Kosher {Ross}

[Guest guest]

Thank you so much for posting this Ross - I wouldn't have mine until

Monday when I go back to work! I have been fretting over this for

days, and seeing that change is in the winds brought tears to my

eyes:)

 

Debra

 

, Ross Cannon

<ross.cann@j...> wrote:

>

> Kosher Authority Seeks Change in Steer Killings

> New York Times

> By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

> December 3, 2004

>

> In the wake of accusations of cruelty from an animal

> rights group, the world's largest kosher certification

> authority announced yesterday that it would ask a

> major kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa to change the way

> it kills animals.

>

> Killings at the plant, AgriProcessors Inc., in

> Postville, Iowa, were clandestinely recorded this

> summer by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

> A videotape showed workers cutting the throats out of

> living steers and then dumping the animals on the

> floor where they thrashed and bellowed while bleeding

> to death.

>

> The plant is the country's largest producer of meat

> that is glatt kosher, the highest standard of

> cleanliness. It is also the only American plant

> allowed to export to Israel.

>

> Also yesterday, a representative of Israel's chief

> rabbinate said AgriProcessors' meat would no longer be

> accepted in Israel if the scenes he saw on tape were

> standard practice.

>

> Bruce Friedrich, a spokesman for the animal rights

> group, called the news excellent.

>

> No representative of the company could be reached for

> comment.

>

> Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, the executive vice president

> of the Orthodox Union, which certifies more than

> 600,000 products around the world as kosher, said the

> video " raises all sorts of questions. "

>

> Rabbi Weinreb said he would ask that the plant stop

> letting workers tear the trachea and esophagus out of

> animals. He said he found the procedure " especially

> inhumane " and " generally unacceptable " but wanted to

> investigate how regularly it happened.

>

> He said he was also considering asking that animals be

> held longer inside the rotating drum where they are

> killed. Rabbi Ezra Raful, head of international

> supervision of slaughter for the chief rabbinate of

> Israel, said yesterday that the steers on the tape

> appeared to have been killed correctly by the

> slaughterer. But he said his rabbinate preferred that

> no one else cut the body until it had bled out, to

> avoid the perception that someone else had helped kill

> it.

> 0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0less Bush, more trees0ooo00o0

> The difficult place that the U.S. is in can not be diminished by

waging

> more wars. The violence done in our name generates more violence

> and hatred against us. The solution arises from changing our

attitudes

> about other people. We need to stop the theft of their resources

and

> labor and begin to treat others with respect and dignity. RossCannon