Jamie Oliver - It was jewdas wot done it
Whilst Jewdas is an organisation which prides itself on factual accuracy and journalistic integrity, we have to admit that from time to time even we make mistakes. We now concede that Jamie Oliver is not about to become the next LBD shochet and never intended to make a Channel Four series about shechita. We are sorry for any confusion we may have caused to all who signed the petition. We apologise to those who were looking forward to Jamie holding a vat of cholent and describing it as ‘pukka’. We apologise especially to the several individuals in the Hendon area recently seen panic-buying massive quantities of kosher meat – rest assured, your chicken soup is safe.
That said, we would also like to declare this campaign a total success. Who would dare make a TV show about shechita now? There may not have been an actual threat, but we have spoken out loud and clear against it.
This form of campaigning is far more effective than anything ever attempted before. The Board of Deputies is famous for seeing threats to Jewish life all around them; this approach goes one step further by spotting such threats before they actually exist. All we need to do is to make a list of 'things that might in future be bad for the Jews' and launch pre-emptive campaigns against them all. Let us illustrate:
- Ok, so the government isn't actually thinking of banning faith schools, BUT THEY MIGHT. So let's start a campaign now before our little children are forced to socialise with non Jews.
- The government may not have yet imposed a heavy tax on air travel, BUT SHOULD THEY DO SO they need to be told that holidaying in Eilat is an inalienable Jewish right.
- Yes, at the moment there is no specific tax for wearers of black hats, BUT WHAT IF ONE WAS INTRODUCED? Let's get the petitions started now.
Now some say that it is possible to play the antisemitism card too readily. We say it is a card best played as often and as forcefully as possible, unencumbered by such irritations as care, caution or fact. This is indeed key to the potential success of all future campaigns. But in reality, we have to admit that most people are way ahead of the game on this one - plenty of those who signed the Jamie Oliver petition were using that well-thumbed card. Take this comment for example:“absolute disgrace. Antisemitic motive”
We couldn't have put it more succinctly. Great stuff. Yet others were even more skilled in the art of defending the Jews. The Jewdas team were full of admiration for this comment:“A visit to a concentration camp might make Jamie Oliver and the channel 4 producers understand why Jews wish to carry on with ALL their ancient traditions”
Which perfectly illustrates the key rhetorical point: there is no argument to which the holocaust is not applicable. We say this not in jest, but to guarantee the success of all our future campaigns against yet-to-be-realised, but could-maybe-happen events affecting the Jewish world.
Continued...
But the petition message board brought out other important issues. Many signatories used humour in their comments, the most popular being the classic “Shechita is a humane form of slaughter” gag. Like jokes about Jewish mothers and men called Hymie this shows that the old ones really are the best:Shechita has been in use for over 3000 years and has proved to be a humane method of slaughter.
We’ve been doing it for ages, so it must be right: longevity equals ethics. If only the advocates of slavery had thought of that one. But there are of course other approaches. For example, a Christian weighed into the debate:KOSHER SLAUGHTER WAS DONE WHICH WAS DONE WHEN JESUS WALKED THE EARTH……. THE PRACTICE OF SHOCHET SLAUGHTER WAS DONE THAN IN THAT HE ATE KOSHER FOOD. IF IT WAS NOT CRUEL TO HIM IN THAT HE MUST HAVE FELT IT WAS DONE IN A HUMANE MANNER.
Obviously. Which brings us straight to the crux of the matter:If shechita was in any way inhumane, Judaism would not have adopted it. It's as simple as that.
Brilliant. Everything Judaism does is automatically moral. The Israel advocates need to adopt that one, it would save them a lot of time and effort. And handily with this one, the need to think for yourself is completely eliminated.
But a few correspondents started to take the discussion in more interesting and fruitful directionsThe meaning of this initiative is that Jews will be coerced into becoming vegetarians. Isn't this an infringement of their human rights?
Well, sadly, we have to report that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not enshrine the right to eat meat. Although meat-eating may be important to some, those who drafted the declaration didn’t see it as being up there with things like universal suffrage and sex equality. A key omission indeed. But human rights notwithstanding, this line of enquiry is an interesting one:All animal slaughter for human consumption is problematic. Shechita is not more or less cruel than any other method. The only solution is that we all become vegetarians.
So it's time for a little honesty. Here’s an unpalatable fact: animals suffer. If you kick a cow, you hurt it: it suffers, just as a person would if you decided to kick them. Needlessly causing pain to animals is not ethical. To cut the throat of an animal is not ethical. We all know - thanks in part to the work of Jamie Oliver - that the meat industry causes torturous suffering to animals for the duration of their short lives, so let’s stop pretending that kosher meat does not involve suffering or pain. It may be convenient to tell ourselves this. We might start to believe it if we repeat repeat it enough times, it might even start to assuage the uneasy feeling we get when looking an animal in the eye, but it is not true. We know that animals suffer because we suffer. To eat meat is to be cruel. Enough of the bogus arguments about death being so quick that animals don’t feel it, or that because it comes as a single slice to the neck it is somehow ok. To kill is to cause suffering - and this is without even considering what an animal has gone through on the way to the slaughterhouse.
Jamie Oliver has done much to reveal the nature of the meat industry in Britain and around the world. Anyone genuinely interested in the ethical treatment of animals could only come to the conclusion that eating meat, unless somehow necessitated by a genuine need, is grossly unethical. For his work, we salute Jamie and would like to announce that, contrary to the petition, he is a true friend of the Jews. Shechita may or may not be more or less of a horrific experience for an animal to go through than other forms of slaughter but this is not really the point, nor is it an interesting question. It is time that we as Jews stopped using it as a way of pretending that there is anything remotely ethical about the slaughter of animals.
But let’s have a closer look at what Judaism does have to say about animals and ethics. Let’s go back to a couple of the comments we’ve already considered:The meaning of this initiative is that Jews will be coerced into becoming vegetarians. Isn't this an infringement of their human rights?
andOf course an animal knows it is going to be killed and is frightened. It doesn't mean shechita is any more painful than any other form of slaughter. Is the suggestion we all become vegetarians?No doubt that the suggestions made by these signatories, that Jews might have to become vegetarians, is meant as hyperbole – a ludicrous suggestion, designed to show the impossibility of banning shecita. This is satire within satire.
But of course vegetarianism/veganism is the elephant in the room in this entire debate. Aggadically (aggadah is the Jewish narrative/literary tradition), the Jewish case for not eating meat is strong and well known, resting on the fact that no meat was eaten in the paradigmatic utopia of Eden and that when eating meat is permitted it is a concession to human desire rather than a commanded act (like the granting of Israelite Kings). It is also worth noting that in Bemidbar (Numbers) 18-20, where the Israelites reject manna, the pure food of equality, they are then instructed, somewhat instructively, to eat the meat that follows ‘until it comes out of your nostrils’.
Halachically (Halachah is Jewish law), the case is a little more complex, as eating meat has long been a part of Jewish culture, and is thus permitted by halachists. But a case on narrow halachic grounds is eminently feasible: 1) Jews are forbidden from causing suffering to animals under the laws of Tza’ar Ba'alei Hayyim. 2) Modern industrialized farming (even in most organic systems) constantly and systematically causes huge pain and suffering to animals and thus violates halachah. Meaning 3) It is therefore forbidden to eat meat produced under modern farming conditions.
Such a proposal may go too far for some and not far enough for others. It doesn’t rule out eating meat reared on very small farms, and treated to the highest ethical standards. Arguably, to be sure this is the case, one must rear the animal oneself. To go further, to argue that meat and fish should never be eaten, that living creatures cannot be slaughtered merely to fulfill human tastes, calls for a meta-aggadah – a deeply rooted jewish ethic to transform the halachic tradition.
Steve Greenberg discusses the relation between particular laws and a wider ethical tradition by comparing the Torah to the American Constitution (In "Wrestling with God and Men"). While the Constitution proclaimed all men equal under God in 1787, slavery was not abolished until 1865 – the idea here is that an ethical principle lay dormant before finally being enshrined into law. Greenberg makes the same case about Judaism’s founding principles of equality, enshrined for him in Genesis 1 and the Song of Songs (a claim also made by Jewish feminist writers such as Marcia Falk and Rachel Adler). This ethical vision may be gradually developed: for example, as Judith Hauptman argues, the Rabbis improved the legal position of women incrementally; or in the case of how Judaism views non Jews, as revolutionised by the famous position of Rabbi Meir. Greenberg powerfully makes the case that in the early 21st century, we are now in a position to make a quantum leap towards the Jewish ethical ideal, in this case by the complete inclusion of gay and lesbian Jews, but the same case can be made for vegetarianism. In short, Judaism presents an ethical ideal which we must strive towards. We can no longer justify traditions simply because they are ancient but must constantly seek to improve our practices.
This idea is similar to ethicist and philosopher Peter Singer’s notion of ‘the expanding circle’, in which societies slowly expand the list of those who are subject to moral concern, from male members of the tribe or group, to women, to minors, to nearby groups, to those with ‘unconventional’ lifestyles, nomads, homosexuals, and finally to non human animals. Of course, one can always choose halachic particularity to opt out of this ethical process. As Michael Berger points out in “The Halakhic basis for disobedience”, Jews in the segregationist states of the USA in the 1950s could easily have dodged any ethical obligation and any need to challenge the status quo, by simply pointing to the halachic principle of dina de-malkhuta dina – the law of the land is law. However most Jews did not take this route, instead focusing on kevod ha-briyot – dignity of all creation, and seeing segregation as “incompatible with if not corrosive of this core Jewish value”. Fulfilling Jewish ethical principles by gradually and consistently expanding one’s concern until the rights of all beings are considered – is there any greater messianism than this?
So:I am convinced that kosher slaughtering of animals is far less cruel than the barbaric practice of pre-stunnning
Maybe. But so what? Is that what you call ethics? Should this be where the Jewish community puts its immense energy, forwarding emails, signing petitions and calling up politicians and journalists, when we could instead make an immense leap forward, in fulfilment of our deepest ethical tradition, by ending the eating of animals altogether. Maybe the laws of kashrut have brought us half the way – problematising eating, making meat consumption more difficult. But now, with the notion of animal rights widely accepted and when the vast majority of Jews, in the words of Rabbi David Rosen “live in a time and places where we can obtain all our necessary nutrients without needing to take advantage of this concession of eating meat?”, slaughtering for food must be considered at variance with Judaism and therefore prohibited. The day is short, the work is large, the reward is great and Jeffery Cohen is impatient.
