new york | It’s not every day that people affiliated with a strident animal-rights group talk turkey with those who oversee kosher slaughter.
But that’s exactly what happened this week, when an unpaid adviser to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals discussed allegations of improper slaughtering practices at an Iowa kosher plant with the head of the Orthodox Union’s kashrut division.
The talks involving Aaron Gross, a doctoral student at Harvard University, and Rabbi Menachem Genack were the latest development in a story that has placed the slaughter practices at Agriprocessors Inc. in Pottsville, Iowa, under question.
They also came one day after the animal-rights group, known as PETA, filed a complaint with the Department of Agriculture. The complaint alleges that the plant is violating Jewish law by not instantly killing the animals, and therefore is violating U.S. laws of slaughter, which allow for Jewish ritual slaughter.
The telephone discussion between PETA and the Orthodox Union ended in an impasse, participants said.
The controversy — which has alarmed some Orthodox institutions — is being seen as the most widely publicized dispute over kosher slaughter in the United States in a decade.
At issue is an undercover video taken by PETA-affiliated individuals over a seven-week period between July and September of this year that shows animals being slaughtered at the Agriprocessors plant, which processes meat for the Rubashkin/Aaron’s Best label.
One of the plant’s supervisors is the Orthodox Union, a major supervisor of kosher food in the United States.
In the gory video, one slaughterer cuts a cow’s throat, resulting in extensive bleeding, while another takes the trachea out.
Other clips show cows running around and looking alive after the killing is presumably completed.
“This not how shechitah is supposed to be done,” Tal Ronen, a spokesman for the Norfolk, Va.-based PETA, said, using the Hebrew term for ritual slaughter.
“If it’s done correctly, the animal is supposed to be dead in 30 seconds to one minute.”
Orthodox officials, while admitting the video isn’t pretty, don’t agree, saying that reflexive movements by animals after they are slaughtered are not uncommon.
PETA first raised the issue with Agriprocessors last June after being tipped off to allegations of improper procedures inside the plant.
In an exchange of letters, PETA raised objections and asked that an expert on slaughter be allowed in to witness the process.
This week, PETA filed a complaint with the USDA, complaining that government regulations were not being followed at Agriprocessors. It sought suspension of the plant’s license and possible criminal proceedings.
Some Orthodox officials called PETA’s campaign an attack on shechitah more generally and part of a history of anti-Semitic canards.
“Shechitah often comes under attack by elements that are unsavory, and in general PETA is not an organization that commands our great respect,” said Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, a fervently Orthodox organization.
He and others noted that the Nazis publicized photographs of Jews performing cruel slaughter practices as part of their campaign to inflame sentiment against Jews.
“We’ll put them on the wall with Hitler,” Nathan Lewin, an Orthodox Jew and a lawyer for Agriprocessors, said, referring to PETA. He added: “The PETA folks might not like eggs, but they have eggs all over their face.”