Workers at a slaughterhouse in Uruguay are captured on video using a chain to lift a cow by the leg, which is widely criticized as inhumane.
A PETA activists recorded a video in a slaughterhouse in Uruguay, depicting cows being treated inhumanely. The cows are lifted by a chain attached to one leg and then restrained by workers for the slaughter. The OU, which gives the Hechsher on the slaughterhouse, said two years ago they wanted to stop this practice. However since the raid on Agriprocessors, the OU has not been willing to endanger the country's supply of kosher beef.
PETA Targeting Another Kosher Slaughterhouse
A PETA activists recorded a video in a slaughterhouse in Uruguay, depicting cows being treated inhumanely. The cows are lifted by a chain attached to one leg and then restrained by workers for the slaughter. The OU, which gives the Hechsher on the slaughterhouse, said two years ago they wanted to stop this practice. However since the raid on Agriprocessors, the OU has not been willing to endanger the country’s supply of kosher beef.
Nathaniel Popper for the Los Angeles Times writes:
Two years after U.S. kosher-food authorities said they wanted to stop use of a cattle-killing method widely criticized as inhumane, the country’s largest seller of kosher meat is importing beef from a South American plant that employs the technique, import records and an undercover video show.
The video, recorded in December by animal-rights activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals at a slaughterhouse in Uruguay, depicts cows being lifted by a chain attached to one leg and then restrained by workers for the slaughter.
PETA identified the slaughterhouse as Frigorifico Las Piedras outside Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo. The plant is a major supplier of Alle Processing in New York, according to import records.
Alle’s owner, Mottel Bergman, declined to comment on the methods used at Las Piedras, as did Enrique Badano, the South American firm’s export manager.
Meat from Las Piedras and other South America factories is used to produce most of the processed kosher meat consumed in America, including deli favorites such as salami and pastrami, kosher authorities say.
The Orthodox Union, which runs the largest U.S. organization certifying food as conforming to Jewish dietary laws, has rabbis observing the procedures at Las Piedras.
An official of the organization confirmed that the plant used the controversial killing method, “shackle and hoist.”
In 2008, after PETA released a video taken at another South American plant that exports kosher beef to Israel, the Orthodox Union said it wanted to stop certifying meat from cows killed with the shackle-and-hoist technique.
This week, Menachem Genack, chief executive of the group’s kosher certification unit, said the organization still hoped to end use of the method.
But because the previous largest U.S. kosher supplier went out of business in 2008, Genack said the group was not willing to endanger this country’s supply of kosher beef.
“We have to make sure that kosher slaughter is done in as good a fashion as possible — but I want to do that in a way that doesn’t disrupt a very fragile industry,” he said.
As a result, Genack said, the Orthodox Union is following the lead of Israel’s kosher authorities, who allow the shackle-and-hoist method because they require that cows be slaughtered while upside down if their meat is to be considered kosher.
There is a mechanical pen that can keep the animal inverted while it is killed, but it is expensive to install.
Such a pen is said to make it easier to confirm that the cut applied to the cow’s throat follows kosher requirements.
Yona Metzger, one of Israel’s two chief rabbis who oversee kosher certification in the Jewish state, two years ago promised an effort to stop use of shackle-and-hoist slaughtering.
Ezra Harari Raful, head of meat imports for the chief rabbinate, said the Israelis were pressing for change but couldn’t control the South American factory owners.
“It can only be implemented by decisions of the owners of the ritual slaughterhouses,” Raful wrote in an e-mail. “I believe that the administrators will slowly change their practices from how it currently exists to the new methods.”
But Joe Regenstein, a food science professor at Cornell University and kosher-meat expert, blamed Metzger for not forcing change upon the Israeli companies that control most of the kosher meat production in South America.
“Nothing has happened,” Regenstein said. “Unfortunately, we’re tainted by it.”
Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a shackle-and-hoist opponent, expressed frustration after seeing the latest PETA video.
“I’m getting fed up with it,” she said. “It’s a really terrible practice and it needs to stop. It’s that simple.”
The method is also more dangerous for the workers involved, said Grandin, author of “Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals.”
PETA, based in Norfolk, Va., opposes all killing of animals for meat but has said the shackle-and-hoist method is worse than alternative techniques.
Previous videos recorded by PETA’s undercover teams have had a big effect on the kosher industry.
In late 2004, a video taken at an Iowa slaughterhouse raised questions about the slaughter of cattle there and led to increased scrutiny of its owner, Agriprocessors Inc. The firm filed for bankruptcy protection in 2008 after an immigration raid at the plant.
The departure of Agriprocessors allowed Alle to become the largest U.S. kosher-meat supplier — and made the U.S. industry more dependent on South American meat.
WARNING: Graphic video, use caution.
furious
we brought this on ourselves by caving to them and throwing rubashkin under the bus. sahme on us.
Noah
There is something very disturbing about watching a cow having to be pinned down by force (and screaming and resisting) in order to shecht it. The way the cow is treated in this video seems to me to be in stark contrast to the halachos (I’m certainly not an expert, but at least the soul of the halachos if not the body) of shechita and kashrus.
I’m certainly no supporter of PETA. However, all evil has some good and I think that there’s something we can learn from this. It’s hashgocho protis that these kinds of attacks are coming now on kosher meat.
I think it’s important for us to recognize that shechita is a very serious, spiritual thing. It’s said that the Baal Shem Tov used to wet the knife with his tears — I can only imagine what he was thinking as he took the life of another animal.
Especially as Chissidim, we should be extra careful with this kind of stuff. If we’re supposed to eat meat in order to elevate it, not (just) to fulfill our desires, then we should be careful as well to kill the meat in as hiddur a way as possible. The Rebbe Reshab was upset when his son broke a twig off a tree for no reason, how much more so for a living, breathing, animal.
S.R.
It does seem very cruel to do this to animals. What’s another method of slaughtering the animal in a more humane way?
why is PETA wrong about this point
Tzaar Baalei chayim is a serious DEORAISA!!
whoever considers themselves frum should be equally outraged!!
not at shchita itself but the Torture leading up to it!!!
PETA or SHMETA the point is valid! and does not justify all the rest of PETA’s liberal-agenda!!
Meat eater
omg I’m gonna puke
CHT
BS, postmortem convulsions has nothing to do with live, animal is already dead and you can start do whatever needed.
Korban Tzibur
Now that everyone sees this we all realize how important it is to stand up against these people to protect shechitah in the next generation. we all agree that SMR is a korban tzibur – but will we let PETA YM”S get away with this?
Dude
The video is misleading. The cow was slaughtered while being restrained on the ground. Only after its neck was cut was it hoisted up. Anywhere in the world that cows are slaughtered they hoist them up right after they are slaughtered.
THATS IT !!!
Im going Vegan ! LOL
What?!!!?!?!
They call the animal conscious after it’s neck has already been cut, it can feel no pain onece there are no nerves going to the brain!!!
to noah
“I can only imagine what he was thinking as he took the life of another animal.”
what did u mean by “another”????
Mike
in place of the cow, put PETA there, or better yet, they should be beheaded!!!
where-s the beef?
I was told that in the UK (EU regulations) they have special pens that rotate to allow the animal to be upside down for shechita. From what I understand, the animal doesn’t so much as moo.
eli
I agree With PETA the method used is cruel but I doubt the sincerity as if they really care for animals, for if they cared for animals they wouldn’t just be targeting jews all the time For instance how come they never targets Arabs that just comes to reflect the true nature of PETA as anti semites
Yonasan
That video is misleading. They had to hold it down when they are gonna shecht it. And only after they hoisted it up. And once its shechted its dead (even though its moving from reflects). Why should the kosher meat industry suffer because of some goyim that love animals a little too much.
what???
and what about the inocent people and children in israel being killed every day that’s nothing??? P.S as soon as the simunim are cut the animal can not suffer any pain!
Shlucha
My father is a shliach and he is involved with this- he told ne that the PETA just put the sounds of the cow suffering on the video(its fake) the cow is the real part and its terrbile they just want to get away with kosher meat :P
Rabbi Bilo
The Shchita part itself has got to be changed to a more stable BOX however after the throat is slit its put on a track by one leg…Thats how its done EVERYWHERE!
hate peta
in order for the animal to be kosher they need kill them 1000% within the first split second of the throat cutting and they are long dead way before they are hoisted up on that thing! peta tried this bull crap in the postville Iowa plant and a goverment agent confirmed that the animal is way dead before it feels any pain! when u see it struggling, it is like the dead chicken that the nerves can make the headless body run around for a few seconds!
[ and only one in a few thousand cows puts up that kind of fight before its slaughtered] GET A LIFE PETA!
S.B.wrote
I was in a health food store parking lot, when a man got out of his car covered with PETA stickers. As soon as he saw my son (with yarmulke), and thereby identifying us as Jews, he started screaming at us for killing the poor Palestinians,etc.
PETA is the newer more sophisticated form of the KKK (Klu Klux Klan).Their main agenda is how to defame the Jews! Why isn’t Peta looking at the other slaughterhouses in South America?
they-re crazy
Remember, PETA is the group that got upset when Palestinians blew up Israelis, using a donkey. They were upset because the donkey was sacrficed………….
C-mon
The bottom line is these people are against shchita in general. When people see these videos they think we are monsters. It doesn’t matter how we hold the cow, this is an attack on schita al pi halacha. As long as its kosher, and all okay according to Torah I don’t care what PETA says.
yosy
Why would you put this up in the first place?!
Because some stupid goyim don’t understand anything about yiddishkeit, YOU are giving them a voice?!
What does this accomplish?? Are we going to stop eating kosher because “they” have a problem with it?!
Why do they not show what goes on in the goyishe slaghterhouses?! How do they kill animals for traifa meat?
Why are they not concerned with the pain and suffering from those animals? This should be taken down – it just serves as fodder for sonai yisroel.
Kochava
Please review and sign petition for Mr. Rubaishkin, who, thanks to PETA, which cares more for 4-legged creature than those with 2 legs, and the state attorney of Iowa, is facing a life sentence in prison! http://justiceforsholom.org. Thank you!
Pinchos Woolstone
The PETA organization will be held accountable by G-d for the wicked and vindictive actions they took which eventually lead to the Blood Libel against the Rubashkin family business and Sholom Mordechai in particular.
Throughout history mesira has been considered a vile and repugnant action by one Jew against another because it gave the goyim “permission” to persecute Jews in general.
The Jewish couple who initiated the PETA persecution of the Rubashkin are despicable human beings and deserving of punishment min hashomyim………….they should be placed in Cherem by Beis Din at the very least.
COWards at PETA ignore HALAL, l-havdil
Dear SB:
You’re right on!
Furthermore, why isn’t PETA going after HALAL, l’havdil!!!
PETA is just a bunch of cowards, no pun intended!