Now that blood has settled, a clearer perspective might be had about the recent brouhaha over shechitah, or Jewish ritual slaughter, at a plant in Iowa.
The beginning of that sentence was meant to jar. Blood and attendant unpleasantness are part of the process of turning livestock into meat, and most people are content to interact only with the final product.
Some, though, choose not to do even that. They include people who feel repulsed by the thought of eating what was once alive, or who think meat consumption wastes natural resources. Others shun meat for health or religious reasons.
Then there are the folks at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who object to all killing of animals because, as Ingrid Newkirk, the group’s co-founder and president, put it, “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy” — they believe that animals are no different from humans.
The Jewish religious tradition forbids causing animals unnecessary pain. But the Jewish faith expressly permits the killing of animals for human needs, including food.
The moral equating of animals and humans is an affront to the essence of Jewish belief, which exalts the human being, alone among G-d’s creations, as, among other things, the possessor of free will, a being capable of choosing to do good or bad.
The notion that humans are mere animals can lead to ethical obscenities. PETA protested to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat about a terrorist attack because a donkey was killed.
PETA also mounted a “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign, comparing killing chickens and cows to murdering Jewish men, women and children.
PETA launched a media blitz several weeks ago — sending copies of surreptitiously filmed and carefully edited videotapes of animals being slaughtered at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, the largest producer of “glatt,” or highest-standard, kosher meat in the nation.
The video, to be sure, was disturbing. Although the PETA “mole” likely witnessed thousands of unremarkable slaughters during his months on the job, the edited film showed some animals that seemed conscious after shechitah. One animal righted itself and took several steps before collapsing.
Every method of animal slaughter yields a small percentage of such unfortunate results. PETA claims, though, that what was depicted on its video represents a quarter of the animals slaughtered over the seven-weeks during which the video was made.
There is reason to be skeptical about this. A subsequent two-day visit to the plant by Dr. I. M. Levinger, a veterinary surgeon and physiologist, yielded testimony that, of the as many as 150 animals he saw slaughtered, only one cow exhibited any conscious activity after shechitah.
USDA inspectors are typically present during slaughter to ensure that the process complies with federal standards. The inspectors at the plant during the filming presumably saw the entire picture, and never complained about an inordinately high number of post-slaughter displays of consciousness.
A high-level USDA official visited the plant after PETA released its video to observe the allegedly inhumane practices and take appropriate action. What he saw apparently persuaded him that there was no need to close the plant or alter its basic practices.
Likewise, top officials from the kashrut organizations that certify Agriprocessors’ meat visited the plant to monitor the shechitah and found that signs of post-slaughter consciousness were extremely rare.
Those observations confirm what scientific theory would have predicted: that the incidence of displays of post-slaughter consciousness is more rare in shechitah than when non-kosher methods of slaughter are employed.
That is because — as Dr. S. D. Rosen, M.A., M.D., Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, London, noted earlier this year in a monograph in the Veterinary Record — studies have shown that after the cutting of the trachea, esophagus and carotid arteries — the shechitah process in essence — an animal’s consciousness is lost within approximately two seconds.
The evidence suggests, therefore, that PETA is grossly exaggerating the frequency of post-shechitah signs of consciousness at the plant.
Perhaps that should not be surprising. While the group’s concern that animals not be caused unnecessary pain is commendable, PETA also has an ultimate, and openly declared, goal to stop people from eating meat.
So, if a bit of dissembling is necessary to move in that direction — well wouldn’t you stretch the truth to save Jews from Nazis?
Precision, though, is not the only thing PETA seems prepared to sacrifice to achieve its goal. Religious liberty is expendable as well.
PETA is now demanding that U.S. government regulations regarding animal slaughter be changed and that the type of restraining pen required by some decisors of Jewish law be outlawed.
These are not minor points. They touch upon the issue of rabbinic authority and religious autonomy.
And that game is zero-sum. What constitutes proper animal-slaughter methods for observant American Jews will be determined in the future by either rabbis or advocates for animal rights.
The German Nazis outlawed shechitah when they came to power. Animal rights activists have succeeded in banning it in several European countries.
If PETA’s misleading campaign is not seen for the partisan salvo it is, our own country may be next.
Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America. This article was provided by Am Echad Resources.
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