In Judaism, the protection of life, including animal welfare, is a biblical commandment, and only the meat of uninjured animals is considered kosher (prepared or kept in conditions that follow the rituals of Jewish law). The Jewish method of slaughter (schechtia) is carried out without prior stunning and is intended to ensure rapid loss of consciousness and maximal exsanguination of the animal. It is performed exclusively by a shochet, a religiously certified slaughterer whose training encompasses not only technical precision and physical skill, but also strict ethical and spiritual qualifications. The act involves a single, uninterrupted incision across the animal’s throat using a flawlessly smooth and extremely sharp knife (chalaf). This cut severs the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries, jugular veins, and major nerve pathways, leading to quick unconsciousness and substantial blood loss, as required by Jewish dietary law. Animals that are diseased, injured, or show internal defects are disqualified from kosher status. These conditions are identified during the ritual inspection (bedika), following which the meat may be certified as kosher if no disqualifying signs are found.
Common stunning methods, such as a percussive blow to the head or the use of a captive bolt, cause injury to the animal’s skull and are therefore deemed unacceptable by Jewish authorities. For over 150 years, significant segments of German majority society have rejected the Jewish method of slaughter, demonstrating hate and hostility. Since the Second German Empire, animal protection societies have mobilized against shechita, denouncing it as a ‘cultural disgrace’ and ‘Jewish cruelty to animals’. Although numerous independent experts have disproved the allegation of cruelty, these societies have persisted in their calls for obligatory stunning in German slaughterhouses. Antisemitic voices have swiftly echoed this demand, while the rhetoric of animal welfare activists is itself not devoid of antisemitic undertones.
Continue reading Compassion Mobilized: Antisemitism, Racism, and the Politics of Animal Welfare in Germany, 1945–2002