Ritual Slaughter : Legal and Theological Inconsistencies

Both the Muslim and Jewish faiths have specific requirements for the slaughter of religiously acceptable animals. The major difference from the general practices in most countries is that the animals are not stunned prior to slaughter. It is important that meat scientists understand the implications of these differences. They need to critically consider the scientific information available about the effects of different slaughter practices on animals before reaching any judgements about the appropriateness of a particular form of slaughter. It is also important that they understand the importance of these practices to the people who follow these religious codes. We hope to discuss some information that may be useful in evaluating religious slaughter. The Jewish dietary code is described in the original five books of the Holy Scriptures. The Muslim code is found in the Quran. Both codes represented major advancements in the respect for animals and their proper handling in ancient times. For example, the Jewish code specifically forbid the use of limbs torn from live animals and the slaughter of both a mother animal and her children on the same day. One way to view the rather comprehensive legal system of the Jewish faith is spelled out in the paragraphs below. We feel this explanation may help others understand the degree of significance of these religious practices to those of the Jewish faith (Grunfeld, 1972). "And ye shall be men of holy calling unto Me, and ye shall not eat any meat that is torn in the field" (Exodus XXII:30) Holiness or selfsanctification is a moral term; it is identical with...moral freedom or moral autonomy. Its aim is the complete selfmastery of man. "To the superficial observer it seems that men who do not obey the law are freer than law-abiding men, because they can follow their own inclinations. In reality, however, such men are subject to the most cruel bondage; they are slaves of their own instincts, impulses and desires. The first step towards emancipation from the tyranny of animal inclinations in man is, therefore, a voluntary submission to the moral law. The constraint of law is the beginning of human freedom....Thus the fundamental idea of Jewish ethics, holiness, is inseparably connected with the idea of Law; and >Religious slaughter and animal welfare:a discussion for meat...

Abstaining from meat consumption has persistently been a source of debate within religious communities, often functioning as a center pivot around which theological or philosophical orthodoxy and orthopraxy turns. Drawing upon diverse ancient practices, motivations, and textual perspectives in Judaism, Christianity, and Indic traditions along with contemporary religious vegetarians, this essay maps three stages that religious communities have historically grappled with, are presently attempting, and must continue to tackle, as they re/consider eating animals and animal by-products as part of their ethical identities and community meals: (1) critical, deconstructive engagement of textual multiplicity and interpretive authority, (2) robust analysis of human supremacy in light of animal behavioral studies, new materialist science, and empathic experience, and (3) constructing imaginative coalitions beyond species, institutional boundaries, and cultural identities.

UniSA Student Law Review, 2015

This is a comment on Seamus Brand’s article in this volume entitled ‘Australian Live Animal Export: A Comparative Examination of Viable Alternatives’. It summarises current scientific evidence of the pain and suffering that is experienced by animals during slaughter. The comment begins by surveying the different measures of pain and distress in animals before moving on to present an overview of the halal, kosher and commercial methods used to kill animals. It argues that while the available evidence confirms that direct incisional killing causes pain and may lead to significant suffering in some animals, the deeper issue that must be confronted arises from the fact that even when best commercial practices are followed, enormous numbers of animals experience pain or distress in the final period of their life regardless of whether they are killed by halal, kosher or secular methods of slaughter.

This dissertation focuses upon a group of vegetarians which are members of an English-speaking, online atheist community, an investigation of their Weltanschauug (worldview) for meat-avoidance, and the subsequent discourse analysis undertaken for this study. One aim of this study is achieved by an ‘online ethnography’ that discusses the views of atheist-vegetarians towards the question; “Is there a link between atheism/vegetarianism?”. This method understands that analysing text can overcome context and time constraints in consideration of transcendent perspectives such as worldviews. Furthermore, a consideration of atheist and vegetarian literature is explored to complement the nature of the ethnography; ‘Atheist-vegetarianism’, human and animal relationships, and the cultural politics of meat were chosen. This work highlights the role of speciesism within theistic/atheist and vegetarian discourse, and the construction of morality through sources of science, rationality and consumption ideals. Furthermore, this work hopes to highlight the subtle hegemonic ways in which contemporary meat consumption is maintained, not only by traditional consumption rituals, but by a non-exclusive list of economic, anthropocentric, nutritional, and philosophical paradigms. If we use Heidegger’s school of postmodernist thought to treat meat-free lifestyles as autonomous worldviews, we can similarly compare these perceptions with wider socio-political/economic ‘meat practices’ which maintain meat consumption in order for atheist-vegetarianism to potentially provide a new form of moral theory. This ‘moral theory’, akin to Carole Adams’ (1990) feminist-vegetarian writings, would provide a new look at how moral vegetarianism could highlight the presupposition that religious discourse holds over the consumption of meat, and of man’s anthropocentrism towards animals.

This essay uses a focus on meat and animals to illumine ancient and modern discourses about sacrifice and "civilization." It suggests that attention to recent research on meat-production and the "sociology of the slaughterhouse" might open new perspectives on the range of ways in which the sanctified ritual slaughter of animals has been understood by its proponents, critics, and theorists-both ancient and modern. It begins by historicizing the rise of modern scholarly interest in animal sacrifice, with reference to dramatic shifts in the production and consumption of meat in modern European societies. Then, it looks to the Vedas and the Torah/Pentateuch to reflect upon the place of meat and animals in two of the best documented of ancient sacrificial systems. Lastly, it considers some trajectories in their Nachleben with an eye to the value and limits of dominant narratives about the cessation, interiorization, or spiritualization of sacrifice.

Food Ethics, 2016

This paper discusses the ethics of killing animals for food by looking at current practices of conventional and halal slaughter in Egypt and in the UK. It addresses the role of animal science (with its recent advances on animal sentience), slaughterhouse technologies (with increased mechanization) and religion (with its multiple interpretations of religious rules in the case of halal slaughter) in affecting the public acceptability and the ethical questioning of these practices, as well as the controversy about the authenticity of halal meat in Europe.

Journal of Religion in Europe, 2015

In 2011, the Dutch House of Representatives voted for the first time in its history for banning the practice of unstunned ritual slaughter in accordance to Jewish and Islamic rites. How should this remarkable vote be understood? In order to answer this question, a critical discourse analysis has been carried out. Three discourses are discerned in the debate: ‘unstunned ritual slaughter as an outdated practice,’ ‘ritual slaughter as a form of ritual torture’ and ‘unstunned ritual slaughter as a legitimate religious practice.’ The growing parliamentary support for the first two mentioned discourses is related to recent changes in the Dutch political landscape. In a wider context, it is related to a shift in the national self-conception of the Netherlands and, linked to that, to a change in the perceived position of traditional religious minorities within Dutch society in the aftermath of 9/11 and the ‘Fortuyn revolt.’

Erasmus Law Review 5.1 (2012)

Many participants in the recent fierce debate on ritual slaughter in the Netherlands have understood this to be a conflict between religious and secular values, pitting religious freedom against animal welfare. The great variety in viewpoints among all groups involved, however – political parties, religious communities, scientists, the meat industry and engaged citizens – makes it impossible to describe any one standpoint as either religious or secular per se. Rather, the politicisation of this issue is an outgrowth of the politicisation of diversity in Dutch society more generally. Yet, another development is equally relevant: the growing, though still largely implicit, distinction being made between ‘involuntary’ minority identities based on biology (race, sex and sexuality) and ‘voluntary’ ones based on personal choice (religion and culture). This distinction is crucial for understanding the pressure being put today on the accommodation of religious difference when it is increasingly perceived as a form of voluntary difference from the norm. When this distinction between ‘congenital’ and ‘chosen’ minority difference is considered more closely, however, from the perspective of contemporary scientific research tracking religion in human neurology and evolution, it turns out to be largely untenable. Correspondingly, scientific expertise offers few, if any, solutions to the question of the place of religious truths in secular democracy, but only changes the terms under which they are politicised.

JEWISH VEGANISM and VEGETARIANISM STUDIES AND NEW DIRECTIONS, 2019

Veganism is often presented as the highest ideal for anyone who is concerned about animal rights or opposed to what deep ecology calls “speciesism.” Here I explore whether veganism should be seen as an ideal moral practice and whether it can be affirmed as an authentic or ideal Jewish practice. If veganism represents the ideal, then people’s choices from best to worst would fall on a spectrum whose extremes run from not using animals at all to using them however one wishes. The fundamental question behind that wider spectrum is what kind of dominion or dominance, if any, humanity may exert over other animals. If dominion is the principle underlying our current food system, the opposite ethic would be to reject any use of animals. This ethic is often called “abolitionist veganism,” can be summed up in the words of one of its leading proponents, Gary L. Francione: “There is veganism and there is animal exploitation. There is no third choice.” In Judaism, though, there is a clear third choice. The ideal of covenant that is so fundamental to the Torah’s understanding of the human-divine relationship also shapes a mutualistic understanding of people’s interactions with other animals. If covenant is the ideal, however, the question of veganism looks substantially different. The only way to create a covenantal relationship is for humans to be directly involved with animals. in different historical contexts one or another of these perspectives dominates. The Torah's understanding of covenant can be used to establish a baseline to measure human- animal relationships in subsequent stages of Jewish literature and thought. Those eras and genres characterized by a covenantal perspective are less favorable to a purist vegan ideology, whereas those that base morality on the individual and extrapolate that morality to our relations with animals are more favorable to veganism.

Animal Frontiers, 2012