Daily Archives: January 18, 2006

In Postville, Iowa, kosher is kosher

This article appeared in the National Geographic Magazine a few months ago, yet it still is a very good article.

“Slaughtering an animal is a bloody business,” says Sholom Rubashkin, a manager at AgriProcessors, one of the largest kosher meatpacking plants in the country. A video secretly filmed last year in Rubashkin’s plant in Postville, Iowa, by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) demonstrates just how bloody. For an animal to be considered kosher, it must be killed by a swift cut across the throat with a perfectly sharpened knife. This ritual slaughter, called shehitah, is designed to ensure that death is nearly instantaneous. But the video shows cows moving, even trying to get up after being cut. PETA says this violates humane slaughtering laws and that the plant should be prosecuted.

Rubashkin says the video, shot over seven weeks, selectively shows those few cases in which a cow, though rendered unconscious, may not look like it was killed instantly—he compares the animal’s movements to a chicken with its head cut off. As he takes me on a tour of the chicken-processing side of the slaughterhouse—the birds’ featherless bodies clicking along on an overhead conveyor belt—he says the criticism is an attack not only on his company but also on an ancient tradition. “I think PETA is after the shehitah process,” he says in a staccato Brooklyn accent that has not softened after years in the Midwest. “They’d love to make it illegal.”

Praying For Sharon… Or Not…

This picture was published in one of the major news papers in the United States with the above caption. But then you take a closer look and you can see that the “prayer book” the man is holding, is in fact a “Sichas Hashavuah”, it’s like the L’chaim in Hebrew. So, who is he praying for?

An Open Letter to the Next Prime Minister of Israel

Despite the unfortunate circumstances which precipitated your coming to lead Israel, I would like to congratulate you on your acquiring leadership of the country.

As someone who feels such a closeness to the Holy Land of Israel, I would like to tell you what I envision as the future for Israel.

As I see it, Israel is a democracy among autocracies, the small among the big, the hunted among the hunters.

I would like to see peace in the Holy Land. I don’t relish the news of the attacks, murders, and bombings. I don’t want to hear about more katyusha rockets being fired or more buses being bombed.

New credit card would aid charities in Israel

The Jewish community is being courted to get what may be the first credit card to benefit charities in Israel.

While there are hundreds of nonprofits that urge their supporters to make purchases through a Visa or MasterCard that is set up to automatically give them a payment, the focus of the charities is usually in the United States.

The new card targeted to the Jewish community across the United States — which was marketed through e-mail blasts and newspaper advertisements in Jewish publications in November — is called HAS, or Heritage Affinity Services, and was created by two Long Island businessmen.