Canadian law infringing on Jewish ritual slaughter is challenged
Jewish organizations are taking the federal government to court to challenge new rules they fear spell the end of kosher animal production in Canada.
In a statement of claim filed earlier this week in Federal Court, the applicants seek to strike down new Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) rules requiring that non-stunned animals be subjected to cognitive tests to ensure they’re irreversibly unconscious before being processed.
Kosher killing does not involve stunning animals first, whereas non-kosher commercial killing does.
[Jewish groups] say the effect of the rules will eventually end kosher slaughter in Canada because the CFIA’s rules have drastically slowed down the practice, which they say is already humane. Some slaughterhouses in Canada have already stopped producing kosher meat because it has become uneconomical under the CFIA’s new requirements.
In typical non-kosher abattoirs, cattle are usually rendered unconscious via a powerful blow to the head from a bolt gun, then are hung up and have their necks slit, and are drained of blood until dead.
In kosher slaughter, or shechita, animals are killed by trained shochetim who use smooth, razor-sharp knives to sever the animal’s throat in a single, uninterrupted motion before letting the animal bleed out. It is commonly believed that the method is painless and at least as humane as the stunning technique, although Jews believe it is the more humane method because the animal is rendered almost immediately unconscious.
“It is applicants’ position that with shechita the massive bleeding and rapid drop in arterial pressure caused by the complete severing of the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries and jugular veins leads to near instantaneous unconsciousness,” the plaintiffs argue in the statement of claim.
Rabbi Saul Emanuel, director of the MK Kosher Certification Agency, which is also a plaintiff in the suit, said that stunning animals violates Jewish dietary laws, as they need to be alive, healthy and alert before being slaughtered.
While the CFIA permits licensed abattoirs to slaughter non-stunned animals, the new rules require processors to subject each animal to cognitive tests, particularly by tests on their eyes or checks for arhythmic breathing, before being hung and drained.
Bolt-stunned animals, the suit alleges, are not subjected to the same scrutiny as non-stunned animals, and the stunning process results in some animals surviving and suffering as they are skinned alive. The plaintiffs argue that shechitah’s hands-on method ensures animals are irreversibly unconscious before being processed.
A joint statement from The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA,) MK and COR maintains that kosher slaughter is humane, and they have the scientific studies to prove it.
That part about what sometimes happens to stunned animals conjures up a James Agee story I read when young, “A Mother’s Tale.” It terrified me. You can find it here. It almost made me into a vegetarian – almost, but not quite. But it seems to me that kosher slaughter is at least as humane as non-kosher slaughter.
This article sheds further light on what’s going on, and includes a historical note that one of the first acts of the Nazis when they came to power in Germany was to ban kosher slaughter:
The process is well underway and already one-third of abattoirs in Canada have stopped producing kosher meat. The kosher certifiers and their representatives had been working with the Canadian government to find a solution, including a recent meeting in Ottawa, but according to the application, “…those efforts have proven fruitless.” …
Speaking of blows, seal clubbing remains legal in Canada. The new regulations ending shechitah are, ostensibly, being put forward as a measure protecting animal welfare, however, selectively singling out Jewish slaughter as an odious treatment of animals has a long and ugly history, intimately intermingled with international antisemitism. …
Modern European antisemitism was, and continues to be, associated with bans on shechitah. As reported in the Times of Israel, last month the European Court of Human Rights upheld a ban on shechitah in Belgium. …
The Canadian shechitah issue is also different in practice from European iterations in that it does not affect Muslims. In Europe, a ban on shechitah is almost always accompanied by a concomitant ban on Halal, which uses a similar technique in ending an animal’s life. This dual ban has allowed Europe to claim that its various proscriptions of shechitah are not anti-Jewish. … [T]he Muslim community has been a bulwark whenever there have been threats to end shechitah [in Europe]. The Canadian regulations, however, offer an additional loophole in that they mandate methods that make shechitah impossible, but allow Muslim ritual slaughter to continue unabated.
The greatest disconnect in the war against shechitah is that the methodology of Jewish halachic slaughter is precisely designed to prevent pain and suffering to the animals involved in the process.
Whatever the motives behind the move to hamper kosher slaughter, the effect may be to drive away many Orthodox Jews from Canada. Or, I suppose, cause them to become vegetarians.
I believe that Muslims also eat Kosher meats because it meets their requirements for how the animal must be killed.
Don’t be surprised if Canadian Muslims oppose the law prohibiting ritual slaughter, the Canadian govt. will back down.
Wow, I’ve never been rendered so curious about vegetarianism in my life!
Plus, the uncomfortable surfacing of a repressed memory from No Country for Old Men.
Yep. I searched immediately for halal in the quotes.
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The Canadian regulations, however, offer an additional loophole in that they mandate methods that make shechitah impossible, but allow Muslim ritual slaughter [halal] to continue unabated.
I have watched lambs be slaughtered by knife. There is nothing cruel about it. Death is as close to instantaneous as you can get. They are gone before they hit the ground.
JWM
Whether or not the animal is stunned, they will be bled out. Is “knocking out” the animal before slitting the throat more humane? Which hurts more initially– getting hit in the head or getting cut by a very sharp knife?
Brian;
Getting hit in the head hurts. Getting hit really hard stuns or kills before the hurt can be felt.
This law is clearly aimed at Jews on emotional terms, not rational thought.
John Tyler, it is Halal but essentially the same method to kill the animal. Someone in Canada should play lawfare with their left wing government.
It’s pretty clear that Canada has fallen to Islam.
As best I can determine, there are about 600,000 self-defined Orthodox Jews in America. The group in NYC gets the most visibility: all-black garments,all men bearded, many babies per woman. They seem to be in tightly cloistered communities, in the industrialized North.
Thus, in Canada there are proportionately maybe 40,000. I would bet those are in Eastern Canada, land of Trudeau and his oppressions.
I personally find shechitah preferable. Stunning is less than 100% effective. I witnessed a terrible commercial pig abbatoir at a young age. That was a right good while ago, but the memory remains, indelible.
I’m always amused at the lengths people go to convincing themselves they’re not animals.
As far as I understand it, the only requirement for halal, aside from the animal being acceptable and fit for Moslem consumption, is the short prayer that is said by the slaughterer before the animal is about to be slaughtered. The form of the prayer is, I believe, something along the lines of “By the grace of Allah” i.e., that the halal slaughter about to be performed is by God’s grace.
The rules of kosher slaughter are more numerous and stringent, but do include a similar prayer stated by the kosher slaughterer, hence kosher slaughter is considered acceptable by Moslems.
Before Halal become more prevalent across the US and Canada (and perhaps other places) Moslems who cared about halal issues would buy kosher meat.
(Should be stated that the reverse is not the case: i.e., halal slaughter is not considered kosher.)
Frederick. It’s tough enough to get crossways with the US government. The Canadian government doesn’t have anything which, however it’s described, functions as our Bill of Rights.
See how easily the truckers were debunked, for example.
And the proposed hate think law.
Still, if it could be done, making public the case that it’s an anti-semitic tactic and not a matter of animal cruelty would be in interesting proposition.
I did write “debanked”. Autocorrect got to it later. If you’re reading this, you get it.
Canada under the al-Islam.
So many elites are dishonestly Jew haters, tho many are honest about it.
There is a big Market for Rationalizations to produce rational sounding reasons so as to make living as a Jew more difficult. Or as a Christian, or in many cases as a Muslim.
The loophole for Muslims is a huge tell, but the lack of science in general about the pain of animals should be disturbing to all.