In 2008, Israel’s Chief Rabbinate succumbed to public pressure and vowed to gradually phase out the use of the controversial “shackle and hoist” method of animal restraint in Israeli and South American kosher slaughterhouses. While theoretically swift, the actual shackle and hoist procedure can take several minutes: The cow is forced to the ground and restrained by workers while a chain is attached to its hind leg. Its throat (carotid arteries, esophagus and trachea) is then cut by a shochet (ritual slaughterer), at which point the cow is lifted off the floor and suspended upside down while it bleeds to death. Throughout the entire procedure, the cow is fully conscious and capable of feeling pain.
Despite the rabbinate’s promise, a recent investigation by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has revealed that Frigorifico Las Piedras, the largest kosher slaughterhouse in Uruguay, is still using the shackle and hoist method. (South America is the largest exporter of kosher meat to the United States and Israel. This particular plant is a major supplier for Alle Processing in New York and is certified kosher by the Orthodox Union, the largest kosher certification company in the US.) A disturbing undercover video (see below) shot at the facility reveals the extreme brutality of the procedure, including some workers cutting into the heads, necks and joints of animals while they are still alive and conscious. Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science and an expert in the slaughter industry, responded to the video by saying: “The methods used to restrain cattle in this plant were atrocious. Shackling, holding and hoisting the fully conscious animal down with four people is a barbaric way to handle cattle in a modern slaughter plant. This is total animal cruelty.”
All of this begs the question: Why is shackle and hoist practiced in kosher slaughterhouses? Is it a traditional component of shechitah (kosher slaughter)? According to Roberta Kalechofsky’s Vegetarian Judaism (1998):
There is a great deal of confusion about this: many people believe that shackling and hoisting are part of the historical religious requirements. They are not. The traditional Jewish way of slaughter was to cast the animal to the ground and cut [its throat] as skillfully as possible with a knife that was as sharp as possible, so that the animal could be rendered unconscious in under a minute.
More specifically, the Rambam (Maimonides) describes the proper method of shechitah in his authoritative compilation and explication of the halakhah (rabbinic law), the Mishneh Torah (Sefer Kedushah: Hilkhot Shechitah 2:7):
How does one slaughter? One extends the neck and passes the knife back and forth until [the animal] is slaughtered. Whether the animal was lying down or it was standing and one held the back of its neck, held the knife in his hand below, and slaughtered, the slaughter is acceptable.
A shoykhet (ritual slaughterer) sharpening the khalef (slaughtering knife), 1926.
If shackle and hoist is not an authentic component of halakhah or minhag (custom), then where did this practice originate? In The Book of Kashrut: A Treasury of Kosher Facts and Frauds (1970), Seymour E. Freedman writes:
This method of hoisting the animal off the floor of the slaughter house prior to slaughtering replaces a previous practice of casting the animal down on the floor, where it was held securely for the shochet. Government meat inspectors (in the United States), however, were concerned that a slaughtered animal should not come into contact with the blood of a previously slaughtered animal, in order to avoid the danger of contamination. They therefore recommended that animals be hoisted off the floor of the slaughter house to avoid the spreading of disease.
In all fairness it must be said that shackling and hoisting, questionable though it is from the point of humaneness, is nevertheless an advancement in procedure. The non-Kosher slaughterer didn’t have to concern himself with any Halachic infraction if the animal was not slaughtered according to a stringent humane code. He could kill the animal with an axe or a hammer. If it was clumsily wielded it crushed the skull or smashed the face or mutilated the head of the cow or steer until it finally dropped dead….
Humane-slaughter legislation first appeared in the United States in 1958 in a federal bill which outlawed the shackling-and-hoisting preparations of conscious animals. The intent of this legislation was to reduce the potential of suffering for the animal. The animal was to be stunned by a hammer or bolt pistol prior to being hoisted. Senators Jacob Javits and Clifford P. Case introduced an amendment to this bill which limited its power to non-Kosher killing. Kosher-slaughtered animals were to be shackled and hoisted as before [since meat is only kosher if an animal is fully conscious when it is slaughtered, as evidence of the animal’s health].
Kalechofsky notes that, at first, the Jewish community fought against the shackle and hoist method, since its “barbarity was alien to the spirit of shechitah.” Perhaps there was a genuine ethical concern underlying this initial protest, but there is another reason why Jewish authorities may have opposed this government-imposed practice. According to Freedman, European countries had a long history of interfering with and even banning the practice of shechitah as part of broad campaigns to stamp out Jewish traditions.
These Jewish experiences in European countries established a fear psychology which mitigated against any acceptance of humane slaughter legislation in other lands. In America especially has this keen sensitivity against any legislation of the Kosher slaughter process been strongly felt. Because of anti-Jewish experiences with European shechita laws, the American rabbinic and lay leadership have fought vigorously to defeat any and all legislation which would tamper with shechita in any way.
In some cases, however, this “keen sensitivity” has manifested as a form of intense paranoia verging on hysteria. Consider this passage from The Jewish Dietary Laws, Volume 1 (1972) by Dr. Isidor Grunfeld:
As Shehitah is an essential part of Jewish religious observance, any legislation interfering with Shehitah inflicts hardship on Jewish citizens and in effect amounts to religious persecution…. The anti-Shehitah campaigns which recur from time to time are not merely attacks on a particular Jewish religious observance. As Shehitah has always been described by those who attack it as an act of cruelty, and as believing Jews maintain that it is a Biblical commandment and, as such, of divine origin, any anti-Shehitah campaign tends to become, therefore, in its nature an attack either on the morality or on the divine origin of the Torah, and at the same time against the moral character of the Jewish people. For to say that the Jewish method of slaughter is a great cruelty means to brand the Jews as a cruel people.
This extreme and irrational resistance to any outside interference was a likely source of the initial opposition to the shackle and hoist requirement. However, the practice was quickly adopted as a staple of shechitah by the kosher slaughter industry, and by the late 1960s, Jewish authorities enthusiastically defended the practice against animal welfare groups that branded it as unnecessarily cruel. Why would the kosher slaughter industry fight so hard to maintain a practice that it had initially resented and combated? The answer is that some Orthodox Jews have adopted a particularly rigid interpretation of the halakah that requires shackle and hoist to be maintained as a component of ritual slaughter.
The Mishneh Torah lists five factors that are prohibited during shechitah. If any of these occur during slaughter, the animal is rendered unfit and cannot be eaten. One of these is derasah (striking), which occurs if the shochet pushes or chops the knife into the animal’s throat rather than drawing it cleanly back and forth. Derasah also occurs if the animal’s head presses against the knife in a way that interferes with the cutting motion or traps the blade. Thus, the Mishneh Torah (Sefer Kedushah: Hilkhot Shechitah 2:8) states:
If one implanted a knife in the wall and brought the neck [of an animal back and forth] over it until it was slaughtered, the slaughter is acceptable, provided the neck of the animal is below and the knife is above. For if the neck of the animal will be above the knife, it is possible that the animal will descend with the weight of its body [on the knife] and cut [its throat] without [it being brought back and forth]. This is not shechitah, as will be explained.
However, the Shulchan Arukh (another authoritative explication of the halakhah) states that this method of slaughter is always unacceptable, even if the shochet is certain that derasah did not occur, since the animal’s head is heavy and in this position can very easily interfere with the required cutting method of slaughter (Yoreh De’ah 6:4).
Emblem of the Jewish Butchers Guild, Prague
It seems that after the shackle and hoist method was imposed by US law, some Orthodox Jews determined that it was the best way to ensure that the animal’s head would not bear down on the knife and result in derasah. By comparison, the more traditional method of slaughter seemed to carry a greater risk of derasah and accidentally rendering meat inedible. In accordance with this rigid interpretation, shackle and hoist became an indispensable component of shechitah.
In short, it appears that a modern industrial intrusion into Jewish tradition that was once denounced by Jews for its cruelty has been transformed into a religious necessity in the eyes of some Orthodox Jews, as well as a standard practice in kosher slaughterhouses. The kosher food industry has willingly adopted this standard, either because its leadership agrees with this interpretation of halakhah or because it doesn’t want to risk alienating a significant segment of its customers.
It must be noted that there is an alternative that would render obsolete the shackle and hoist method, while still preventing derasah: Newer slaughterhouses are installing rotating pens that can invert animals without nearly as much physical and emotional stress as shackle and hoist. However, the $50,000 price tag associated with each pen and the need for more workers to operate the pen are clear disincentives to many in the kosher meat industry. Kosher slaughterhouses may tout their high ethical standards, but in the end they’re motivated by the bottom line—just like any other slaughterhouse.
In the meantime, there are many Jewish communities and organization that have rejected shackle and hoist as not only cruel but contrary to Jewish values. In 2000 the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism unanimously determined that “shackling and hoisting to be a violation of Jewish laws forbidding cruelty to animals and requiring that we avoid unnecessary dangers to human life. As the CJLS, then, we rule that shackling and hoisting should be stopped.” Criticism of shackle and hoist is much harder to reject as antisemitic, anti-Torah or anti-G-d when that criticism emerges from within the Jewish community. It seems obvious that opposition to shackle and hoist will be most effective if the charge is led and supported by the Jewish community—particularly those of us who respect the humane intent of shechitah even as we advocate its serious reform (or the total abolition of factory farms, kosher and non-kosher alike).
In closing, it should be clear that the campaign of public pressure in 2008 did not succeed in emphasizing the intensity of Jewish opposition to the shackle and hoist method. Once again, the time has come to voice our disgust with this brutal and unnecessary practice. Kosher slaughterhouses and meat suppliers need to accept that $50,000 per pen is simply the cost of doing business, and the rabbinate needs to be informed that if it won’t hold these businesses accountable, then we will.
To send a letter of protest to Alle Processing, OU Kosher and the Chief Rabbinate (via PETA), click here.
Here is the video released by PETA. As with most of their videos, it’s not suitable for the fainthearted:
Circle Aleph 
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