History of Shechita

Mississippi Fred has a put up a small booklet written in Spanish on shechita and bedika published in London in 1733. (Most of English Jewry was then Sefardic.) The above illustration comes from that booklet. It shows an animal that has been cast to the ground. The shochet is about to slaughter the animal as his helper controls the animals head using a stick and chain. The animal's right hind leg is chained to the wall, and his left hind leg and left fore leg appear to be chained together. The pit in the right foreground seems to be for the drainage of blood. Both Rubashkin and Alle import meat from South America that is still killed through casting.

Comments

Those two shochets dont look so frum. I don't see any beards or tzitzis. They look more like pirates.

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

I'm wondering about this passage from the booklet:

tanto los animales domesticos, como los silvestres, como son venados, y semejantes, como assi mismo las aves, requieren ser degolladas, mas los Pescados y las Langostas (que hay algunas que se pueden comer) no necesitan de degolladura

Fish and Lobster (amongst the ones that are permissible to eat) don't require shechita.

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

A better translation:

Fish and Lobster (there ares some that are permissible to eat) don't require shechita.

[Neo-Conservaguy]

For better or for worse, "casting" appears to be the most "traditional" approach to shechita. It's better than shackling and hoisting a huge animal by its legs, which is not only cruel and painful but potentially could tear a limb in violation of basic Noahide laws. Modern standing shechita, which seems to be the best "humane" approach for cattle, doesn't always work as well for smaller animals. Someone who works in that part of the kosher meat industry told me of one case in which a considerable investment in standing pens was abandoned because it was actually worse for the smaller animals involved - they were choking in the restraint.

As for kosher lobster, I could care less - I didn't like "bug of the sea" much when I ate such things; find me some kosher scallops, however, and you'll have my attention.

[Yos]

Those cows are enormous! Those shochetim are lucky they got away from it alive.

[Dovid Komarov]

Hi Shamaria
my comment is on some other issue.
i just finished watching peta video which your cite links to. i saw cow w/its throat cut still walking around.
i don't understand how cow can walk around after having is trachea and esophagus( and jugular veins) cut walk around?
aren't they sopposed to be not consiouce or dead by now?
i just don't understand biology of it.
also peta website had a letter from star-k rabbi who said that the cows in video had a "miscut". what does he meen by that?

[Shmarya]

In order to protect their knives and keep them from hitting the metal restraint (theyby ruinging the knife), Rubashkin's shochtim were making shallow cuts which did not always sever the arteries. This is a problem that is almost unique to upside down shechita in a Weinberg pen. It is primarly caused by a design flaw in the Weinberg pen. That is what a miscut means,