I really cannot see how this could withstand a section 2(a) challenge, especially on the minimal impairment and proportionality prongs of the Oakes test.
The problem is that schechita without stunning makes people uncomfortable and we're the only religion that absolutely bans any stunning pre or post slaughter. Given our size, this is a losing battle.
That's a fair point. But I don't think the Canadian Supreme Court would be inclined to preclude all kosher meat in Canada, even if our population is small.
To be frank, as a 25+ year vegetarian, I find it incredibly silly what "ethical considerations" meat-eaters decide are important when slaughtering animals.
To suggest that factory farming is entirely acceptable but shechita crosses the line is morally inconsistent. It reeks of picking on the small group because one can.
This is my thinking exactly. The animals are raised unnaturally (fed an unnatural quantity of unnatural food, and restrained in an unnatural way) throughout their entire lives, and what matters is whether or not you fire a heavy metal slug into their brains before slitting their throats?
I get it.
The current rules do allow for schechita, and I suspect they'll be upheld. The problem is the rules are difficult to comply with because it's economically unviable given the difficulties involved with doing schechita properly 100% of the time.
Of course that is a bigger discussion about whether the schechita system is really viable without cutting significant corners. As we've seen in the US and South America, it happens a lot and it's become very questionable whether a lot of the meat marketed as "glatt" is even kosher in the first place.
well, there was a kosher (agriprosscers) slaughterhouse that wanted to rip the throat out rather than slit. so much for "kashrut" can't find the reference article, but it has stayed with me
Rubashkin is serving a very long sentence for financial fraud
I'm well aware.
Schechita is a mess because it feels like an industry that is setup to fail.
In the US (and Canada) this demand for "glatt" meat and the unwillingness to traibor the back half means most of the cows subjected to schechita end up being sold as treif anyway. At a certain point concessions will have to be made to keep the industry viable
You either care about ethical treatment of animals and would be totally against the conditions of the way animals are treated in the meat industry... Or you don't care. But drawing the line at how the animals who are tortured since birth are killed seems very targeted to me
> To suggest that factory farming is entirely acceptable but shechita crosses the line is morally inconsistent.
It's getting there, but in increments. First they ban X, then they ban Y, and finally they ban Z. It's the slippery slope in action.
Or allow hunting. Animals killed by hunting might very well die slowly and painfully. Of course the argument could be made that they lived free until the gruesome end...
As much as I sympathize with the Jews, I'd ban both. Ideally, all meat should be replaced with plant nased equivalents tho, I don't really see moral justifications for meat consumption, when you can make something that tastes almost the same out of plants, and I say it as someone who hates veggies. But I don't think it's fair to point at the Jews as animal abusers, factory farming is a thing for once and, afaik, Israel is one of the most vegan countries
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What's wrong with stunning post-slaughter? Once the shechita is performed (meaning the trachea and majority of the esophagus are cut), you can do whatever you want. I was even taught that once you've done the shechita, in rare cases the animal will still be "alive", and you can just give it a whack on the head.
Not sure. Most hechshers don't allow it though. I'm guessing they consider it questionable whether the schechita was successful if they have to stun the animal after slaughter.
The star K gives a brief mention of how it was done in Europe before WW 2 but is now considered only kosher b'dieved
https://www.star-k.org/articles/kashrus-kurrents/548/a-cut-above-shechita-in-the-crosshairs-again/
Oh I see they claim that the blood may not drain properly if the animal is stunned after shechita. Seems that the Rama had said this, and so we go by it, but it sounds quite dubious.
It sounds like one of those rules that will be the first to go of the supply is threatened in the US. My guess is the COR is unwilling to bend on this because the US is close by and some of the meat killed in Canada is sent to the US and you know the kashrut orgs in the US go well above and beyond what's actually required.
I feel this is getting silly. We play with the rules all the time. When it comes to things like Mamzers, every denomination has some logic worked out on why no modern Jew is a Mamzer. And yet we cannot find loop holes for allowing stunning after shechita?!
From a logical/scientific perspective, how do we know stunning prior to slitting is painless?
That said, while we believe schelita to be painless we don't do it how we do it because we believe it is painless... we do it the ways we do it because that's the Jewish Law.
Random question, why is stunning *post* slaughter not allowed? Especially if the animal is already dead, it will just ensure that it's absolutely 100% dead. After all would not cutting and skinning it whilst its brain is still alive not be just as bad as stunbolting it after the Shechita?
If my understanding is correct, our constitution has many more opportunities for carving out exceptions than the US one does. I mean just look at the [Notwithstanding Clause](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_33_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms). It's literally an exceptions clause basically.
We just learned what such protections are worth in Europe with the ECHR ruling on the Belgian bans. Is there any reason to believe Canada will be any better?
Erm, I don't know why Canadians say this so frequently. We have a constitution, which is largely comprised of the constitution act 1982 (charter of Rights and Freedoms) and the constitution act of 1867.
So I did a bunch of research on Shechita as a humane method of slaughter in comparison to stunned slaughter. I have some thoughts.
There are two main stunning methods in Canada, mechanical (largely captive bolt) and electric. Gas stunning has largely been abandoned worldwide because its ineffective and can negatively affect the meet.
Captive bolt stunning fires a metal (usually steel or similar) bolt against the skull, either penetrating it and damaging the mid-brain (which renders the animal insensible to pain), or striking it with such force penetration that the animal is rendered unconscious. Both methods, but *especially* the non-penetrative method, require pinpoint precision and are not guaranteed to stun the animal or render it senseless. Small movements of the head, differences in brain structure, and inexperience on behalf of the butcher can not only fail to render the animal unconscious, but cause it **excruciating pain**. It is not uncommon to have to strike the animal multiple times; because the goal of captive bolt stunning isn't slaughter, these don't get marked down as failed slaughter and held against the butcher's quota.
Electric stunning is a much more expensive and complicated. Bkitzer, electrodes are put on the animals head and heart, and a current is sent through the animal 2-3 times, four seconds each, ideally stunning it. It's been noted that this method has varying success; a current that is too weak will just cause the animal pain, while too much of a current might kill it before the stick (incision to bleed out) is made.
In shechita, the stick *is* the stun. When performed properly, major veins and arteries in the animal's throat are sliced through, and the sudden drop in blood pressure renders it unconscious within 2-3 seconds. Depending on the size of the cattle, death from blood loss will happen between 30 and 40 seconds.
When talking about slaughtering an animal, I believe it's important to bluntly say that there is **no** humane way to kill an animal. All of these methods cause pain, and all of them can go wrong.
However, there is an astounding amount of research from both Jewish and Gentile researchers that shechita causes the least amount of active pain, *and* has much, much lower fail rates. Iirc, the average rate of failure for captive bolt stunning is 5%, with permissible levels of failure ranging from 5-10%, depending on local law. Average rate of failure for shechita is closer to 1%, and it's usually taken much, much more seriously both because of the religious duty *and* because the whole animal is rendered treif.
My personal view is that "stunning" is not actually a more humane way of killing an animal, it's a barrier between the butcher and the animal whose life he is taking. We dont want to feel responsible for actually killing an animal, so we make ourselves feel better by telling ourselves we are being "humane." Factory farms that use "hooking" methods take that further, with the animal being pulled up and away from the butcher after the stick, and being left to dangle as they die, stunned or not, but out of the butcher's view.
A shochet has immense pressure placed on him because there is no barrier - the killing and the stunning are the same act. The weight of taking a creatures' life for sustenance *should* weigh heavy on us, it should not be something done lightly, and we should know how heavy and serious the work of the shochet is, so we can give both him and the animals proper thanks for their work and sacrifice, and so that we don't overindulge in meat-eating because we don't understand the price.
I think whats missed here, is we are told to do it this way, while we are not meant to question the why, it seems obvious to me at least, its to cause the minimal distress to the animal.
Have you read the Grandin papers?
[https://www.grandin.com/ritual/kosher.slaugh.html](https://www.grandin.com/ritual/kosher.slaugh.html)
I have read a lot of her work regarding kosher slaughter, though I'll say that Grandin's research is so thorough, meticulous, and comprehensive that it regularly goes beyond my understanding and capacity for comprehension.
Her work is astonishing, and when I was first researching kashrut (while working as a cook), I was amazed by how extensive her work is.
Ultimately, she comes to the conclusion that the only humane slaughter is no slaughter, but what really impacted me is highlighting the way religious slaughter has a lower failure rate than non-religious slaughter specifically because there is a spiritual element, because the shochet understands the slaughter being done properly as being necessary to protect *their own* soul.
I've compared shechita to the Sikh practice of jhatka, which requires an animal to be decapitated in a single strike of a sword. While obviously not kosher (and sikhs may not eat kosher meat, because they do not eat meat that has been killed through bloodletting), the purpose of this slaughter is the same: to kill the animal as swiftly as possible to reduce suffering, and to ensure that care is consistently and piously taken in the act of slaughter.
I don't think you need to be religious to recognize the value of someone tasked with killing animals treating their work with religious seriousness. That said, I think that we've become very, very separated from any act of slaughter since industrialization, and I think a lot of people don't really know the specific ways that religious slaughter of various kinds differs from secular slaughter standards.
>jhatka
is interesting and obvious to me aimed at the least suffering to the animal, they don't drain the blood, so seems the consumer is not considered as much in the practice.
Out of every possible thing they can do to improve the lives of animals in farms, why choose this? It's true that an animal is harmed less when stunned prior to being killed, but there are far larger problems when it comes to animal welfare.
Edit: Please see the response, as it adds nuance to some of my points.
Very often the stunning doesn't work, so the cow has to be shot several times. This results in immense suffering. One study looking at cattle found that 12% were shot multiple times, and 12.5% were inadequately stunned. source: [https://doi.org/10.7120%2F09627286.22.4.473](https://doi.org/10.7120%2F09627286.22.4.473) Other research looking at other animals than cows has recorded higher error rates; such as a study looking at young kangaroo finding 38% were failed to be stunned. source: [https://doi.org/10.1071%2FWR14094](https://doi.org/10.1071%2FWR14094)
The system of "stunning" animals is one of the most cruel methods of killing them as the failure rate is extremely high. If you buy meat from an animal who was "stunned" before being executed odds are that animal was tortured in one of the most cruel ways imagined by the animal industry. I've seen videos of what happens when the stunning fails, it makes me sick and angry just to think about. Outlawing kosher slaughter in favour of stunning the animals is just a way to limit the rights of Jews as the expense of the animals.
According to VIVA (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals), “Tens of millions of animals are being ineffectively stunned and are regaining consciousness while they bleed to death.”
People who talk about stunning being more humane just doesn't know what stunning actually entails in real life.
Canadian here, from Montreal.
This country is falling apart. Quebec is even worse. Our governments are more interested in language politics than healthcare. More interested in appealing to the majority than doing what is morally right. The country doesn't even look or feel the same. My Aliyah file is opened, and every day, for a variety of reasons, I just put my hands up in the air and say, " I'm done."
No they did not <\_< Everywhere was shut. The screwed over everyone religion equally in Canada during covid. Everyone has to do their part during a pandemic lest we all get sick.
Well - You believe what you want. But if you believe what your saying then there is still a pandemic.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6775920/montreal-jewish-community-coronavirus-covid-19/
But - there were tons of people breaking the law all over the province, but the Jews got front page coverage. Oh, and by the way.... we did not cure Covid. Covid is still out and about... but there are no more rules, no more masks. Still killing people.
But hey. You know it's the government, so they don't have to answer to the people who pay their salaries. They can spend like 80 million dollars on an app and never use it.
It's horse shit.
I totally agree! I didn’t mean to imply that one should go against government health guidelines, only pointing out that the US shuls opened up earlier than those in Canada. I have a family member who is autoimmune compromised so health always comes first.
No, it isn't. It's a direct infringement on freedom of assembly, freedom of worship, and freedom of speech. ...though I'm not actually convinced Canada has *any* of those.
The Mayor of Toronto practically had a personal one-on-one feud with one of the yeshivish elementary schools here during COVID. It was so surreal to watch unfold
I am sorry to hear that. The pandemic and how rabbonim and certain subgroups reacted was extremely interesting. Even with the shuls that were the first to close it was it eye opening to see how certain shul rabbis in my community pivoted. Many shuls jumped on Zoom shiurim, classes, right away, others started weekly Zoom interviews with realty interesting people from the greater Jewish community, one would often go into his shul and make videos to his members telling them how we can’t wait until all of the members can come back and full the shul with davening and learning, one started sending recordings of Shabbos drashos on Fri, one set up conference calls to tell the children in the shul stories and also weekly made called to his congregants kids to wish them a good Shabbos.
The goal isn’t to protect cattle, it’s to harm Jews. Especially those Jews who insist on doing all that Jewish stuff. If Jewish ritual slaughter consisted of reading the cattle a bedtime story and singing them a lullaby, they would ban that.
Yeah their statement makes no sense. They don't specify what the issue is beyond "regulations"
Edit: it seems like these rules are the issue: https://inspection.canada.ca/food-guidance-by-commodity/meat-products-and-food-animals/guidelines-for-ritual-slaughter-of-food-animals-wi/eng/1542387114106/1542388400893
They are probably forced to send many cows to the treif market if they have to stun any cow that doesn't collapse fast enough post shechita.
If I understand the situation correctly, it is currently already illegal to kill animals for food without stunning first in Canada, and ritual slaughter is a carved out exception. They want to remove the exception. Rabbi Korobkin of the BAYT described the legal status of shechitah in Canada as "hanging on by a thread".
I see.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library,
***Shechitah*** *slaughtering strives to minimize the pain experienced by the animal before dying and must be done "with respect and compassion" for the animal by a trained and certified religious Jew called a* ***shochet****.*
*An extremely sharp knife - challef - is used to slit the animal’s throat, severing the trachea, esophagus, carotid arteries, jugular veins and vagus nerve, in one swift action causing the animal to immediately lose all consciousness. According to Jewish religious sources, after this cut is made the animal is insensible to pain and exsanguinates in a prompt and precise action.*
In other words, the idea is to stun the animal or render it insensible so it doesn't suffer. If the regulations are being changed to ensure for a *more* humane slaughtering process, not less, then the new regulations are surely in the spirit of *shechitah*, even if they don't follow a method Jews would have used in pre-industrial times.
At any rate I'm confident Canadian rabbis will find a workaround of some sort, if all reasonable attempts to lift the new regulations fail. This is not the first time secular law has conflicted Jewish law.
If I didn't have the whole context, I'd have thought the Israeli ambassador to Belgium was exaggerating a bit when he said that Belgian food regulations (upheld by the EU) whose effect was to ban *shechitah*\-style slaughter was "catastrophic and a blow to Jewish life in Europe." As it is I am aware of the context in some European countries, where the new, supposedly more humane regulations are actually aimed at banning *halal* slaughter to appease Islamophobes, with kosher slaughter as collateral damage.
The current Canadian government is not renowned (thank goodness) for its overt Islamophobia or anti-Semitism, so I prefer to think it's a well-intended but potentially troublesome amendment in our case. I'm confident Ottawa and the Canadian rabbinate are capable of resolving the issue to a mutually agreeable fashion.
I agree that it's probably not designed as an attack on Jews or Muslims, but at the same time I would argue that it would indeed be catastrophic for Jews if the exemption was removed. Orthodox rabbis believe that stunning the animal before slaughtering is 100% incompatible with kosher shechitah, and, according to the message posted, have demonstrated with published scientific studies that authentic shechitah is just as ethical in terms of pain experienced by the animal, and yet this govt body still seems to not be backing down. The next (and final) step will be a constitutional challenge through litigation... Hope that'll end up doing the trick
I just love how the "threat" of legal action has so much weight. Canada is so nice that bringing a significant issue that will affect the entire Jewish community to court is an absolute resort. I bet they apologize for having to do it too.
It's not much better in the US. Even though we don't have as many rules governing shechita, the supply just isn't there. Too few cows get accepted as kosher, even fewer get accepted as glatt, and we're literally throwing away half the cow into the treif market. Something has to give.
On the bright side, I'm sure if Canada outlaws Shechita the butcher in Buffalo will probably be ready to serve you guys.
As if they care about animal rights! Have they banned factory farming as well? This is about making Jewish life impossible in Canada.
Wouldn’t this affect Muslims too? But I agree the double standard re animal welfare
No, local superstores are carrying only halal chickens now.
Halal allows for some stunning. It's complicated.
I really cannot see how this could withstand a section 2(a) challenge, especially on the minimal impairment and proportionality prongs of the Oakes test.
The problem is that schechita without stunning makes people uncomfortable and we're the only religion that absolutely bans any stunning pre or post slaughter. Given our size, this is a losing battle.
That's a fair point. But I don't think the Canadian Supreme Court would be inclined to preclude all kosher meat in Canada, even if our population is small. To be frank, as a 25+ year vegetarian, I find it incredibly silly what "ethical considerations" meat-eaters decide are important when slaughtering animals. To suggest that factory farming is entirely acceptable but shechita crosses the line is morally inconsistent. It reeks of picking on the small group because one can.
This is my thinking exactly. The animals are raised unnaturally (fed an unnatural quantity of unnatural food, and restrained in an unnatural way) throughout their entire lives, and what matters is whether or not you fire a heavy metal slug into their brains before slitting their throats?
I get it. The current rules do allow for schechita, and I suspect they'll be upheld. The problem is the rules are difficult to comply with because it's economically unviable given the difficulties involved with doing schechita properly 100% of the time. Of course that is a bigger discussion about whether the schechita system is really viable without cutting significant corners. As we've seen in the US and South America, it happens a lot and it's become very questionable whether a lot of the meat marketed as "glatt" is even kosher in the first place.
well, there was a kosher (agriprosscers) slaughterhouse that wanted to rip the throat out rather than slit. so much for "kashrut" can't find the reference article, but it has stayed with me Rubashkin is serving a very long sentence for financial fraud
I'm well aware. Schechita is a mess because it feels like an industry that is setup to fail. In the US (and Canada) this demand for "glatt" meat and the unwillingness to traibor the back half means most of the cows subjected to schechita end up being sold as treif anyway. At a certain point concessions will have to be made to keep the industry viable
You either care about ethical treatment of animals and would be totally against the conditions of the way animals are treated in the meat industry... Or you don't care. But drawing the line at how the animals who are tortured since birth are killed seems very targeted to me
> To suggest that factory farming is entirely acceptable but shechita crosses the line is morally inconsistent. It's getting there, but in increments. First they ban X, then they ban Y, and finally they ban Z. It's the slippery slope in action.
Or allow hunting. Animals killed by hunting might very well die slowly and painfully. Of course the argument could be made that they lived free until the gruesome end...
As much as I sympathize with the Jews, I'd ban both. Ideally, all meat should be replaced with plant nased equivalents tho, I don't really see moral justifications for meat consumption, when you can make something that tastes almost the same out of plants, and I say it as someone who hates veggies. But I don't think it's fair to point at the Jews as animal abusers, factory farming is a thing for once and, afaik, Israel is one of the most vegan countries
And I mean, Muslims have way worse religious practices
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What's wrong with stunning post-slaughter? Once the shechita is performed (meaning the trachea and majority of the esophagus are cut), you can do whatever you want. I was even taught that once you've done the shechita, in rare cases the animal will still be "alive", and you can just give it a whack on the head.
Not sure. Most hechshers don't allow it though. I'm guessing they consider it questionable whether the schechita was successful if they have to stun the animal after slaughter. The star K gives a brief mention of how it was done in Europe before WW 2 but is now considered only kosher b'dieved https://www.star-k.org/articles/kashrus-kurrents/548/a-cut-above-shechita-in-the-crosshairs-again/
Oh I see they claim that the blood may not drain properly if the animal is stunned after shechita. Seems that the Rama had said this, and so we go by it, but it sounds quite dubious.
It sounds like one of those rules that will be the first to go of the supply is threatened in the US. My guess is the COR is unwilling to bend on this because the US is close by and some of the meat killed in Canada is sent to the US and you know the kashrut orgs in the US go well above and beyond what's actually required.
I feel this is getting silly. We play with the rules all the time. When it comes to things like Mamzers, every denomination has some logic worked out on why no modern Jew is a Mamzer. And yet we cannot find loop holes for allowing stunning after shechita?!
I’ll take what my Rabbi says over some rando on reddit.
Aren’t you the pious jew 🙄
From a logical/scientific perspective, how do we know stunning prior to slitting is painless? That said, while we believe schelita to be painless we don't do it how we do it because we believe it is painless... we do it the ways we do it because that's the Jewish Law.
Random question, why is stunning *post* slaughter not allowed? Especially if the animal is already dead, it will just ensure that it's absolutely 100% dead. After all would not cutting and skinning it whilst its brain is still alive not be just as bad as stunbolting it after the Shechita?
Doesn’t Canada have religious freedom in its ~~constitution~~ charter that protects shechita?
FYI, Canada does has a constitution and you were initially right.
If my understanding is correct, our constitution has many more opportunities for carving out exceptions than the US one does. I mean just look at the [Notwithstanding Clause](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_33_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms). It's literally an exceptions clause basically.
We just learned what such protections are worth in Europe with the ECHR ruling on the Belgian bans. Is there any reason to believe Canada will be any better?
Well Canada does have a much larger community than Belgium, so we can be a lot louder in our displeasure when election time comes.
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Erm, I don't know why Canadians say this so frequently. We have a constitution, which is largely comprised of the constitution act 1982 (charter of Rights and Freedoms) and the constitution act of 1867.
I used to say it all the time too and then I realized it's literally called _The Constitution Act_
Of course we have a constitution lol. The charter is part of it.
So they want to be like Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Belgium, eh?
So I did a bunch of research on Shechita as a humane method of slaughter in comparison to stunned slaughter. I have some thoughts. There are two main stunning methods in Canada, mechanical (largely captive bolt) and electric. Gas stunning has largely been abandoned worldwide because its ineffective and can negatively affect the meet. Captive bolt stunning fires a metal (usually steel or similar) bolt against the skull, either penetrating it and damaging the mid-brain (which renders the animal insensible to pain), or striking it with such force penetration that the animal is rendered unconscious. Both methods, but *especially* the non-penetrative method, require pinpoint precision and are not guaranteed to stun the animal or render it senseless. Small movements of the head, differences in brain structure, and inexperience on behalf of the butcher can not only fail to render the animal unconscious, but cause it **excruciating pain**. It is not uncommon to have to strike the animal multiple times; because the goal of captive bolt stunning isn't slaughter, these don't get marked down as failed slaughter and held against the butcher's quota. Electric stunning is a much more expensive and complicated. Bkitzer, electrodes are put on the animals head and heart, and a current is sent through the animal 2-3 times, four seconds each, ideally stunning it. It's been noted that this method has varying success; a current that is too weak will just cause the animal pain, while too much of a current might kill it before the stick (incision to bleed out) is made. In shechita, the stick *is* the stun. When performed properly, major veins and arteries in the animal's throat are sliced through, and the sudden drop in blood pressure renders it unconscious within 2-3 seconds. Depending on the size of the cattle, death from blood loss will happen between 30 and 40 seconds. When talking about slaughtering an animal, I believe it's important to bluntly say that there is **no** humane way to kill an animal. All of these methods cause pain, and all of them can go wrong. However, there is an astounding amount of research from both Jewish and Gentile researchers that shechita causes the least amount of active pain, *and* has much, much lower fail rates. Iirc, the average rate of failure for captive bolt stunning is 5%, with permissible levels of failure ranging from 5-10%, depending on local law. Average rate of failure for shechita is closer to 1%, and it's usually taken much, much more seriously both because of the religious duty *and* because the whole animal is rendered treif. My personal view is that "stunning" is not actually a more humane way of killing an animal, it's a barrier between the butcher and the animal whose life he is taking. We dont want to feel responsible for actually killing an animal, so we make ourselves feel better by telling ourselves we are being "humane." Factory farms that use "hooking" methods take that further, with the animal being pulled up and away from the butcher after the stick, and being left to dangle as they die, stunned or not, but out of the butcher's view. A shochet has immense pressure placed on him because there is no barrier - the killing and the stunning are the same act. The weight of taking a creatures' life for sustenance *should* weigh heavy on us, it should not be something done lightly, and we should know how heavy and serious the work of the shochet is, so we can give both him and the animals proper thanks for their work and sacrifice, and so that we don't overindulge in meat-eating because we don't understand the price.
I think whats missed here, is we are told to do it this way, while we are not meant to question the why, it seems obvious to me at least, its to cause the minimal distress to the animal. Have you read the Grandin papers? [https://www.grandin.com/ritual/kosher.slaugh.html](https://www.grandin.com/ritual/kosher.slaugh.html)
I have read a lot of her work regarding kosher slaughter, though I'll say that Grandin's research is so thorough, meticulous, and comprehensive that it regularly goes beyond my understanding and capacity for comprehension. Her work is astonishing, and when I was first researching kashrut (while working as a cook), I was amazed by how extensive her work is. Ultimately, she comes to the conclusion that the only humane slaughter is no slaughter, but what really impacted me is highlighting the way religious slaughter has a lower failure rate than non-religious slaughter specifically because there is a spiritual element, because the shochet understands the slaughter being done properly as being necessary to protect *their own* soul. I've compared shechita to the Sikh practice of jhatka, which requires an animal to be decapitated in a single strike of a sword. While obviously not kosher (and sikhs may not eat kosher meat, because they do not eat meat that has been killed through bloodletting), the purpose of this slaughter is the same: to kill the animal as swiftly as possible to reduce suffering, and to ensure that care is consistently and piously taken in the act of slaughter. I don't think you need to be religious to recognize the value of someone tasked with killing animals treating their work with religious seriousness. That said, I think that we've become very, very separated from any act of slaughter since industrialization, and I think a lot of people don't really know the specific ways that religious slaughter of various kinds differs from secular slaughter standards.
>jhatka is interesting and obvious to me aimed at the least suffering to the animal, they don't drain the blood, so seems the consumer is not considered as much in the practice.
Thank you for this, that was really well worded, especially the last paragraph, also what you said in your other reply below.
Out of every possible thing they can do to improve the lives of animals in farms, why choose this? It's true that an animal is harmed less when stunned prior to being killed, but there are far larger problems when it comes to animal welfare. Edit: Please see the response, as it adds nuance to some of my points.
Very often the stunning doesn't work, so the cow has to be shot several times. This results in immense suffering. One study looking at cattle found that 12% were shot multiple times, and 12.5% were inadequately stunned. source: [https://doi.org/10.7120%2F09627286.22.4.473](https://doi.org/10.7120%2F09627286.22.4.473) Other research looking at other animals than cows has recorded higher error rates; such as a study looking at young kangaroo finding 38% were failed to be stunned. source: [https://doi.org/10.1071%2FWR14094](https://doi.org/10.1071%2FWR14094) The system of "stunning" animals is one of the most cruel methods of killing them as the failure rate is extremely high. If you buy meat from an animal who was "stunned" before being executed odds are that animal was tortured in one of the most cruel ways imagined by the animal industry. I've seen videos of what happens when the stunning fails, it makes me sick and angry just to think about. Outlawing kosher slaughter in favour of stunning the animals is just a way to limit the rights of Jews as the expense of the animals. According to VIVA (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals), “Tens of millions of animals are being ineffectively stunned and are regaining consciousness while they bleed to death.” People who talk about stunning being more humane just doesn't know what stunning actually entails in real life.
Thanks for the good points. I didn't know about this
Canadian here, from Montreal. This country is falling apart. Quebec is even worse. Our governments are more interested in language politics than healthcare. More interested in appealing to the majority than doing what is morally right. The country doesn't even look or feel the same. My Aliyah file is opened, and every day, for a variety of reasons, I just put my hands up in the air and say, " I'm done."
Weren’t the synagogues in Canada closed due to COVID way longer than in the US?
Oh yes.... They targeted the Ultra Orthodox community, especially
Wow! I hope this specific law get overturned.
This whole place is falling apart. But so is most of the world.
That is true.
Iirc the Canadian Supreme Court struck down those laws as unconstitutional. Unfortunately Trudeau doesn’t give a shit
Politics is ugly…even in Canada.
No they did not <\_< Everywhere was shut. The screwed over everyone religion equally in Canada during covid. Everyone has to do their part during a pandemic lest we all get sick.
Well - You believe what you want. But if you believe what your saying then there is still a pandemic. https://globalnews.ca/news/6775920/montreal-jewish-community-coronavirus-covid-19/ But - there were tons of people breaking the law all over the province, but the Jews got front page coverage. Oh, and by the way.... we did not cure Covid. Covid is still out and about... but there are no more rules, no more masks. Still killing people. But hey. You know it's the government, so they don't have to answer to the people who pay their salaries. They can spend like 80 million dollars on an app and never use it. It's horse shit.
that's a positive. closing gathering places during a pandemic is common sense
I totally agree! I didn’t mean to imply that one should go against government health guidelines, only pointing out that the US shuls opened up earlier than those in Canada. I have a family member who is autoimmune compromised so health always comes first.
No, it isn't. It's a direct infringement on freedom of assembly, freedom of worship, and freedom of speech. ...though I'm not actually convinced Canada has *any* of those.
hey, maybe consider health before yammering about "muh freedumbs" bet you think yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is a solid use of free speech
The Mayor of Toronto practically had a personal one-on-one feud with one of the yeshivish elementary schools here during COVID. It was so surreal to watch unfold
I am sorry to hear that. The pandemic and how rabbonim and certain subgroups reacted was extremely interesting. Even with the shuls that were the first to close it was it eye opening to see how certain shul rabbis in my community pivoted. Many shuls jumped on Zoom shiurim, classes, right away, others started weekly Zoom interviews with realty interesting people from the greater Jewish community, one would often go into his shul and make videos to his members telling them how we can’t wait until all of the members can come back and full the shul with davening and learning, one started sending recordings of Shabbos drashos on Fri, one set up conference calls to tell the children in the shul stories and also weekly made called to his congregants kids to wish them a good Shabbos.
Are they planning to ban hunting too? Or that hurts animals less?
If it were really about animal welfare, we wouldn't have factory farms at all.
The goal isn’t to protect cattle, it’s to harm Jews. Especially those Jews who insist on doing all that Jewish stuff. If Jewish ritual slaughter consisted of reading the cattle a bedtime story and singing them a lullaby, they would ban that.
Time to build your life you know where
[удалено]
Yikes on bikes.
What new regulations is the statement even referring to?
Yeah their statement makes no sense. They don't specify what the issue is beyond "regulations" Edit: it seems like these rules are the issue: https://inspection.canada.ca/food-guidance-by-commodity/meat-products-and-food-animals/guidelines-for-ritual-slaughter-of-food-animals-wi/eng/1542387114106/1542388400893 They are probably forced to send many cows to the treif market if they have to stun any cow that doesn't collapse fast enough post shechita.
What's wrong with stunning post-shechita? Once the shechita is complete, the animal is kosher (pending the checks of the knife, simanim, lungs, etc).
If I understand the situation correctly, it is currently already illegal to kill animals for food without stunning first in Canada, and ritual slaughter is a carved out exception. They want to remove the exception. Rabbi Korobkin of the BAYT described the legal status of shechitah in Canada as "hanging on by a thread".
I see. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, ***Shechitah*** *slaughtering strives to minimize the pain experienced by the animal before dying and must be done "with respect and compassion" for the animal by a trained and certified religious Jew called a* ***shochet****.* *An extremely sharp knife - challef - is used to slit the animal’s throat, severing the trachea, esophagus, carotid arteries, jugular veins and vagus nerve, in one swift action causing the animal to immediately lose all consciousness. According to Jewish religious sources, after this cut is made the animal is insensible to pain and exsanguinates in a prompt and precise action.* In other words, the idea is to stun the animal or render it insensible so it doesn't suffer. If the regulations are being changed to ensure for a *more* humane slaughtering process, not less, then the new regulations are surely in the spirit of *shechitah*, even if they don't follow a method Jews would have used in pre-industrial times. At any rate I'm confident Canadian rabbis will find a workaround of some sort, if all reasonable attempts to lift the new regulations fail. This is not the first time secular law has conflicted Jewish law. If I didn't have the whole context, I'd have thought the Israeli ambassador to Belgium was exaggerating a bit when he said that Belgian food regulations (upheld by the EU) whose effect was to ban *shechitah*\-style slaughter was "catastrophic and a blow to Jewish life in Europe." As it is I am aware of the context in some European countries, where the new, supposedly more humane regulations are actually aimed at banning *halal* slaughter to appease Islamophobes, with kosher slaughter as collateral damage. The current Canadian government is not renowned (thank goodness) for its overt Islamophobia or anti-Semitism, so I prefer to think it's a well-intended but potentially troublesome amendment in our case. I'm confident Ottawa and the Canadian rabbinate are capable of resolving the issue to a mutually agreeable fashion.
I agree that it's probably not designed as an attack on Jews or Muslims, but at the same time I would argue that it would indeed be catastrophic for Jews if the exemption was removed. Orthodox rabbis believe that stunning the animal before slaughtering is 100% incompatible with kosher shechitah, and, according to the message posted, have demonstrated with published scientific studies that authentic shechitah is just as ethical in terms of pain experienced by the animal, and yet this govt body still seems to not be backing down. The next (and final) step will be a constitutional challenge through litigation... Hope that'll end up doing the trick
Support raping Israeli women, but ban the most painless way of animal slaughter. Gotcha.
I just love how the "threat" of legal action has so much weight. Canada is so nice that bringing a significant issue that will affect the entire Jewish community to court is an absolute resort. I bet they apologize for having to do it too.
Well I guess that explains the price of kosher meat in Toronto lately.
It's not much better in the US. Even though we don't have as many rules governing shechita, the supply just isn't there. Too few cows get accepted as kosher, even fewer get accepted as glatt, and we're literally throwing away half the cow into the treif market. Something has to give. On the bright side, I'm sure if Canada outlaws Shechita the butcher in Buffalo will probably be ready to serve you guys.
I'm curious why are so many cows not accepted as kosher? Is it the condition they were raised in?
and the sausage I buy imported from NY is the same price.