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More on Shechita

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It comes as no surprise to me that more European countries are trying to make life difficult for Jews in various ways. But how should we react? Is it worth fighting prejudice? Should this be an issue of freedom of religious practice? But then what are the boundaries? The increasing attempts to restrict Shechita (Jewish ritual slaughter) and ban circumcision are creating such a negative climate for Jews that they reinforce the strong arguments for having a homeland where we can practice our religion unimpeded. However, as with many issues of religious practice, it is not that simple, because sometimes they appear to conflict with other moral and ethical imperatives.

There are those who think this is a matter for no compromise. Belgium is a strange little country where rival parties scrap over meagre rewards. It has three separate regions, five provinces, and three official languages. The parliament of French-speaking Wallonia has voted to ban ritual slaughter. Of all the major issues it has to deal with—economic, social and safety—this seems to be its priority. Now we know it is not really about cruelty to animals. Because if it were, then they would ban animal slaughter altogether (which, as my readers know, I am all in favor of, though it’s not going to happen in my lifetime).

Look at the countries who have banned Shechita: Switzerland in 1893, Norway in 1930, Nazi Germany in 1933, and Sweden in 1937. None known for their love of Jews. The EU is now preparing to ban Shechita across the board unless animals are stunned, and it will require that kosher slaughtered meat be labelled as such when passed on to the wider market.

The new angle is the requirement to stun an animal before killing it. Up to now Judaism has rejected stunning on the grounds that it doesn’t help animals and actually injures organs which make the animal unacceptable. Anyone who has seen the stunning process in action knows that the failure rate of stunning runs between 10-20% when equipment is perfectly clean, up-to-date, and free of interference—which it rarely is. Like the electrocution of humans, stunning can take time and cause great pain. Whereas cutting the supply of oxygen and blood to the brain causes instantaneous loss of consciousness. So, given that we are dealing with prejudice here, how should we react?

One way of course is to fight it using whatever political influence one has. The only way of doing this with a chance of success in Europe nowadays is to ally with the Muslim communities on matters of religious freedom. Which Jews have done hitherto. It is votes that decide policies. The trouble is that more and more Muslim authorities are now considering permitting stunning. So that Jewish power on this issue is even further diluted.

Muslim religious slaughter, called Dhabihah, is similar to Shechita, but far less strict or rigorous, so that kosher slaughter meets Muslim standards, but not vice-versa. The Jewish market is relatively small. After slaughter animals are examined, and if found defective in some way that matters in Jewish law, they are usually sold to non-Jewish butchers. So too are parts of the animal we are not allowed to eat. Labelling meat as coming from Jewish sources could drive down its value on the wider market and that would raises the cost of local kosher meat.

The other option, as already happens in those Aryan Northern European states that ban Shechita, is to import kosher meat from areas that do not ban it. Or, of course, one could move either east to Israel or west to Britain or the USA, where there is no problem.

My brother-in-law Dr. Henri Rosenberg has campaigned for a different approach. He argues that there are strong halachic grounds for allowing stunning. Instead of campaigning against stunning, which threatens our common alliance with Islam, it would be better to accept the new reality. Indeed, this debate took place first in response to Hitler’s ban (Y.Sh). The prominent rabbis of Eastern Europe were consulted. Although there was a case to be made that stunning did not contravene Jewish law, the overwhelming body of opinion was that one should not make concessions on principle, for fear that showing weakness would encourage other demands. In other words, a meta-legal argument rather than a legal one.

Since we are not dealing with a Hitler, but a lower and less pernicious form of prejudice, my brother-in-law argues one ought to consider making concessions rather than face defeat. While I respect his opinion and his guts in supporting his position in public, I want to present an alternative point of view.

We Jews have always split between the fighters and the compromisers. Israel is usually associated with fighters and the Diaspora with compromisers (or appeasers, depending on whose side you take).

There is a principle in Jewish Law called Chanifa—literally a law against groveling or sycophancy. The Talmud discusses it in tractate Sotah (41 a&b) in the context of standing up to Roman authority. This is supported by some great authorities from the Medieval Rabbeynu Tam to the more recent Rav Moshe Feinstein. Should one grovel or stand up and fight, as we have often had to do in the past? Should we compromise or stand firm on principle? Will we look weak if we concede, even on issues that are not essential? Perhaps the Europeans should consider a campaign of civil disobedience, fighting restrictions on our religious practices on the competing principle of denying our human rights.

In 1936 Poland banned Shechita. The Bobov Chasidim led a campaign of resistance—a boycott that hurt the government’s revenues and had Jews going without meat until the powers relented.

There is a similar problem with circumcision. Would it make any difference if children were anesthetized? There is a move in Norway to ban circumcision of boys under the age of 16 and several other measures which have been blasted as an attack on minorities. Advocates claim that circumcision results in mental and physical harm to children and is a serious violation of human rights. Spurious arguments about psychological damage are childish. We might as well ban parenthood for the psychological damage parents do to their children. Besides, we circumcised Jews seem to be doing pretty well. And I haven’t heard anyone complain that it is his brit that has ruined his sex live. The problem there is that we insist on circumcision within eight days, whereas in Islam the ritual is done much later, around 13. I bet no one dares suggest that that’s why Muslims are more prone to violent jihad! And there’s absolutely no comparison to the horrific female mutilation (it is not circumcision, by definition) where a pleasure giving organ is removed altogether. The arguments on both issues, Shechita and circumcision, are less scientific than ideological.

To complicate the issue, there are problematic aspects of Shechita that apply even where anti-Semitism is no argument. I would like to see the rabbinates in the forefront of urging humane methods of the sort that Dr. Temple Grandin advocates This week, Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has decided to put its foot down banning unacceptable hoists and shackling for slaughterhouses in Israel and for imported shechita. Why, you might well ask, didn’t the Chief Rabbinate do it ? Sadly we know the reason why. Cruelty to animals, though a biblical law, is universally minimized in many very Orthodox communities.

On the other hand a Califorinian judge has just thrown out a human rights suit against Chabad over swinging chickens over people’s heads in the ceremony of Kapparot before Yom Kippur. The judge refused to allow the suit on the grounds that one ought not to ban a longstanding religious custom. I wish he hadn’t. Kapparot are quite unnecessary and cruel to chickens. Sometimes we need to be rescued from our own blindness. But this illustrates perfectly the difference between Europe and the USA. One culture respects Judaism (perhaps too much); the other does not.

The arguments in Europe are clearly political rather than humane. I wonder if we should not just ignore them, instead of trying to plea. Why would we want to live in such countries anyway? When empires are intolerant of different religions or ideologies, they have always declined. When they have been tolerant, they have flourished. Mainland Europe’s antipathy towards Judaism is a sure sign of its moral decline. Time to move.

4 thoughts on “More on Shechita

  1. As always an interesting article, but I think it suffers from the regular bias of Europe always bad while USA always good. For the sake of transparency, I should declare that I am Swiss and Jewish. It is noticeable that Jews are not leaving Belguim, Sweden, Norway, or Switzerland in droves, but like living in those countries, even though there may be some difficulties. It is not as if going to live in Israel is not without difficulty. The Swiss Jewish community is this year celebrating 150 years of Jewish life in Switzerland with a travelling exhibition. See: http://150.swissjews.ch/en/wanderausstellung/ On a personal level I am for pre-stunning. It may or may not be halachicly acceptable, but on a moral level I think it is a better way to treat animals. I don't feel that Halachah always leads to justice or good ethics. As pointed out, "Cruelty to animals, though a biblical law, is universally minimized in many very Orthodox communities." It might have gone on to say that there have been a number of recent criminal cases of corruption and fraud in kosher slaughter houses in the USA. Even if pre-stunning fails 20% of the time, that is a success at 80% of the time and that is an improvement. It is wrong to suggest that the issue is not really about rital slaughter, but small minded politics and anti-semites jumping on the band-wagon. France which does allow shechitah has seen a lot of Jews leave for Israel. Germany has seen the size of its Jewish community increase. A more nuanced article with less anto Europe prejudice, would have made the other important points discussed here have greater strength.

  2. Thank you very much for your critique. I really appreciate yoiur taking the time to respond.

    I certainly did not intend to paint the USA all good by any means, just very different ( for better and for worse). After all I think the USA allows some Jews to get away with far too much because of the system of Pork Barrel Politics which Charedi communities use to get away with blue murder on many issues.

    I know full well that Jews continue to live in all sorts of different countries. Why not? I bliueve in free choice. And of course Switzerland is a case in point, having banned Shechitah for longer than anyone else and Jews still survive and thrive. Despite the very poor record of the Swiss not just during the war. The price of course is that Jews do niot campaign for Schevchita there. They accommodate. And perhaps that's the answer. Or at any rate ONE answer.

    Thats really my main point. Either put up and shut up or, if one doesn't like it, move on. But first we should put our own house in order. I advocate humane treatment. I would like to go further and ban all animal slaughter. And I don't object to stunning in principle, only that I have seen that it not as humane as its advocates claim and I do believe there's a lot of hypocrisy.

    One thing I think we can agree on. We Jews are a funny lot, defying category and logic. Thats what makes us so divided and problematic. And most of our religious leaders do not help! But that is also our strength and the way we survive!

  3. Dear Jeremy,
    as much as I dislike charedi men it does not appear to me that their form of chicken ritual is cruel. I have seen on youtube how they do it in Israel. They do not swing the chicken. They take it carefully into their hands and make a gentle circle movements over the head and children's heads. It is does not look stressful for the chicken. The chicken appears to be very calm. It is superstitious but we do a lot of superstitious things even as modern Jews orthodox or not. I have a problem with the other things they do in God's name in Israel but apparently nowhere else or at least not publicly. They harass women and little girls and throw stones when they are not dressed the way they imagine and somebody murdered and injured several people at the gay parade. There are many awful things like that that happen in Israel. Most of the time nobody gets arrested and if the Israeli police arrest a murderer and does not take long and he is free again. They appear to be even uneducated regarding moral and ethical laws of Judaism written in the Torah. What they do is murder. It says: "You shall love your neighbour as you love yourself" and "You shall not murder". They seemed to have never learnt these lines despite being obligated going to the Jeshivah all their life. The Talmud also has many ethical laws even regarding women that require a good treatment which is not what the Charedi men do.
    Regarding living as a religious Jew in Europe. It is nearly impossible to keep even a vegetarian diet in Germany. It is not obligatory to list all ingredients on the package or mark them as vegetarian. Many products have animal fat. The kosher guide is extremely limited and changes a lot or actually worse they leave out products every time. You also need a smart phone and use the internet on that to have permanent access. They no longer sell kosher guides as books which is completely useless to me and my parents. You also need special vegetarian or Bio shops nearby which is not so easy available where my parents live which is in the middle of nowhere. Everything is limited when I visit them. If there is kosher shop with kosher meat and other products it is extremely limited even in Berlin. Their beef is a very bad quality. It is more fat than meet. I need the iron. I am glad that I live in London again and in a very Jewish environment where I have all kosher shops especially butchers all around me. I just need to go downstairs. It is at my door step. I am spoilt rotten here. England at least marks all UK products as vegetarian and tells you exactly what is in it which makes it easy to eat vegetarian.

    1. Sabine
      You make some very good points and I agree with them.
      It is easier to keep Judaism if you live in a community with all its facilities.
      But I stil do not agree with using chickens for kapparot.
      Your argument in favour, sounds a little those who claim bulls like bullfighting or foxes enjoy the hunt!
      if the chickens are quietr it might just be because they are terrified!
      Anyway enjoy Yom Tov

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