Is Kosher Slaughtering Inhumane?
KARAS, PHYLLIS KLASKY
Is Kosher Slaughtering Inhumane? PHYLLIS KLASKY KARAS In Switzerland, kosher slaughtering of red meat animals (cows and sheep) has been forbidden by law since the end of the 19th century. In...
...Rabbi Yosef Eisen of the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America, Kashruth Division, explains: "As long as Jews have been in existence, their slaughtering has been threatened by gentiles, some of whom feel that it is not humane...
...Her company develops and sells humane restraining devices...
...They're just wonderful people.'' Two other kosher plants that slaughter large catde for which Grandin has nothing but praise are IBP in Laverne, Minnesota, which converted last year to a pen system, and Taylor Packing Company in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, which has had the humane pens in operation for five years...
...Yet, we will always look for a humane way to slaughter, and if one is found that comports with halachah, then, by all means, it should be used " Rabbi Joel Roth, chairman of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative movement's halachic decision making body, admits he is not an expert either on shechitah or on animal pens...
...Of the accepted animals, only 30 to 35 percent of the meat arrives for sale at a kosher market...
...Something must be done...
...Michael Fox, vice-president of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), believes that the present uproar over the humaneness of kosher slaughtering originated with the Jewish community's compliance with the 1906 law: "The original tradition of slaughtering kosher meat was humane...
...In England, a recent proposal concerning stunning of animals prior to slaughter was narrowly defeated...
...Nevertheless, he says, "I have seen the literature about the pen and from its diagrams I see no objectionable aspects from the viewpoint of halachah " He sees a two-fold issue: "One question concerns whether the pens are halachically permissible...
...How you handle it as you prepare it for the kosher slaughter is dependent on each individual company...
...Utica Veal, ironically, is not a Jewish-owned plant...
...In the three years since the installauon of the pens, there has been only one employee accident, and that occurred soon after the new pens were installed...
...the second is, should we say that they are the only thing we recommend to avoid shackling and hoisting...
...Rabbi Solomon B. Shapiro, head rabbi at Utica Veal Plant, says he is "extremely satisfied" with the new system...
...This new process is as painless as I believe it can be...
...Some plants slaughter kosher meat one day a week and nonkosher meat the remaining four days...
...If meat isn't being slaughtered according to halachah (Jewish law), which states that the animal must not suffer unnecessary anguish, then it isn't kosher meat...
...Another humane restraining device presently used by large animal slaughterers who observe shechitah is the V-restrainer machine...
...The actual slitting of the throat of the conscious animal, as opposed to the shackling and hoisting, has never been deemed a painful process and follows the religious stipulation that an animal slaughtered according to kosher law must not suffer needless pain...
...Because of the obvious pain caused to animals when shackled and hoisted above the ground, Congress passed the 1978 Humane Slaughter Act that provided that the animal must be rendered unconscious by means of stunning (most often a bullet to its head) before being shackled and hoisted...
...The actual act of shechitah, or slaughtering, is a holy one, and the shochet must make a blessing before it is performed...
...Suspension upside-down also causes great discomfort because the rumen (stomach) presses down on the diaphragm...
...Rabbi Jacob M. Savitsky and his father, Mordecai, researched this machine at the University of Connecticut for several years...
...According to Grandin, approximately two million heavy beef steers, one million sheep and a half million calves are slaughtered annually for the U.S...
...According to Grandin, the problem is "cheapness" on the part of the houses still shackling and hoisting...
...An 800 to 1,000 pound animal is sent carefully through a chute and then loaded onto a rolling belt...
...It became standard practice in both kosher and nonkosher plants to shackle and hoist animals by a chain...
...Horrendous accidents happen to workers," she says, "when they shackle and hoist the animals...
...When the 1906 law insisted that an animal could not be killed in another animal's blood, the Jewish community should have opposed that...
...Kosher slaughtering in Canada is experiencing similar difficulties...
...According to Grandin, "One excellent, wonderful large plant, an ultra-Orthodox glatt (requiring smooth, unblemished lungs— glatt means smooth) plant that is a first class operation is Moyer Packing Company in Souderton, Pennsylvania...
...This reverence for life translates to slaughtering an animal in the swiftest, most painless and humane way by making a horizontal cut with a flawlessly sharp knife across the throat of the animal, quickly sevenng the esophagus, trachea, jugular vein and carotid arteries, killing the animal instantly, and immediately allowing the maximum amount of blood to flow from the animal's body...
...Still, Rabbi Walfish is hopeful that in a short time, the matter will be solved "We expect to be able to go ahead and approve the pen and advocate its use...
...According to Grandin, who has studied the laws of kashrut as assiduously as she has studied the behavior patterns of animals about to be slaughtered, shackling and hoisting is forbidden by Jewish law: "A chain attached to the rear leg of an animal will cause a bruise...
...The double-rail conveyor is 18-feet long and constructed from metal segments attached to an endless chain...
...These instructions are spelled out in the Talmud and, in even greater detail, in later rabbinic literature...
...Despite the historic humaneness of kosher slaughtering, in recent times its humaneness has been questioned...
...It is not easy to be a good Jew today...
...I think they are just plain cheap...
...Even Temple Grandin, a leading critic of current restraining techniques used in some kosher slaughtering plants, concedes that "Kosher slaughter methods are probably the least painful techniques of throat-cutting for conscious animals, provided a humane restraining device is used...
...Because Jewish ritual slaughter requires that an animal be fully conscious and in no way blemished before being ritually slain, kosher slaughtering was exempted from the Humane Slaughter Act...
...She estimates that 15 percent of the large catde slaughtered according to shechitah are still shackled and hoisted fully conscious...
...Shackling and hoisting blemishes an animal and makes it unfit for kosher slaughter anyhow...
...The source of the current problem in the United States is the Federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906...
...There is a story that in Eastern Europe, a rabbi ruled that a shochet should not be permitted to continue his work because he gave no charity...
...Classical antisemitism has always begun with anti-shechitah campaigns...
...The animals enter the restrainer by walking down a cleated ramp...
...But the bottom line, as Rabbi Savitsky has observed, is this, "It is more cost efficient for the slaughterhouses to slaughter nonkosher meat than it is to slaughter kosher meat...
...In the United States, too, kosher slaughtering has become an issue in recent years...
...Roberta Kalechofsky of Marblehead, Massachusetts, founder of Jews for Animal Rights, concedes that, 'There is no doubt that it costs a great deal of money to institute the most humane methods of slaughter for the smaller animals, but, as Jews, we must do what is necessary...
...The animal is never hoisted on a chain while he is alive," Rabbi Savitsky explains...
...If he had no compassion for his fellow man, how could he have it for animals...
...When animals were slaughtered in shteds in Europe or in small slaughterhouses, there was no problem making sure that the laws of shechitah as well as humaneness were observed...
...The situation for smaller animals—calves and lambs—is more difficult...
...It will happen soon Until then, the Humane Society is making a mountain out of a molehill...
...Herein lies the problem...
...The situation for the animals at other slaughterhouses is absolutely terrible...
...Grandin, who holds a Ph.D...
...The slaughtering of the animal must be performed by a pious, observant, sensitive Jew, called a shochet, who has been well instructed in the laws of shechitah...
...This act stipulated that an animal could not be slaughtered on the ground, where its meat could be contaminated by lying in another animal's blood...
...The chalaf must be extremely sharp and' clean, without nicks, dents or other imperfections It must be at least twice as long as the diameter of the animal's neck and cannot be pointed at the end...
...The rabbis," says Schnapp, "are worried about the few cents and how kosher meat will be able to compete with nonkosher meat I believe the Jewish religious organizations are doing what they can to sabotage the use of the pens...
...Still, trying to mix ancient law and tradition with the necessity for high production and modern health codes is not an easy thing to do today " One of the most dedicated activists for humane kosher slaughter is Max Schnapp, founder of the Jewish Committee for Humane Slaughter According to Schnapp, "If the Jewish people knew what was going on, they would insist that the Casejavits amendment [that exempts kosher slaughtering from the prohibition of shackling and hoisting conscious animals] would be repealed...
...in animal science from the University of Illinois and uses the designation PAS (American Registry of Professional Animal Scientists) after her name, describes the problem this way: Many of the kosher plants suspend fully conscious animals upside-down by a chain attached to one hind foot...
...A bruise blemishes the animal prior to slaughter...
...This tradition must be continued...
...Economically, the kosher meat business is in trouble...
...the remaining 65 to 70 percent are the hindquarters, which are too costly to make kosher...
...Shechitah also severely limits the number of Jews who ever experience killing: No man or woman on a farm can simply grab a chicken for dinner or kill a cow...
...They have been using the humane pen since they started kosher slaughtering...
...In Sweden, Holland, Norway and Iceland, kosher slaughtering of these animals is also effectively banned because the laws of kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) prohibit stunning the animal prior to slaughter, as is required by the law of these countries...
...According to religious law, the animal must be unblemished...
...Leviticus 22:24 states: 'Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised or crushed or broken or cut.' There is no way an animal can be shackled and hoisted fully conscious and not be bruised...
...With the V-restrainer, however, there is absolutely no pain for the animal...
...The new system at Utica Veal has also reduced worker accidents related to hoisting and shackling fully conscious animals...
...The other 85 percent of large cattle slaughtered according to shechitah are held in other, more humane restraints...
...Here, too, some charge, antisemitism is involved...
...According to plant manager Victor Broccoli, 'The shackling and hoisting often caused serious injuries to our workers and involved additional pain for the animals...
...The Jewish-owned plants in New York are the worst ones...
...With the ASPCA box the belly lift was used to raise the animal...
...In an 18-month period prior to the installation of Utica's restraining pens in 1986, the plant averaged a loss of 126 working days due to workers' accidents...
...When the animal reaches the shochet, its head is slipped into the clamshell type of restrainer and the shochet immediately makes the cut...
...The large ASPCA pen could have been made into a little one," according to Grandin, "however, no one felt the need to do that...
...Blumberg insists that his plant is- humane despite the shackling and hoisting...
...Never hoisted, the animal is held in the correct position by its own weight...
...they have a broader purpose "We know that killing is brutal and brutalizing to those who do it...
...One problem of the pen is that it will slow down the slaughter...
...In big companies, they slaughter to make money, not to help Jews...
...We wanted an adjustment in the restraint for holding the animal It needed to hold the animal higher because it was not being held at the proper height for the shochet We are working on that slight adjustment, which is the only thing holding up the letter of approval from the Rabbinical Council...
...It might not be possible for them to install the pen for $500 We can't put those slaughterhouses out of business...
...plural of schochet) in the United States, antisemitism is a major factor...
...Utica Veal is not the only exception...
...One plant using Grandin's restraining pens as an alternative to shackling and hoisung is Utica Veal Plant in Utica, New York, a slaughterhouse that employs 150 people and slaughters 5,000 calves a week...
...So she has a financial as well as a moral interest in the problem...
...This device, says Grandin, spares the animal undue stress and suffering and can be highly automated to save labor...
...Grandin added: "If this is so, shackling and hoisting is forbidden...
...In 1978, 72 years after the Pure Food and Drug Act was enacted, Congress addressed the problem it had created by encouraging shackling and hoisting...
...I have spoken to so many of them and I have gotten nowhere...
...Rabbi Walfish sees other concerns with the use of the pen to eliminate shackling and hoisting "I am concerned with the smaller slaughterhouses that might not be able to afford the conversion to the pens If the exemption from the Humane Slaughter Act is repealed, then it will be difficult for the small, private, kosher slaughterhouses where the shochet may come to do one or two animals a week...
...By doing so, it jeopardized its own ethical ideas...
...Now, they can slaughter 400 small animals per hour...
...Rabbi Savitsky notes that the conveyor-restrainer system with a head-holder that has been installed at Spencer Foods slaughterhouse in Spencer, Iowa, where he is in charge of shechitah, is able to accommodate up to 214 large beef catde per hour, reducing labor and providing safer working conditions for employees...
...It is the shackling and hoisting that creates the problem...
...In any event, the question is whether the slaughterer, not the animal, is acting humanely...
...However, Rabbi Walfish is,not convinced antisemitism is completely absent in the dispute...
...A leg positioner bar in the middle of the chute positions the animal's legs on each side of the double-rail conveyor...
...According to Brian Klug, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago who has done research on animal rights in Europe and who has examined the historical documents that lie behind these laws, "There is no doubt that antisemitism was involved in these instances...
...fi...
...From 1978, when the Humane Slaughter Act was enacted, until 1986, when Temple Grandin developed a restraining pen for smaller animals, no other humane restraining pens were available for these animals...
...According to Rabbi Jacob M. Savitsky, who supervises more than 15 schochtvm (kosher slaughterers...
...But the debate has been conducted on another issue: Is kosher slaughtering of cattle and sheep humane...
...While only 15 percent of large catde slaughtered for the kosher market are still subjected to shackling and hoisting, nearly all calves and lambs are still shackled and hoisted fully conscious...
...It never has been But if we eat kosher meat, then we must believe that the animal knew no pam...
...This represents about 5 percent of the heavy steers and mature cattle slaughtered in the U.S...
...One such device is available through the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the Humane Society of the United States...
...Grandin believes that Utica Veal's success with the new calf restrainer could be an impetus to other kosher slaughterhouses to follow suit, improving both their humaneness and their economic situation...
...The laws of kashrut demand that Jews revere life even as we take animal life in order to eat...
...We talk to the animals," he jokes "We bore them to death...
...It took them an additional year to execute their plans for the V-restrainer...
...He must use a knife, called chalaf, from the Hebrew word meaning "to change over," referring to the transformation of an animal from a living being to a dead carcass...
...Humane restraining devices are available...
...In August 1990, Rabbi Solomon B. Shapiro, head rabbi at the Utica Veal Plant in Utica, New York, met with rabbis in Europe concerning the problems of kosher slaughtering...
...Other gentiles simply use the issue as a means of preventing Jews from acquiring kosher meat...
...What's the matter with these plants...
...Shechitah—the careful methods of the slaughter, the restrictions concerning the knife, the blessing—all this prevents the shochet from becoming brutalized...
...Until modern times, kosher slaughtering was thought to be the most humane—that is, painless—form of animal slaughter...
...Kosher slaughter has been proven by various groups including scholars to be the most painless...
...While a worker steadies the head of large animals, the shochet makes a quick cut in one or more uninterrupted horizontal slices across the animal's throat...
...All animals eventually have to be shackled and hoisted in order to be taken apart and skinned, but only the animals that are slaughtered according to kosher standards are now shackled and hoisted fully conscious Grandin not only serves as an independent livestock handling consultant, she is also the owner of Grandin Livestock Handling Systems in Fort Collins, Colorado...
...About 20 percent of these kosher slaughtered animals are rejected after a careful examination by the shochet...
...What happened to the animal there was between God and the animal...
...Even though humane seems to refer to humans, rather than to animals, the term is regularly used in the debate...
...One company that still shackles and hoists is Imperial Veal and Lamb Company in Chester, New York Emanuel Blumberg, general manager of Imperial Veal and Lamb, reports that its slaughtering facility, the Orange County Packing Company, slaughters approximately 800 to 1,000 calves and 1,000 to 1,500 lambs each week for Imperial...
...A principal reason kosher slaughter was exempted from the 1978 Humane Slaughter Act was because humane restraining equipment was not then available for these smaller animals...
...Just as modern technology has caused the present problems, it has also created the means to solve them...
...The act of slaughtering should take no more than a second...
...The situation has produced considerable antagonism between the Humane Society and the Council of Orthodox Rabbis The Humane Society's Michael Fox says that the Jewish community's initial response was "understandable...
...But, seriously, as soon as the animal is hung, its throat is cut...
...Grandin's design replaces the old shackle hoist with a double-rail conveyor-restrainer system (see-drawings opposite and below) that can be easily adjusted for calves weighing 40 to 500 pounds...
...I have visited hundreds of slaughter plants because I firmly believe that to refuse to participate in the killing part of the process is a denial of reality...
...But Jews are not supposed to be interested in only the economic aspect of this...
...The background of the 1964 campaign to do away with the amendment to the 1978 Humane Slaughter Act was decidedly antisemitic They wanted to do away with shechitah, not shackling and hoisung...
...then, they were the same...
...The humaneness of shechitah has become an issue since the advent of large, high speed plants that must conform to government hygiene regulations as well as to religious prescriptions of ritual slaughter...
...It immediately renders the animal senseless...
...Many plants that slaughter for the kosher market, however, have not replaced their shackling and hoisting systems with these humane restraining devices simply because there is no economic or legal incentive to do so...
...She also cited a statement in Animals In Jewish Literature The Jew and his Animals, by A. Shoshan (Rehovot, Israel: Shoshanim, 1971): "It is not permissible to tie the legs of any animal or bird in a way to cause pain...
...Yet, after visiting one plant in which five steers were hung up in a row to await slaughter, I had nightmares The animals were hitting the walls and their bellowing could be heard in the parking lot In some plants, the suspended animal's head is restrained by a nose tong connected to an air cylinder Stretching of the neck by pulling on the nose is painful...
...Indeed, that is the very foundation of shechitah...
...The ending of the life of a living thing should be approached with respect Killing is a harsh act, but harshness is part of nature...
...Rabbi Samuel Chiel, of Temple Emanuel of Newton Center, Massachusetts, explains that the laws of shechitah are designed not merely to protect the animal being slaughtered...
...In one plant in the South," she says, "that means that approximately 1,200 large catde are killed a day using shackling and hoisting of a conscious animal...
...The animal, completely unrestrained, continues to roll forward on this belt, whose sides form a V. At the bottom of the belt is an opening into which the animal's feet slip...
...To comply with this law it became standard practice in the meat industry— both kosher and nonkosher—to shackle and hoist cows and sheep by a chain, suspending them head down along a ceiling conveyor belt moving to the point of slaughter...
...Moreover, he recognizes that shechitah is in the hands of the Orthodox worldwide...
...This is so even though some advanced restraining systems may save money, once the capital is expended to install them...
...And in our companies we strive to make sure that the handling and preparation is as humane as the actual slaughter...
...However, it was typical of the Jewish community at that time to avoid conflict by accommodating others...
...He says, The tone of the letter that we received from the Humane Society after we discussed the necessary adjustment of the pen was terrible...
...Rabbi Binyamin Walfish, vice-president of the Rabbinical Council of America, feels that the problem of shackling and hoisUng fully conscious animals is close to being eradicated "I was involved in the development and installation of the pen in Utica," he says...
...The Bible only tells you to kosher the animal humanely with this knife...
...The segments form two double-rails with a three-inch space between the rails...
...This prevented contamination of the meat but was hardly humane...
...I've seen Temple Grandm's pens, but our volume is just not that great that we can afford to put them in I don't see that the cost of the operation would warrant the expense...
...It is never shackled and hoisted for more than a few seconds before its throat is cut...
...Then the leg chain is tightened and the dead animal is lifted into the air...
...gendeness is also a part of nature If you lose respect for the animals, the killing process will turn you into a brute...
...Things are better now, he says John Hoyt, president of the Humane Society of the United States, has met with rabbinical organizations and together they have discussed the new pen Rabbi Abraham Halbfinger, execuuve director of Vaad Harabonim, the New England rabbinical council in charge of the supervision of kosher products, observed "There is no doubt that a pen will make kosher meat more expensive, but if it is necessary, it can be done Jewish tradition has commanded Jews to slaughter as prescribed by the Mishnah so that the animal will not suffer unnecessary anguish If the shochet does it in a way that creates anguish, then the meat cannot be used...
...kosher trade...
...According to rabbinic tradition, the laws of shechitah were given to Moses on Mount Sinai as part of the Oral Law...
...Rabbi Alan Turetz, President of the Northeast Region of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative movement's principal rabbinical organization, stresses that Jewish tradition has always sought to prevent cruelty to animals "We have always been sensitive even beyond the laws of shechitah, in our treatment of animals Certainly the sight of an animal being hoisted and shackled is a difficult one, but some knowledgeable authorities say the pain may be exaggerated...
...Jewish laws of ritual slaughter derive ultimately from the biblical verse: "You may slaughter any of the cattle or sheep that the Lord gives you, as I have instructed you" (Deuteronomy 12:21...
...The calf then settles onto the double-rail, where it rides until ejected onto a table conveyor where the shochet awaits it...
...I found tremendous fear among them of losing shechitah (the religious laws of kosher slaughtering)," he said...
...As for the rabbis, I feel they are dragging their feet on this issue...
Vol. 16 • February 1991 • No. 1
