By Nathaniel Popper – latimes.com
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.
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.
shechita is actually the kindest method to slaughter it is completely painless
Read the hypocrisy:
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
http://www.newsweek.com/id/134549
I really don’t understand why Jews, known as compassionate, can’t use the kindest methods available to slaughter animals. Don’t we believe that is what G-d would want? Does Kosher simply mean that it was killed with a sharp chalif or that we don’t have kosher “ha’ba’a b’aveirah” namely unnecessary tzar ba’alei chayim? The truth is that as a Lubavitcher and a Jew it is embarrassing to me…. I’ve mostly stopped eating meat and chicken as a result…
The German NAZI also they started by protecting animal over human and then they killed human like animal
PETA doing the same they want to save animal but want to kill SHOLOM MORDECHAI CV’S
to build up the hatered
The OU seems to have become the Jewish PETA. Since when do Kashrus organizations get involved in the nuts-and-bolts of running a business? They are, supposedly, only informing the consumer if the product is kosher, i.e. premissible to eat or not.
Now they will also tell you if the food is humane, organic, Made in USA, Tea Party, or any number of other labels. Pardon me, but Rabbis should keep their nose in their own business and keep the politics out.
why so graphic?
This guy has made it his life’s ambition to wage jihad on shechita.
why are there goyim? Hashem wants yiden to hvae challenges- and overcome them….. it may seem unfair.. but its the way one has to go about life- to “lchatchila ariber” our rabbiem teach us – and thats why.
If humane treatment of animals was in fact the goal of PETA, then what you say would make perfect sense. But this is not an attack on inhumane treatment but rather that is just being used as a facade behind which they can hide the true goal of attacking shchita and Yiishkeit as a whole. It’s just like the people who say they hate “zionists” but really hate all Jews.
But on Friday, when government prosecutors recommended that Sholom Mordechai be sentenced to life in prison – yes, life in prison – for his bank fraud conviction, the veneer of justice was peeled off. No longer can anyone claim that the government is simply carrying out their mandate of pursuing equal justice under the law. Now it has become blatantly obvious for all to see that there is something sinister at work here. In our Pesach edition, we published a painstakingly researched article documenting the way in which the Rubashkin case was prosecuted and the way he has been treated… Read more »
Despite the fact the purpose of animals is to benefit humans, isn’t tzaar baalei chayim a mitzvah? The AGRI plant was far more humane with the “box”.
these goyim are so stupid if only they would know the purpose of an animal and that shcita is THE BEST for the animal!
we r very lucky to have the torah ,the truth!!
Intersting… Uncle Sam acted on “behalf of citizens” and closed down Agri because it was giving some jobs to illegals. Now the biggest plant is in South America. So to correct the problem that some American jobs were being given to foreign citizens, Uncle Sam moved ALL of the jobs from Iowa to Uruguay! That’ll teach ’em! I hope the residents of Postville are appreciative of the “favor” that was done for them.
PETA organization clearly is targeting yiddish meat companies left and right and have already put 100s of workers of out business and the complete Postville economy out on the street! PETA – Hashem will severely punish your society in more ways than one! Get ready for a fight you stupid idiots!!!!!!!