosher butcher). The experienced shochet was showing the apprentice how to sharpen the knife, how to examine herds, etc. The shochet even showed him how to moisten the blade so that it would be even sharper – which he finally did, with the tears that he cried for the animals whose lives he extinguished. That today we must kill and eat animals to survive is controversial, but that the ancient Jews had to do so is beyond the realm of argument. And yet nonetheless, they demanded that animals be made to suffer as little as possible – in fact, they accepted it as divine law. Religious ensibilities of care and gentleness are built into the very fabric of Judaism, and to dismiss them is sacreligious:
In an alliance of thoroughly improbable bedfellows, Israel’s Chief Rabbinate is effectively backing an outspoken US animals’ rights group… in a much-publicized fray over practices at a US slaughterhouse. The rabbinate told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that it would not consider as kosher cows that appear in an undercover video of ritual slaughtering at the AgriProcessors Inc. plant in Postville, Iowa…
Experts in Jewish slaughtering practices say the knife used in shehita is so sharp that cows barely feel the cut, which must sever the esophagus and trachea. Raful said that normally, both of the major blood vessels are cut at the same time, which cuts off all blood to the brain immediately, and the cow feels nothing.
The video is really gruesome, but good for PETA (and I say this so rarely) for pointing out that the cruelty portrayed in the video is strictly contrary to Jewish law. This has the makings of a huge scandle – most kosher butchers do not operate this way, and most Jews who eat kosher count on them not to. Which is why an authority no less than the Chief Rabbi of Israel is calling out a US factory, whose response has been astonishingly weak :
Thomas said the PETA tape is misleading and was obtained under dubious circumstances by someone with a political agenda. He disputed claims that the trachea are yanked from steers, saying to do so would violate kosher laws.
No kidding.
