KAJ's Position On Postville

I spoke with Rabbi Kohn of KAJ this evening to clarify KAJ's position on the Postville Scandal. Even though I'm writing a feature article about the scandal for print publication, I'm posting a few points from the interview now as a public service:

1. Rabbi Kohn was troubled by having two slaughtered animals writhing on the floor at the same time. "It's a kashrut problem," he said. "We number the animals and I don't want that they should get mixed up. One might be kosher and another one treife."
2. Rabbi Kohn believes that the video "must have been doctored" because "we do not allow two animals" to writhe on the floor together, so the video "must have been doctored."
3. The throat is not "ripped" immediately after shechita. A non-Jewish employee simply "lifts up the trachea" to see if the "carotid artery and jugular veins" have been properly severed.
4. At that point, the non-Jewish worker makes a cut to ensure the carotid artery is severed.
5. "The purpose for doing this is not to make the animal unconscious faster." "I would never say that it is," Rabbi Kohn said.
6. The purpose for doing so is to make the animal bleed out faster, to prevent blood spots and bruises on the meat.
7. He claims that "the animal feels no pain" and that there are "government studies" to prove this.
8. I asked him if those "government studies" were done using his method of slaughter including the lifting of the trachea and the 'second cut.' He did not answer.
9. He said that, "we believe we are using the most humane form of slaughter. That is what our holy books teach."
10. He has several Halakhic sources that he claims supports the immediate lifting of the trachea and the 'second cut.' More on these later.
11. Rabbi Kohn also claims that the USDA "just recently saw our shechita" and thought the process "better" than they had seen. I asked for the names of the USDA personnel. "I can't give you the names," he said. "Not yet. I will when the time is right."
12. He claimed that the animal felt no pain when the hook was inserted and the second cut made, even though the animal had not yet bled-out. I told him the experts like Dr. Grandin differ with him. He said, "We know the animal feels no pain. We rely on Halakha that says so." He also called Dr. Grandin – arguably the world's expert on animal slaughter and who is widely regarded as a friend of shechita (please see the article about her from Mishpacha Magazine, posted below) – a "self-appointed expert. We have other experts who disagree with her," he said. Rabbi Kohn did not name those "other experts."

Comments

[Toby Bulman Katz]

I think that Rabbi Kohn probably does not know of Temple Grandin, and would like her if he knew her. He may have heard of her only in connection with PETA, which would naturally tend to make him skeptical about her.

The PETA people are anti-Semites and fanatics; as a friend said, they don't know the difference between the slaughter of six million Jews and six million chickens.

However, Temple Grandin is a good person, a very good person, and has excellent ideas about how to make shechita as humane as it was meant to be. I would like a way to contact R' Kohn if anyone knows it, a phone number or email address.

[Toby Bulman Katz]

What is Rabbi Kohn's first name?

[FNU LNU]

The PETA people may be (and often are) fanatics but they also appear, from the video, to be right. Today it appears the OU, a certifier of the meat, sides with PETA. Yesterdays coverage was that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate sided with them as well.

I've seen no evidence of anti-semitism by PETA, either here or in their chicken-Holocaust campaign which, while insensitive (& rightly condemned and stopped), evolved out of their view of speciesm [which devalues the belief in human exceptionalism generally, and not just Jews; i.e. to them the life of a chicken is not much less valuable then the life of a person].

Unfortunately, in many circles KAJ's Breurs community has the reputation of belittling outsiders and making them feel unwelcome. This interview does not dissuade one from that view.

If there was a problem halachically with the slaughter, can one still eat the meat thats out there now? If it is mutar why are so many machmir on the NYC water?

[Zev Sero]

There is no halachic problem whatsoever. The Israeli Rabbinate did not say the meat isn't kosher, it said that it doesn't meet its standards. Nor does any other meat shechted in the USA, or in Australia. I wonder what the Chief Rabbis eat when they visit either country.

The Rabbanut is entitled to whatever standards it likes, but one has to wonder whether this is about halacha or protectionism. What is not acceptable is to claim that all Jews in Australia and the USA are eating treif.

Oh, and Toby - "as humane as it was meant to be"? How do you know that shechita was ever meant to be humane, rather than that being merely a happy coincidence?

[Rabbi Yonah]

PETA's Jeff Mackey wrote to me this summer, when I complained about the Holocaust On A Plate campaign:

"The gruesome intensive confinement operations, or factory farms, where billions of animals languish in misery each year—are today’s concentrations camps."

That is just so pro-Jewish, don't ya think?

PETA worship themselves, their twisted ideology, and cannot be trusted to provide truth. They make a habit of lying. Which is too bad, because, frankly animals in this country are treated in ways that are forbidden halachicly

[Observer]

“That is just so pro-Jewish, don't ya think?”

Ill-conceived, offensive – perhaps even obscene-- but I don't know about anti-Semitic and frankly, I find such unsubstantiated, hyperbolic and alarmist statements and antics to be not much better than PETA's.

“They make a habit of lying.”

Care to cite any evidence of this?

“...animals in this country are treated in ways that are forbidden halachicly”

Halevai that the problem should be limited to any one country.

Perhaps Europe is better but there are certainly many countries that are worse.