Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Compassion Mobilized: Antisemitism, Racism, and the Politics of Animal Welfare in Germany, 1945–2002

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

Markets, Marginalization, and Maritime Violence in Late Medieval England

Investigating Violence at Sea

In 1343, more than 150 inhabitants of Great Yarmouth attacked two ships belonging to a certain Robert Morley that were anchored at the roadstead of Kirkley, a village ten kilometres to the south, and seized around £5,000 worth of goods.1 The assailants were members of the leading families of Great Yarmouth and ranged from ship owners and traders, to holders of political office (both royal and municipal), customs officers, bailiffs, and admirals. They were involved in the administration of justice, including as members of commissions appointed by the king or his chancery to investigate violence at sea. The victim, Morley, was also a familiar figure. He came from the local area, on the border between Suffolk and Norfolk, and was one of the most important landowners in the region. He also owned multiple merchant ships. In short, he was an important man in the early years of the war between the English and French kings, which had broken out in 1337. He had been appointed Admiral of the North several times by Edward III and had defended the Norfolk coast from a possible French invasion.2

The scene of the crime—a relatively unremarkable patch of water at first glance—plays an extremely prominent role in English sources from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as one of the key sites of economic activity in the region, as a place where customs were collected by the Crown and by local actors, and not least as a hotspot of maritime violence. The fact that Kirkley Roads became such a hotspot in the first place was due to the resource conflicts fought there between various actors from Great Yarmouth and other ports along the coast—specifically, over the catching and trading of herring.

Continue reading Markets, Marginalization, and Maritime Violence in Late Medieval England
  1. Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward III, 1343–1345 (London, 1902), 166–7, 168, 172, 385. []
  2. Graham Cushway, Edward III and the War at Sea: The English Navy, 1327–1377 (Woodbridge, 2011), 77, 91–2, 96, 114–16. []