Rabbis defend kosher slaughtering in the USA

A group of Orthodox rabbis have defended Jewish ritual slaughter practices after a video released by the animal-rights group PETA created an uproar. The twelve rabbis, many of them involved in kosher supervision, said the practice “has been established over centuries to be the most humane form of animal slaughter.” They said the video made by PETA activists at a kosher abattoir in the US state of Iowa “may lead to misconceptions about the practices depicted on the videotape,” arguing that the scenes shown on the video contravened neither US nor Jewish law. The Orthodox Union said this week it would institute changes at the plant after the video release.