Reb Leibish on similarities between the kosher slaughterhouse and the casino
Reb Leibish wrote an interesting explanation on why kosher slaughtering is similar to other industries that are legal but in disrepute. I strongly recommend that the National Council of Young Israel (NCYI), the Orthodox Union (OU), and the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) consider what Reb Leibish has to say, instead of their knee jerk reaction to blame a fast deteriorating situation–in terms of gentile goodwill–on unions and anti-semitism. I know it is hard for Orthodox Jews to believe that Orthodox Jews are ever at fault, but try to listen to Reb Leibish.
Mohammed wrote,
“A hechsher is to certify that the food is kosher.”Mohammed you are both right and wrong. There is a bigger picture which Haredim would do well to take account of-
Mohammed, you do not understand that Shecitah is extremely controversial within non-Jewish society. Non-Jews are not that bothered by the fact that the Kosher meat industry is as big a scam as the television evangelical movement praying on superstition and delusional neuroses. If Jews are happy to be victims of their clergy and their agents then who are non Jews to protest. What bothers non Jews is the slaughter of cattle without pre-stunning. They regard such cattle as being victims of a patently cruel and barbaric practice. The denials of cruelty put forward by the advocates of Shecitah are regarded by non-Jewish society as being motivated by self-interest and as true as the claims by the gambling industry that gambling is just another harmless form of entertainment or the recent claims of the smoking industry that the dangers of smoking are unproven. Notwithstanding those doubts, Shecitah is tolerated in the USA just as gambling and the tobacco industry are tolerated. When you operate within an already barely tolerated industry, you need to be very careful in not making enemies. So for example, if I wish to operate a casino, it would be wise of me to accept restrictions on the income I might make and to avoid employing anyone who might have underworld connections. So too, for example, I may agree to restrict the number of slot machines, or the maximum stake permitted, or the sale of alcohol so as not to antagonize local community leaders. Likewise, it would be wise of me to be scrupulous in paying taxes and wages and complying with health and safety laws. As a casino owner I am in a far more vulnerable political position then say a building contractor who cheats on taxes and exploits workers and my actions should reflect this.
That is the trap the Hareidi rabbis have fallen into with the Rubashkins. It should be obvious to Hareidi rabbis that a person who runs a controversial business such as slaughtering animals without pre-stunning has to be of utmost moral and legal probity just as someone who runs a casino. In order to avoid criticism, the rabbis claim to be a supervisory authority interested in Kashrus alone and to be independent of Rubashkin, but only a Haredi would fall for such a legal fiction. Clearly Rubashkin and the kashrus authorities are tied together and in each others pockets. If anything, Rubashkin can be considered as much an agent of the rabbis as they can be considered his agents! Just look at the clean bill of health just given by those Rabbis to Rubashkin! What are the rabbis scared of? That is what turns peoples stomachs against Hareidim. Their fanaticism is matched by their stupidity and political naivety.
The Hareidim have created a lot of new enemies for Kashrus amongst non Jewish Americans. Mohammed, it may come as a shock to you but in order to survive attacks on animal welfare grounds, kashrus in the USA needs the moral and political support of both Jewish and non-Jewish Americans. The Hareidim, through supporting Rubashkin, have done a lot to lose such support. Unlike the NK, the existence of Kashrus in the USA cannot rely on the Iranians.
10 comments
To add my two cents, according to a (Protestant) biologist friend who’s even got a slaughtering license, cutting an animal’s jugular in one stroke is the most humane and least painful way of slaughtering as pre-stunning permits to dismember animals at full pain-awareness without the possibility to react or even panic; hormones shed out during a panic attack apparently ruin the meat.
The ban on kosher slaughtering in several European countries back in the day was brought about by anti-Semites, not animal rights groups.
I buy into the simile between shechita and casinos, which would therefore require absolute supervision on the management.
But doesn’t the Torah itself already do this? All the responsae through the generations required absolute “ne’emanus” on the butcher himself, even to issues unrelated to actual shechita, and here we have multiple family members in serious conflict with the laws of the country, and in multiple areas. Doesn’t that raise questions about their suitability for a hechsher? If they have admitted theft and fraud and perjury, how can we trust them not to add some treif when the kosher supply is low?
RL
You are clearly delusional, and also have a neurosis about chareidim. I wouldn’t have bothered responding if DK didn’t make this a post. I don’t know which country you live in, or what their attitude to shchita is, but this “bigger picture” you see is a wish fulfillment fantasy, or connected to something you’re taking.
Americans are for freedom of religion, and Americans are not all that obsessed with animal rights in general, or shchita in particular.
Schita is far from a barely tolerated industry, and there’s no chance in hell it will be banned here before the country goes communist.
Sorry to disillusion you, or contradict the voices in your head or whatever it is that fingerpaints the pictures you see, but most Americans are neither anti semetic or anti chareidi, and they don’t free associate with conspiracy theories straight out of der stuermer whenever the word chareidi comes up. Most people are willing to grant Rabbis the assumption of minimal human integrity and there goes your theory, and your picture…
Stunning should not be used any more than slicing a jugular. The method should be to turn them off like a light switch and there are known electromagnetic methods to disrupt neural systems causing instant death, but we don’t see those used. Instead it’s a battle between an airgun that is like a retractable bullet through the brain, or a knife to the throat. The center of pain and suffering is the brain. Scramble the neural net instantly, faster than any possible nerve signal propagation, and no pain is felt.
Of course since they can’t or won’t implement such things, the better solution is to remove meat from the menu altogether but mankind won’t do that either.
Massive amounts of our agriculture are aimed at providing feed to animals so they can change it from food to muscle tissue and then we kill them so their meat can be feed for us and then convert to our own muscle tissue. It’s multiple inefficient and inhumane steps that our technological civilization should be working to cut out of the picture.
If someone ever comes up with a way to let us digest cellulose directly, there will be no need of the intermediate animals as we will be able to make use of grass and grains directly. May that day come soon.
I personally feel that all kasharut is really just extortion.
Compared to the cruelty inherent in factory farming, the fur trade and hunting, the animal welfare issues arising in shechita are relatively minor. Those countries which banned shechita whilst allowing far crueler practices to continue clearly did so mainly for antisemitic reasons as Sarah points out. Indeed those who called for the banning of shechita in Switzerland in the inter war years publicly stated that they wished to hamper the establishment of an eastern European Jewish community in Switzerland. No politician would want to ban shechita if that might lead to having to take on the farming and hunting lobby. Furthermore such a ban on shechita would not end any alleged welfare abused, but would export them elsewhere as in those countries were shechita is banned, kosher meat is imported. (There is a move in Switzerland to ban the importation of kosher meat by someone who compared shochtim to Nazi concentration camp guards). The European Court of Justice have held that prohibiting shechita on animal welfare grounds is not a breach of Human Rights but that prohibiting the importation of kosher meat would be. Because of that ruling Mohammed, when you change planes at Zurich Airport on returning from fund raising in Tehran you need not fear being asked by a Swiss Immigration Official whether you are hiding a kosher cocktail sausage in your pocket or are you just pleased to see her.
The greatest danger facing shechita is not that it will be banned but that the opponents of shechita can also claim religious conscience to make shechita economically non viable. As I stated in an earlier post, only about one ninth of shechted meat is sold as kosher, the remainder is sold to the non Jewish market. Someone who for reasons of conscience wishes to avoid eating kosher meat because it comes from an animal that has not been stunned before slaughter is at a disadvantage compared to someone who for reasons of conscience wishes to do the opposite because shechted meat sold to Jews is labelled as such whilst shecthed meat sold outside the kosher market is unlabelled and unidentifiable from meat from prestunned cattle. A Jew has a right to eat kosher meat and refuse to eat non kosher meat. A Jew does not however have a right for economic reasons so as to subsidize the kosher market (and keep Hareidim in employment), to hide from a non Jew who might object to doing so, that he is unwittingly eating shechted meat. Therefore respect of the human rights of those who object to eating meat from animals not stunned before slaughter requires shechted meat sold to the non kosher market to be labelled as such so they can avoid that meat if they wish to. Such labelling would be the end of local shecitah as no non kosher meat supplier would wish to get involved in such hassle and possible controversy. Kosher meat would have to be imported and local schoctim and bodkim would need to find another way to make a living. The survival of local schecitah is therefore depended on the goodwill of gentiles in that they ‘overlook’ the obvious fact that as a matter of strict fairness to those who object to eating unstunned meat, such meat should be labelled as such even if this results in bankrupting local shechita. Bad, stupid and irritating behaviour by the shecita industry (such as the rabbis insulting the Unions and by implication law enforcement bodies) may result in that goodwill being lost and gentiles ‘discovering’ the need to protect the rights of those who as a matter of conscience do not wish to unknowingly eat shechted meat.
Reb Leibish,
Does the stun gun at all ease the pain of an animal?
DK, it doesn’t. The animal feels pain as long as there is blood in the brain.
“The greatest danger facing shechita is not that it will be banned but that the opponents of shechita can also claim religious conscience to make shechita economically non viable”
I’ve said more than once, you’re living in a dreamworld.
Is it the pills you’re taking or the pills you stopped taking?
This “danger” is less than the chance of your being hit by a car crossing the street. Something on the order of .0001 percent.
All of your posts consist of the same two things. Anti chareidi bias and your over active imagination, with different words.In yiddish they say di selbe klafte in an anderen shlaier. Pointing out that reality has no connection to your fantasy world has as much effect as pointing it out to 9/11 Truthers or other conspiracy theorists, which is to say, none. A total waste of time.
Talk to the voices in your head, I’m sure they have more patience for you than I do. I had enough.
From Wikipedia:-
Most recently, the debate [about banning ritual slaughter] was reignited by the findings of a 2003 report by the UK government funded Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC). FAWC, which provides advice to the UK government on livestock animal welfare issues, says that the methods employed in Jewish and Islamic ritual slaughter resulted in “severe suffering to animals” and recommended an end to the current exemptions in British law that permit religious slaughter.[8]
FAWC’s concern was based on their finding that cattle require up to two minutes to bleed to death when ritual slaughter is employed. Dr Judy MacArthur Clark, chairwomen of FAWC, explained it to the BBC: “This is a major incision into the animal and to say that it doesn’t suffer is quite ridiculous.”
Peter Jinman, the president of the British Veterinary Association said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that veterinarians respected people’s religious beliefs but also urged for respecting animals. He continued “We’re looking at what is acceptable in the moral and ethical society we live in.”
As I mentioned earlier, far worse cruelty is involved in factory farming, the fur trade and hunting so to concentrate on the last minute of an animals life ‘at the hands of Jews’ while ignoring other far worse welfare issues is antisemitic hypocrisy. Animal rights activists however do not ignore those issues so as far as their demand that shechted meat be labeled if sold outside the kosher market, we have no leg to stand on to deny their logic
Sarah is also right to claim that stunning is in many cases does not work.
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