Home
In this issue

May 9, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Reverence, Yes; Worship, No

Mona Charen: Did Israel Drive Out the Arabs 60 Years Ago?

JWisdom: Ultimate opportunities by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

May 8, 2008

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Israel at 3,500+

Jonathan Tobin: Still Fighting the Same War

Steven Plaut: How ‘nakba’ proves the fiction of a Palestinian Nation

JWisdom: Taking Israel for Granted? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

May 7, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Israel is irrelevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Dion Nissenbaum: Latest Olmert scandal could derail efforts to force Israel's compromises

JWisdom: My Inner Ventriloquist by Sara Yoheved Rigler

May 6, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: Anti-Zionism at 60

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: In honor of Israel's 60th anniversary, the former president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, whose members included the likes of Julia Child, is back with a smorgasbord featuring the taste and essence of the Jewish homeland

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Jewish Deer in Nazi Headlights

May 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Busy work

Jonathan Mark: Remarkable half-century old Mike Wallace interview with Abba Eban puts current anti-Israel sentiment into perspective

May 2, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Rote religiosity

Caroline B. Glick: Whitewashing Hamas

JWisdom: Parent trap?

May 1, 2008

David Zwiebel: Faith communities can learn from Orthodox Jews in stimulating private philanthropy for religious education

George Friedman and Peter Zeihan of Stratfor: The Shift Toward an Israeli-Syrian Agreement

JWisdom: It's time to wake up by Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis

April 30, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Pennsylvania's Democratic slugfest may leave some Jewish votes up for grabs

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Fresh herbs, sauteed veal and tiny creamer potatoes makes a light spring dinner

JWisdom: How to Build a Mentch by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

April 29, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood

Joel Brinkley: On human rights, the U.N. once again strikes out

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: When The Truth is Unbelievable

April 28, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I'm often stuck in the doctor's waiting room for hours! Doesn't he owe me something for my wasted time?

Steven Emerson: New U.S. government policy advises agencies to avoid using some of the very same words that make up terror groups' names

JWisdom: Why You & I Never Die: A Jewish View of Immortality, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

April 25, 2008

Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg: Schadenfreude isn't kosher for Passover --- or at any other time

Rabbi Berel Wein: The secret of how the data bank of memory is transferred from one generation to the next

JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Part III

April 24, 2008

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: The successful failure

Fred Burton and Scott Stewart of Stratfor: Placing the terrorist threat to the food supply in perspective

JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Part II

April 23, 2008

Connie Ogle: An intricate game of a novel

Jonathan Tobin: Making Sense of the 'J Street' Jive

JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen

April 22, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Why Israel's 'Leaven law' matters

Caroline B. Glick: Obama the Savior

April 18, 2008

Rabbi Harvey Belovski: Multimedia tool of antiquity

Caroline B. Glick: Revealed Truths vs. revealed lies

JWisdom: More than miracles by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

April 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Deconstructing Dayeinu

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: Is innovation at the Seder a slap at tradition?

JWisdom: Discovering Your Divine Mission, Part III by Rabbi David Aaron

April 16, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: A Prayer for Sderot's Children

Ethel G. Hofman: Sumptuous Seder

JWisdom: The Divine is in the details by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

April 15, 2008

Rabbi Dovid Zauderer: Let Charlton Heston Go!

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Jimma, tyranny's enabler

JWisdom: Relationships: Beyond Mars & Venus, Part IV by Dr. Lisa Aiken

April 14, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: The Snitching Supervisor

Jonathan Tobin: Forget the Fun and Games!

JWisdom: Sincerity is Valued Most by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D.

April 11, 2008

Rabbi David Gutterman: A Mystery in the Middle East

Caroline B. Glick: Why Ahmadinejad smiles

JWisdom: Elevated illness by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

April 10, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing by George Friedman: A Mystery in the Middle East

The Kosher Gourmet By Steve Petusevsky: The spring elegance of asparagus

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: The Power of Rational Lies

April 9, 2008

Michael Feldberg: An all but forgotten Colonial doctor who put his Jewish values before his life

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's "Everything's Relative" gets philosophical

JWisdom: Four Rabbis in Bnei Brak by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

April 8, 2008

Caroline Glick: Covering for the enemy

Elliot B. Gertel: 'House' goes Hasidic

JWisdom: Relationships: Beyond Mars & Venus, Part III by Dr. Lisa Aiken

April 7, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I have a translating business. Recently someone asked me to translate some financial documents that are clearly forged. Should I agree?

Jonathan Rosenblum : Israel is unwittingly helping to fuel the international campaign of delegitimization against it

JWisdom: Matzah and leaven as a life philosophy by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D.

April 4, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The Mystery of Suffering

Caroline B. Glick: Fear of democracy

JWisdom: Dirty Jews by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

April 3, 2008

Rabbi Y. Y. Rubinstein: Parents --- and the children who would be them

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Tempted by restaurant dressings? Don't be. Here are recipes that can be made at home, healthier!

JWisdom: The importance of retaining a 'slave mentality' by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

April 2, 2008

Mitch Albom: Child abuse, disguised as faith

Jonathan Tobin: Unreasonable Accommodations

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith with Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Eliminating Jewish Influence over Germans

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 29, 2004 / 16 Kislev, 5765

Radical vegetarian group seeking to slaughter one of the world's largest kosher meat processors

By Binyamin L. Jolkovsky


Printer Friendly Version

Email this article

PETA's latest ploy

The NYTimes gets scooped of its own story!



http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the radical vegetarian group that in an advertising campaign once compared the slaughtering of chickens to the murder of Holocaust victims, is taking aim at one of the world's largest kosher meat processors.


AgriProcessors Inc., the Postville, Iowa-based firm that markets meat under the Rubashkin and Aaron's Best label and is found in America's biggest supermarket chains, is being accused by the group of violating humane slaughter laws and Halacha, or Jewish ritual procedure.


Complaints against the company began a year and a half ago, when PETA wrote the meat producer and in unspecific terms expressed its dissatisfaction with the company's operating procedures. The company's lawyer, Nathan Lewin, responded by offering to discuss and, if necessary, fix any problem the group had. But he said he never heard back from them.


Last week, Mr. Lewin, regarded as one of the country's leading authority on church-state issues, was contacted by the New York Times seeking comment on an undercover videotape the paper received from PETA, in which it claimed to document abuses by the meat manufacturer. On Friday, Mr. Lewin traveled from his home in Washington, D.C., to The New York Times' Manhattan offices to watch the video with Rabbi Chaim Kohn, Chief Dayan of Khal Adath Yeshurun, AgriProcessors' New York City-based kosher certifying agency.


The film, which Mr. Lewin describes as having no audio track but uses titles with dates of supposed abuses — from August and September of this year — depicts the slaughtering process in gory detail. Viewers see the shochet, or ritual slaughterer, cutting in one uninterrupted incision the esophagus and trachea. Then, another person facilitates bleeding in order to render the cow unconscious.


While there is much blood, explains Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, one of the nation's leading authorities on the kosher slaughtering process, and a head of the kosher division of the Orthodox Union, it is precisely the bleeding that renders the slaughter the most humane because it makes sure the animal feels absolutely no pain because it is totally unconscious.


Mr. Lewin charges that "all PETA wants to do is inflame the public against kosher slaughter." The group, he added, "just doesn't understand shechita — what's permitted under Jewish, and consequently, American Law."


The video also shows cows appearing to still be alive after the slaughtering process. But, "reflexive movement", wherein dead creatures appear to be alive is quite common, Rabbi Belsky said. "Think of chickens running without heads," he said.

Donate to JWR


News of PETA's attack against a prominent kosher meat manufacturer forced a historic vote at the Agudath Israel of America's annual convention in Stamford, Connecticut. Moments before the end of the powerful Orthodox umbrella group's four-day strategizing session yesterday, David Zwiebel, its executive vice president of government and public affairs, took to the microphone urging all in the room to remain seated. By unanimous vote, the group condemned what it termed a "vicious and unethical attack on Jewish religious practice."


Though PETA had previously compared the slaughtering of chickens to the murder of Holocaust victims, the Agudath resolution noted that among the first organized efforts the Nazis did against Jews was "peddling photographs of allegedly 'cruel' kosher slaughter." PETA, the resolution added "now follows in that vile course." Jewish tradition, the proclamation said, "introduced human society to the concept of humane treatment of animals and that, even today, is well ahead of organizations such as PETA in its concern for welfare of all living creatures."


Agreeing with PETA, however, are two rabbis: Shear Yashuv Cohen, Chief Rabbi of Haifa and President of the Haifa District Rabbinical Courts, and Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee's director of Interreligious Affairs, according to Mr. Lewin. However, PETA did not point out in its material that both rabbis identify themselves as vegetarians.


PETA officials could not be reached yesterday for comment.


Rabbi Cohen was unaware that he was being used by PETA in any way, according to Mr. Lewin. He told the lawyer that he was approached by an Israeli animal rights activist, Tal Ronen, who told him he was a baal teshuva, or recently-turned Orthodox Jew, who was interested in the proper treatment of animals.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky is editor in chief of JewishWorldReview.com. This column appears in today's issue of the New York Sun. Comment by clicking here.




© 2004, JWR