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Now that the blood has settled, a clearer perspective might be had about the recent brouhaha over shechita, or Jewish ritual slaughter, at a meat-processing plant in Iowa. Yes, the beginning of that sentence was meant to jar. Blood and attendant unpleasantness are part and parcel 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 are repulsed by the thought of eating what was once alive, and others who feel that meat consumption is a wasteful use of natural resources. Yet others shun meat for health or religious reasons. And then there are the folks at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, who object to all killing of animals because, as Ingrid Newkirk, the group's co-founder and president, famously put it, "a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy" -- because of their belief, in other words, that animals are no different from humans. The Jewish religious tradition forbids causing animals unnecessary pain. And there are observant Jews who are vegetarians; our tradition even teaches that the first man and woman -- indeed all of humanity until Noah -- were divinely forbidden to eat meat. But the Jewish faith expressly permits the killing of animals for human needs, including food. Which animals may be eaten and how to dispatch them are topics dealt with at considerable length in Jewish legal literature. Indeed, the "PETA Principle," the moral equating of animals and humans, is an affront to the very essence of Jewish belief, which exalts the human being, alone among God's creations, as, among other things, the possessor of free will, a being capable of choosing to do good or bad. That distinction is introduced in Genesis, where the first man is commanded to "rule over" the animal world.
The notion that humans are mere animals can lead to ethical obscenities, like PETA's appeal to the director of the federal penitentiary where Timothy McVeigh was awaiting execution, that the mass murderer not be served meat so that he "not be allowed to take even one more life." Or the group's lodging of a protest with Yasir Arafat over a terrorist attack because the donkey carrying the explosives detonated in the attack was killed. Or its "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign, comparing the killing of chickens and cows to the murder of Jewish men, women and children. Or solemn declarations like Ms. Newkirk's that "Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses." And so when PETA launched a media blitz several weeks ago, sending scores of journalists and others 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 immediate reaction on the part of some Jewish organizations and many of those in the kosher food industry was understandably negative. The video, to be sure, was disturbing. Although the PETA "mole" who secretly recorded the film likely witnessed thousands of unremarkable slaughters during his months on the job, the edited film showed a number of animals that seemed conscious after the act of shechita. In one case, an animal even righted itself and took several steps before collapsing. Every method of animal slaughter yields a small percentage of such unfortunate results, when some degree of consciousness persists longer than it should. What PETA claims, though, is that what was depicted on its edited video of operations at the Iowa plant represents fully a quarter of the animals slaughtered over the seven-week period during which the video was made. There is reason to be skeptical about this claim. A subsequent visit to the plant by Dr. I.M. Levinger, a veterinary surgeon and physiologist, yielded his testimony that, of the as many as 150 animals he saw slaughtered over the course of his two-day visit, only a single cow exhibited any conscious activity after shechita. What is more, USDA inspectors are typically present on the killing floor during animal slaughter, to ensure that the process complies with federal standards. The inspectors present at the Postville plant during the period PETA compiled the images in its video presumably saw the entire picture, and never complained about any inordinately high number of post-slaughter displays of consciousness. A high-level USDA official, for that matter, visited the plant after PETA released its video to personally observe the allegedly inhumane practices and take appropriate action; what he saw apparently persuaded him that there was no need to shut down the plant or alter its basic practices. Likewise, top officials from the kashrut organizations that certify AgriProcessors' meat visited the plant to monitor the shechita process and found that signs of post-slaughter consciousness were extremely rare. Indeed, Iowa's Secretary of Agriculture, Patty Judge, who had initially expressed her deep chagrin after watching PETA's video -- even calling for a federal investigation -- concluded, after a personal visit to the plant, that the shechita there "... was humane... and there was absolutely no problem with the way they [the animals] were handled." Those personal observations confirm what scientific theory would have predicted: that the incidence of displays of post-slaughter consciousness is more rare in cases of shechita than when non-kosher methods of slaughter are employed. That is because, as Dr. S.D. Rosen, MA, MD, 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 shechita process in essence -- an animal's consciousness is lost within approximately two seconds, and irreversibly. The evidence would appear to suggest, therefore, that PETA is grossly exaggerating the frequency of post-shechita signs of consciousness at the Iowa plant. Perhaps it should not be surprising that PETA's 25% figure differs so dramatically from what others have seen. Because, 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. And 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 in order to achieve its goal. Our nation's commitment to religious liberty, in PETA's eyes, is eminently expendable as well. Even though the Iowa plant has discontinued a bleeding-facilitating arterial cut that PETA deemed a "dismemberment" of live animals, the animal rights group is now demanding, among other things, that U.S. government regulations regarding animal slaughter be changed in fundamental ways and that the type of restraining pen required by some decisors of Jewish law be outlawed. These are not minor points; they touch, and not gently, 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 necessarily be determined in the future either by rabbis or by advocates for animal-rights. Shechita was attacked and outlawed by the Nazis when they came to power in Germany. Today, animal rights activists have succeeded in banning it in several European and Scandinavian countries. If PETA's misleading campaign is not seen for the partisan salvo it is, our own country may be next. Courtesy of Am Echad Resources
Published: Sunday, December 26, 2004
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PETA's Response
A response to Rabbi Avi Shafran’s “The PETA Principle”
by Benjamin Goldsmith, PETA
In his recent article titled “The PETA Principle,” Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for Agudath Israel, offers his thoughts on PETA’s campaign for improved animal welfare standards at AgriProcessors. We appreciate Rabbi Shafran’s clear concern for animal welfare and would like to address the issues he raises.
In the wake of the slaughterhouse scandal, AgriProcessors has not been able to find a single scientist, animal welfare expert, or veterinarian who is willing to defend the shoddy slaughter practices we documented.
PETA, on the other hand, has received an outpouring of support from leaders in the veterinary, animal welfare, and even meat industries, as well as in the Jewish community, who were shocked by the brazenly cruel treatment of animals that has, for years, been the norm at AgriProcessors.
Dr. Temple Grandin, consultant to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the American Meat Institute, did not mince words after viewing the tapes, stating, “I thought it was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen.” Dr. Lester Friedlander, a former USDA kosher slaughter inspector, echoed these sentiments, writing, “The footage captured by PETA represents the most egregious violation of the USDA Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA) I have ever witnessed.”
Our investigator witnessed the slaughter of 278 cattle; one-fourth were clearly and inarguably (according to scientists) still conscious after they were dumped onto the concrete floor, roughly a minute after shechita. Contrary to what one would hope and expect, for the past ten years, there have not been USDA inspectors assigned to the kill floor of any slaughterhouses. Thus, there were none there during the five hours that our investigator was present, on six occasions over the course of about seven weeks.
Three weeks after our investigation was made public, AgriProcessors killed animals properly for Dr. Levinger. Of course, this is encouraging, but it actually validates our position, proving that AgriProcessors could have slaughtered animals humanely all along but choose not to. We guarantee that of the 150 animals Dr. Levinger watched slaughtered, not one stood up or showed the other signs of consciousness that we documented in one-fourth of animals slaughtered.
AgriProcessors’ recent willingness to invite government inspectors to its plant is like a serial killer calling the police over to his house to watch him not kill people: “See, I'm not killing anyone.” Criminals may sometimes act in accordance with the law, but that does not exonerate them for their crimes. That things are so different from what we documented shows that even AgriProcessors understands that their previous actions were unacceptable.
The animal welfare community is not asking much of AgriProcessors; we are only requesting that they adopt the widely-accepted regulatory standards for religious slaughter developed by the Food Marketing Institute. These guidelines, which can be read at GoVeg.com or FMI.org, will ensure that AgriProcessors’ handling and slaughter practices are in keeping with Judaism’s inherent and laudable commitment to kindness and respect for animals.
Striking animals in the face with electric prods, ripping their tracheas and esophagi out while they’re fully conscious, slaughtering them in a haphazard way—these things were happening at AgriProcessors, in what can only be seen as a complete denial of Judaism’s firm commitment to compassion. All Jews will surely agree that the standards that PETA, along with the Rabbinic Assembly of the Conservative movement and a swelling number of Jews from across the spectrum of Judaism, recommends will ensure that kosher slaughter is consistently quick and humane, as provided for in the Torah.
No one can deny that, physiologically, “where pain is concerned, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” This does not mean that all animals are morally equivalent; it simply conveys that God designed us out of flesh, blood, bone, and he endowed us with the same capacity to feel pain. No scientist will deny this, because it’s true. And watching as they struggle to stand and flee while their windpipes hang from their bloody throats, one cannot deny that the animals at AgriProcessors felt immeasurable agony and terror as they fought against death.
Indeed, our respect for the uniquely human ability to make complex moral calculations is central to our mission at PETA. As human beings, we have an obligation to make compassionate choices when possible. As Rabbi Shafran notes, for many, this calculation leads them to vegetarianism. For all, however, it should lead to profound moral outrage at the horrific and consistent cruelty to animals perpetrated by AgriProcessors for so many years.
In closing, please consider that PETA has never been duplicitous; you may disagree with where we stand, but we have never exaggerated and we never would exaggerate. In addition to hurting our credibility, something we would not jeopardize, we have supplied our video and all relevant documentation and factual support to three government agencies. Any exaggeration on our part would be criminal in nature and would subject us to forfeiture of our nonprofit status and thus would, most likely, lead to our demise. As the world’s largest animal rights organization, with more than 800,000 members and supporters and a 25-year history, this is not something we would ever do.
After reviewing the video documentation and reading additional expert and rabbinical testimony, readers will surely agree with Rabbi Barry Schwartz of the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ Task Force on Kashrut, who said, “The suffering of these animals during slaughter is sickening. Death is neither quick nor merciful. If this is kosher, then we have a big problem.”
Benjamin Goldsmith is a campaign coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
(56) Avi Shafran, 28/12/2004
THE AUTHOR'S RESPONSE
I thank Mr. Goldsmith for his response to my piece on the AgriProcessors controversy.
The issue of PETA’s core philosophy is not one that I will use this space to discuss further; ample material is available to anyone who wishes to explore in that direction. But I do feel it necessary to note that, contrary to what Mr. Goldsmith writes, PETA’s co-founder and president declared that “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy” (Vogue magazine, 1989) not in the context of the sensation of pain but rather as a coda to her contention that "There is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights.” As she concluded, “They are all mammals.”
And so, with all due respect to Mr. Goldsmith’s assurance that PETA “has never been duplicitous” and “never would exaggerate,” I must remain skeptical as well about PETA’s assertion of a 25% rate of consciousness after shechita at the plant during the period in question. The current rate seems to be something less than 1%.
Mr. Goldsmith asserts that AgriProcessors, like “criminals [who] sometimes act in accordance with the law,” has simply changed its procedures. But the only relevant change instituted in the interim was something that, according to veterinary expert Dr. I. M. Levinger, who recently spent two days observing shechita at AgriProcessors, would have little or no impact on the rate of animals that remain conscious after shechita.
What Mr. Goldsmith characterizes as the “ripping” of animals’ tracheas and esophagi was in fact the manipulation of those neck organs to facilitate a second cut to the carotid arteries – to better bleed the animals, and hence render them unconscious even more quickly. Such manipulation is not required by Jewish law, however, and it is that procedure that has now been discontinued (although a second cut to the carotids is till being done). If the current practices at the plant yield an acceptably miniscule post-shechita consciousness rate, as Dr. Levinger and a host of government and rabbinic officials have testified, there is no reason to believe that a dramatically higher consciousness rate was the product of a procedure designed to stimulate even more rapid bleeding.
The discrepancy between what Mr. Goldsmith claims is shown on PETA’s full videotape and the unanimous testimony regarding the current situation at AgriProcessors is striking. More striking still is the internal tension inherent in Mr. Goldsmith’s response to my article.
On the one hand, he seems to accept the testimony that the procedures currently in place at AgriProcessors are entirely humane, and that only a tiny percentage of animals – well within normal and acceptable bounds – display signs of post-shechita consciousness. But then he goes on to insist that AgriProcessors must make yet additional changes to their procedures.
If shechita as currently practiced is in fact, as Mr. Goldsmith concedes, humane, whence the necessity for further changes?
Mr. Goldsmith asserts that his group is “not asking much” of AgriProcessors or other kosher meat producers. And, at least to an innocent eye, what PETA is in fact demanding of all kosher meat processing facilities sounds innocuous: that such facilities be held to “the widely-accepted regulatory standards for religious slaughter developed by the Food Marketing Institute.”
Those standards, though – which, incidentally, go far beyond what the government has determined to be the requirements of humane slaughter, and were unilaterally compiled without any consultation with kashrut authorities – are not at all “widely accepted.” On the contrary, they have been widely rejected, as they were adjudged by religious authorities many months ago to be incompatible with the ritual requirements of shechita. The incompatibility led fifteen Jewish kashrut experts and organizational heads,
representing the full gamut of the glatt kosher meat producing and consuming community in the United States, to go on written record three-quarters of a year ago informing FMI that its standards “could improperly interfere with
our religious ritual requirements.” And requesting that the standards be modified accordingly.
Which leads to the crux of the issue, my original article’s bottom line: Who will determine how shechita is done in the United States – rabbinic authorities or non-Jewish partisan groups? By petitioning U.S. governmental agencies to impose new rules on Jewish ritual (and despite the fact that no one is pointing to anything objectionable transpiring at AgriProcessors), by pressuring supermarket chains to stop doing business with kosher meat suppliers that are in full compliance with religious and federal law but do not follow the religiously objectionable and legally excessive standards unilaterally promulgated by the FMI, PETA has crossed a dangerous line. And that should alarm anyone committed to religious liberty.
Avi Shafran
(55) sandra sampey, 13/9/2008
in an ideal world
Jews do not approve of such barbaric treatment to animals. That's why there are the laws of kashrut in the first place.
(54) John R. Quinn, 23/8/2008
brutality is brutality
I have visited non-kosher slaughterhouses and the situation is not much better: sentient animals die in terror and agony no matter the religious justification - or lack of it. What bothers me is that the Jews, victims of a remoresless, unfeeling killing machine (the Holocaust) themselves, could so blithely approve of similar, such barbaric treatment of so-called "lesser creatures" simply because they are not human. God's Chosen People? Prove it!