Posted on 05/30/2010 12:08:30 AM PDT by Nachum
The idea that god changes with the times is your own construct. I have not suggested it anywhere.
Your comments are obviously based on ignorance. Let me attempt to correct that.
Shechitah (kosher slaughter) is the way that Jews have been instructed by G-d to humanely kill food animals. It is not for us to decide that G-d’s laws are “outdated” and up for “modernization” by mortal Man.
Shechitah is NOT the “slitting of the throat” that you ignorantly suggest, but a simultaneous severing of the trachea, esophagus, carotid arteries, and jugular vein with a super-sharp special knife which has been minutely inspected just before the slaughter. The motion of the knife must be in one smooth, continuous motion and results in an actual partial decapitation. The animal collapses unconscious within seconds. Veterinarian Dr. Temple Grandin, who has revolutionized the humane slaughter of animals, has stated that shechitah, properly done, is completely humane. Also, Dr. Dukes of the Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine has stated that the animal is unconscious within seconds of the incision.
Rendering an animal unconscious by use of electric stunners or captive bolt pistols has a high failure rate and often results in the poor animal having to be shot or stunned multiple times.
Historically, countries which have banned shechitah have done so as part of a wave of anti-Semitism. Nazi Germany and Italy both, for example, banned shechitah. It was subsequently reinstated after WWII. Other countries with a strong anti-Semitic influence have also been banning shechitah (such as Switzerland) as an anti-Jewish measure.
So, this is less of a “let’s be humane to animals” issue than it is “let’s stick it to the Jews” issue, and observant Jews are NOT fooled. We’ve seen this before.
looks like NZ wants to be judenrein
Unfortunately.
I’m not a Kiwi. I’ve only been to NZ.
There are a lot of parallels.
However, it seems that Kiwis speak much more frankly about it.
“Kosher and Halaal are practices from much more barbaric times.”
Okay parse your words, “Kosher practices” are from “barbaric times”, not barbaric people.
Orthodox Jews take seriously “the word of God”, (and a few other groups think it no joke either).
The Kosher rule is NO DRUGS IN THE MEAT, which could not be helped if the animal was given a painkiller.
Also, (the sacrifice done correctly), the animal feels no more than the injection you advocate.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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I'm sure the cattle are pleased. I'm sorry to hear hunting and fishing have been banned in New Zealand.
Excellent question, one which has been delved into by the scientific community. Kosher slaughter results in Unconsciousness in 3 to 4 seconds, and is generally accepted as equally humane conpared to stunning or bolts, probably mor mumane considering the "error" rate of those procedures.
Like sex? Which is fine when one is conscious. Like Kosher slaughter, some, barbaric throwbacks, would say better conscious.
All Jews in New Zealand should become vegetarians if the want to observe Kashrut.
I really can’t tell which of those photos frightens me most!
‘the’ should be ‘they’ of course...
Thanks for a brief, coherent description of the process
You are quite welcome. It’s a very complicated issue, and not understandable by “simple logic”. Many of the Torah’s mandates are simply “do this the way I tell you to do it”, no questions asked types of edicts. I hate to see Jewish observant practices made a hash of by people who don’t know what they are talking about, and then see negativity result from it. I am a real animal lover, have been since I was a toddler, and it would bother me to the point of being a vegetarian if I thought that shechitah was inhumane. As it is, I haven’t eaten any red meat for years.
Of course you won't dare ban halaal methods.
And if you had any understanding of the historical context about which you speak, you'd understand that shechitah was a revolutionary advance in the humane treatment of animals in those barbaric times.
Way back when in ancient times, both the evening's food and entertainment were sometimes provided by a partially dismembered animal, the limbs of which were roasted and eaten as the suffering creature limped around on what remained.
The Jews were undoubtedly considered rather radical and odd back then, insisting on the animal actually being not only dead, but also killed quickly, and also drained of all life-giving blood before being cooked and eaten. What a concept!
You want to talk about barbaric? Google "sannakji." The notion that these times are somehow "less" barbaric is questionable.
Jews have been conscious of humane treatment of food animals for thousands of years, but it hasn't caught on as widely as it should throughout humanity. Perhaps it's because everyone's so busy slandering Jews about Christian baby blood matzah and about shechitah, they continue to miss the point.
Its not up to me to ban anything. I think halaal and kosher are similar, so putting into place a regulation which makes the one untenable, probably does so for the other as well. Good thing NZ doesnt have too many mooses.
Gosh. Understand what I am saying. For the time, Im sure it was an advance. But the times have moved on.
The first sensible response Ive heard in the last four days. If there is scientific evidence to show that it is more (or equally) humane to kill an animal this way, than to knock it out, then fine. Otherwise, why not adapt, at least seek a rabbinical opinion?
Have you not heard "in the land of the blind,the one-eyed man is king"?
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