04 March 2008
Israel’s Asheknazi chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, has met with importers of kosher meat to Israel in a bid to recruit the importers to fight "the international attack initiated by organizations for the prevention of cruelty to animals against kosher slaughtering". The chief rabbi told the meeting that although animal rights organizations' motives were not always pure, “you must do anything in order to prevent animals from suffering, otherwise the entire Jewish slaughtering will be in danger."
During the meeting, Metzger highlighted the slaughterhouses in South America (which are the main suppliers of kosher meat imported to Israel under the Chief Rabbinate) using the ‘lift and bind’ method, in which the animal's legs are tied before it is slaughtered, causing undue distress. He noted that this was a primitive method and instructed the importers to exert massive pressure on the slaughterhouses they work with and make them stop using this technique and quickly adopt the modern ‘boxing’ method used in Europe, in which the animal is spared unnecessary suffering before it is slaughtered. Chief rabbi Metzger stressed that it was “obligatory to examine the knives before each slaughter and ensure that they are not defective, so as not to cause undue distress to the beast. It is unthinkable that the beast will suffer unnecessarily as it is transported to the slaughterhouse."
Metzger was strongly critical of organizations for the prevention of cruelty to animals, saying he was not convinced their intentions were pure. "There are different and odd foods like seafood, which are prepared with serious abuse, but for some reason these organizations are only heard when it comes to Jewish slaughter. Koshering organizations in the United States have told me that they were being similarly attacked by these organizations for the prevention of cruelty to animals. They told me that these organizations have serious influence and great power in the United States, and that they use this to present the Jews as cruel people and to make other anti-Semitic accusations. If this attack continues, Jewish slaughter is in danger," Rabbi Metzger said.
