Animal Rights, Jewish Rights and Kashrut
For the video discussion:
https://youtu.be/u2Rh_oJ_YMg?si=gThIFvoRu2sKMZwW
This portion, Shmini ( Leviticus 11), includes
in it some of the key principals of kashrut, so it gives us an opportunity to
explore how and why it is such a controversial topic:
For centuries, kashrut was a
way of distinguishing Jews from their neighbors, even from their Muslim
neighbors who observed some variation on the method of Shechitah, or
slaughtering of the animal.
Right now- it is a critical
matter in Europe, where countries are pushing a ban on both Jewish and Muslim
kosher & halal slaughter.
Thus, the European Union Court
in effect allowed the banning of kosher meat by requiring stunning before
Shechita, a method which has been proven by animal rights activists, such as
Temple Grandin, to be ineffective and often itself, an act of painful cruelty.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/hunting-jews-europe-ban-kosher-slaughter
Elliot Abrams, one of
America’s most senior foreign policy experts, now on the US Advisory Commission
on Public Diplomacy.
We saw
another form on Feb. 13, 2024, when the so-called European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR) ruled that Belgium was entirely free to ban kosher slaughter.
In
regards to freedom of religion, the court reduced it in the context of animal
rights:
“The
Court considered that the protection of public morals, to which Article 9 of
the Convention referred, could not be understood as being intended solely to
protect human dignity in the sphere of inter-personal relations. The Convention
was not indifferent to the living environment of individuals covered by its
protection and in particular to animals, whose protection had already been
considered by the Court. Accordingly, the Convention could not be interpreted
as promoting the absolute upholding of the rights and freedoms it enshrined
without regard to animal suffering.”
The writer comments:
Let’s
be clear: The court found that the practice of Judaism endangered “public
morals.” This, on the continent where the very existence of Jews was not so
long ago considered a threat to public morals. Nor is Belgium alone; kosher
slaughter is also banned in Sweden, Iceland, Norway, and Slovenia. So far. The
president of the European Jewish Congress, Ariel Muzicant, said after
the February ruling that “We are already seeing attempts across Europe to
follow this Belgian ban, now sadly legitimised by the ECHR.”
Europe’s hypocrisy is visible
to all:
Ira Rifkin
If
easing animal cruelty is the motivation, why are factory farming, the isolation
and confining of veal calves, the cutting of hens’ beaks, the production of
foie gras and the endless pregnancies that dairy cows are forced to endure also
not outlawed? Then there is the continued use of animals for human medical
research and the legality of hunting strictly for sport.
But there is nothing new under
the sun. It is not an attempt to put Muslims in
their place( politely pushing them back to North Africa and the Middle
East) with Jews as an incidental target. .
Jews have been targeted all
along.
Here is a document, from my
father’s archives. Of the same law being pushed in post-Holocaust Germany:
To make it short and simple,
the same law was being promulgated in July 6 1951 news article., Allgemeine:
New “Animal Protection” in
Bavaria:
The limitation on the killing
of animals:The demand for a ban on kosher slaughter
He calls this proposed law the
height of hypocrisy, a shameless attempt to gain votes in an election.
. A
few months ago, the new head of the Bavarian State Compensation Office
described the reparations as a crime against the Bavarian people; Now people in
the same city are declaring that slaughtering must be banned for reasons of
humanity. In a country where the cry of pain of countless murdered Jews went
almost unheard, it must be more than strange to display excessive love for
animals by accusing Jews of crimes against humanity for slaughtering them.
Strutting
around in the toga of animal friendliness has long been a well-known
anti-Semitic
practice. It's always the same circles: they preach love for
animals
and trample on charity. We remember the Nazis, who banned slaughter
and
practiced the mass slaughter of entire groups of people
He then went on to list the
many exceptionally cruel methods of slaughter that were standard:
Should
we also point out the cruel method of killing crabs, eels or rabbits? Compare
also the ritual killing of poultry and the tearing off of the heads of pigeons
and chickens, which is common in non-Jewish households, as well as the
slaughter of geese and ducks with blunt or jagged knives, which is carried out
by unprofessional people. These domestic slaughters fly in the face of all
humanity.
The great irony, he pointed
out, that it was the German Military ,in 1894 ,that had determined that :
On the
basis of this report, the army administration made killing by cutting the neck
compulsory in the meat canning factories that worked for the army. The same
thing had been ordered at that time by the Dutch War Ministry for similar
considerations.
Going back to Dr. Temple
Grandin, one of the foremost experts on animal care, she is working with
Rabbinic authorities to introduce methods that are effective, work with rules
of kashrut, to everyone’s benefit, and not grandstanding while there are greater
cruelty issues abounding.
So, let’s take a quick glance
at some principals of kashrut, based on the text of the Torah
The right to eat meat is given
to the descendants of Noah after the flood, a concession to humanity, which has
become violent, with the limitation that the blood must be poured out. The killing
of animals is put on a lower level than that of the killing of man, yet there
is a recognition of the concession to human appetite, not a whole sale blessing
(This is different from the attitude to sex--in Christian scriptures, it is a
concession to human passion- Paul -Better to marry than burn in hell,
Identification of the fruit of the garden with sexuality. It is missing in main
Jewish sources, though it may have been in the sects that left us the Dead Sea
scroll, and are , since then, dead themselves.
In Rabbinic law, this
concession is also basis for universal prohibition of " Ever Min
HaChay"- the limb of a living being.
This is a minimum moral
standard for all humanity. For example.a Bedouin custom( recorded in ancient
documents also)- a pre-Moslem practice--cutting a live camel and eating it in
pieces. Till today, in China- brain of live monkeys. Modern version--Oyster on
the half-shell, the lobster boiled alive.
These two principles become
one of the pillars of kashrut:
1)
Ever min ha hay-- The
animal must be killed before eaten. This is expanded upon in Lev. 17:15 “That
which dies by itself or torn of beasts-- the word: terefah.Torn by wild beasts;
Man is distinguished from the wild animal. That is basis for act of killing
which minimizes injury and torment to the animal.
2) Dam-Life blood= also backed
explicitly in Lev 17; the blood must be spilled out.. . This is basis for
shechitah, as the methiod of killing which combines least pain with the
immediate loss of blood.( followed up by salting or broiling to remove most
blood).
Very clear that one of the
very central functions of kashrut is to recognize that the cruel and savage act
of eating meat is a concession to our weaknesses, and perhaps our physical
needs, with the attempt to minimize pain
& cruelty and to sensitize us to suffering, the very broad category of
Tsaar Baalei Chayim.
By the way, many of the very
great Rabbis were vegetarian. Rav kook., David Hakohen, Shaar Yashuv Kohen,
Rabbi Sacks, Rabbi Wolpe.
What other value goes into the component of kashrut?
There is the aspect of health, which is incorporated into
the rules of examination of the animal, which exclude diseased animals,”A
danger is more forbidden than that which is forbidden. “ Sakana hamira me
isura.
There is the aspects of national distinction, which
separates the Jew from gentile ( as it separates Egyptian from Hebrew). This is
basis for exclusion of certain animals, such as pig, or horse, or camel.
2) Other animal rights issues in kashrut:
a) The limitation of permitted land animals : Lev 11,.
to those w/ split hoof-chew
cud-, permitted birds limited to chicken, duck, pigeon, goose families.
Elimination of beast of prey-- to prevent identification with violence ( common
practice--eating tiger heart to gain courage of tiger).
b )Restriction of the boiling of calf with mother's milk.
Mentioned three times, in relation to festivals. Extended to not cooking
together, separate dishes, waiting 24 hours after meat.
Implicit -Emotional sympathy
with the cow as a mother with feelings.
Now, today, we have a new
option, one which goes around any bans on kashrut by hypocrites:
Versus
There are great debates going
on now in the kosher world:
With DNA replicated meats,
grown from a lab sample of a strand of meat:
1)
Is it kosher if the
donor animal was still alive?
2)
Must the donor animal
be kosher slaughtered?
3)
What if the donor
animal was itself not a kosher animal?
4)
Is that meat now
fleishig? Or Parve?
Finally, once the whole world
has gone over to veggie burgers, what happens to Jewish distinctiveness?
Also, for all who think
vegetarianism is a solution for animal cruelty, what will happen to the
billions of domestic chickens and turkeys and cows that will be unemployed and
no longer edible. What happens as they are released to the wild to fend on their
own? Will they be left to starve to death slowly on the farm as the farmer has
no money to feed and care for them?
It will be fascinating to see
how this plays out.
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