Let Postville be a Wakeup Call
Kosher slaughterhouse horrors highlight cruelty of modern meat

By NOAM MOHR

PETA’s provocations have given them a bad reputation among Jews. So desperate were they to get out their message about the widespread and extreme cruelties of modern factory farming that they resorted to the offensive tactic of comparing slaughtered animals to Holocaust victims. It made them few friends among the Jewish community.

This time, though, they got it right. Undercover investigators in the world’s largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa filmed egregious acts of cruelty to animals, including the removal of animals’ trachea while still conscious, and leaving animals to suffer and die protracted deaths, still walking around and bellowing in a pool of their own blood. No need to make outrageous comparisons: PETA finally let the cruelty speak for itself. And any caring Jew should listen.

PETA hasn’t been the only one complaining about the horrifying conditions of today’s mass-production farms and slaughterhouses. Virtually every animal welfare organization, from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to Concern for Helping Animals in Israel (CHAI) has pointed to treatment of animals that would make any caring person blanche. Here in the Jewish community, Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) has trumpeted such gratuitous violations of Judaism’s injunctions against unnecessary animal suffering as reason for giving up animal products altogether. It’s easy to see why, when you hear about standard practices on modern farms, among them: routine mutilation of animals without painkillers, keeping animals confined so densely that they cannot even turn around or lie down, forcing animals to live in their own excrement and breathe air so foul it burns their eyes, genetically manipulating animals to grow so fast their bodies collapse under their own weight, exposing animals to weather extremes and beating animals with iron bars and electric prods.

Quite a contrast from Judaism’s teachings that "G-d's tender mercies are over all His creatures," and "It is forbidden, according to the law of the Torah, to inflict pain upon any living creature."

On their website, JewishVeg.com, JVNA lists many Jewish luminaries in support of vegetarianism, including UK Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former Israel Chief Rabbis Abraham Kook and Shlomo Goren and Haifa Chief Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen. Former Ireland Chief Rabbi David Rosen goes so far as to say that, under modern farming conditions, the consumption of meat is halachically unacceptable. [Editor’s Note: Halacha is the continuously evolving body of Jewish religious law.] The organization also presents an impressive amount of scholarship in support of vegetarianism as Judaism’s ideal, along with traditional Jewish vegetarian recipes. 

However, it seems that their message has not reached many Jews, who often believe that Judaism requires eating meat and that kosher meat is humane. There have been no significant efforts by halachic authorities in recent memory to address conditions on factory farms. Indeed, animal welfare issues barely register on the moral radar of most Jews.

Hopefully the exposed barbarity caught on film at the Postville plant will start to eradicate this blind spot in our community. It would certainly be a disaster if it results only in some changes at a single slaughterhouse, while leaving it to secular groups like PETA to address the endemic cruelty. We as individuals should start putting Jewish teachings into practice every time we sit down to dinner by ensuring we do not support animal abuse. Instead of trusting that an OU label [the Orthodox Union's kosher certification] means animals were properly treated – it does not – we should purchase only animal products that are both kosher and certified humane (check out CertifiedHumane.com). Moreover, we should insist that our authorities endorse only such products. Only if there is an outcry among consumers, congregations and rabbis will products be made available that are in line with Jewish teachings on concern for animals. Literally hundreds of millions of suffering animals are depending on our stepping up to the plate and making Jewish principles a reality on modern farms.

What should caring Jews do until humane meat is easy to find? Perhaps JVNA is on to something. After all, passing up the chicken wings for some veggie cholent and potato kugel would do not just our souls, but our bodies, some good.

Related reading:

Investigation reveals slaughter horrors at Agriprocessors (PETA)

Cutting Edge Kashrut (editorial -- Jerusalem Post)

Will the Postville Horrors Shock us into Returning to Jewish Values? (opinion - The Aquarian)