Shechita (Hebrew ) is the ritual slaughter of animals, as prescribed for slaughter of mammals and birds according to Jewish dietary laws. The act is performed by drawing a very sharp knife across the animal's throat and allowing the blood to drain out. Islamic law requires a similar procedure.

The practice is based on the Biblical law that men must not eat the blood of animals, one of the seven Noahide Laws incumbent on all Noah's children, not only the Jews. The animal must be killed with respect by a shochet who has in mind the life of the animal as he draws the knife across its neck. The animal can be in a number of positions; when the animal is lying on its back, this is referred to as shechita munachat. The aim is to sever all the major blood vessels in the neck, causing blood pressure in the brain to drop as instantaneously as the pain signal travels to the brain. With the animal rendered unconscious, the heart must continue to pump to aid the removal of blood from the rest of the carcass.

For these latter reasons, prior stunning by humane bolt or other methods are not permitted. The animal must be in good health, and is inspected after death to confirm that it was. Those animals which are not cleanly killed by shechita, or which, on inspection, are found to have unacceptable adhesions on their lungs (or one of many other infarctions), are declared non-kosher.

If the hindquarters (or sirloin) of kosher mammals are to be eaten by Jews, they must be 'porged' - stripped of veins, fats and sinews in accordance with a strict procedure. ^* Because of the expense of porging and the skill required to properly separate out the forbidden parts, a large portion of the meat of kosher mammals slaughtered through shechita in the United States winds up on the non-kosher market.

Animal Welfare controversies

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The humane attitude towards the slaughtered animal expressed in shechita law limits the extent to which Jewish slaughterhouses can industrialize their procedures. The most industrialized attempt at a kosher slaughterhouse, AgriProcessors of Postville, Iowa, became the center of controversy in 2004, after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released gruesome undercover video of cattle struggling to their feet with their tracheas and esophagi ripped out after shechita. Some of the cattle actually got up and stood for up to a couple of minutes after being dumped from the rotating pen. ^*

The Orthodox Union, the leading certificating body for kosher food in the USA, concluded that AgriProcessors was observing proper procedures ^*, though some changes could be made in consideration of marit ayin - community perceptions. The OU pointed out:

While unnecessary cruelty to even one animal is intolerable, one has to look at the total picture before judging the matter. To those unfamiliar with the slaughter industry-kosher or non-kosher-scenes showing post-shechita movement of several animals, such as are shown on the video, can be very disturbing. But it must be realized that during the six or seven weeks during which the video was taken, approximately 18,000 animals were slaughtered by the plant in question. With such numbers, it is inevitable that aberrations do sometimes occur, and those shown in the video represent only a tiny percentage of the total number processed in that time span. ^*

PETA was rebuked by several parties in the Orthodox Jewish community for mounting what they considered to be a vindictive campaign so soon after Jewish organizations had criticized the group for its "Holocaust on your Plate" ad campaign promoting veganism. Leading rabbis of the non-Orthodox movements in Judaism, allied with a small number of Orthodox rabbis including David Rosen, former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, sided with PETA and condemned what they viewed as the inhumane methods used at AgriProcessors [http://www.goveg.com/pdfs/HumaneKosherSignatories.pdf.

The Nazi Party banned shechita in Germany in 1933, which has led many in the Jewish community to view all attempts to regulate shechita with suspicion, as being motivated by antisemitism. Switzerland, Norway, and Sweden have longstanding bans on shechita, ostensibly on animal welfare grounds, requiring their Jewish populations to import kosher meat. The United Kingdom forbids shechita munachat, also on animal welfare grounds, requiring the use of upright pens instead. Other European countries have more recently attempted to ban or restrict shechita, although local Jewish communities have been able to defeat these measures.

Dr. Temple Grandin, a leading animal scientist in the field, has worked with kosher slaughterhouses to replace shackle-and-hoist equipment with upright pens, including one she designed. She has critcized the continuing widespread use of what she views as cruel methods of restraint used in kosher slaughterhouses in South America and Israel When Dr. Grandin was shown the PETA video of AgriProcessors, she called AgriProcessor's procedures "an atrocious abomination" and the worst she had ever seen in working at over 30 kosher plants around the world [http://www.grandin.com/ritual/qa.cattle.insensibility.html.

See also

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• Kashrut

External links

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• Shechita - The Jewish Religious Humane Method of Animal Slaughter for Food
• Shechita - A Photo Essay Warning! These pictures are graphic!
• Video of shechita munachat from Israel Warning! very graphic
• Shechita UK
• PETA's investigation of AgriProcessors
• Temple Grandin's recommended ritual slaughter practices page
• Shackling and Hoisting A unanimous teshuvah by the Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards opposing shechita munachat as a violation of Jewish law

Jewish law and rituals | Hebrew words

Schæchtning | Schächten | שחיטה (יהדות) | シェヒーター | Sjeḥitá | Szechita | Šehita | Şehita