News Brief

An animal rights group says America’s largest kosher meat company still isn’t treating its animals humanely. People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals released a new video showing that AgriProcessors, which produces the Aaron’s Best line of kosher meats, has not followed through on its pledge to shoot with a gun any cow that appeared to be alive after it had been through the kosher slaughtering process. AgriProcessors came under fire in 2004 when PETA released a video it had shot surreptitiously at the slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, showing gruesome footage of cows flailing after they had had their throats slit in accordance with the practice in kosher ritual slaughter. After the video’s release, the slaughterhouse agreed to reform its work practices, but PETA now says AgriProcessors has broken that agreement. “It’s extremely disappointing to find that three years later AgriProcessors still can’t slaughter without horrible abuse of the animals involved,” Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s vice president of international grassroots campaigns, told the Forward. Attorney Nathan Lewin, who has defended AgriProcessors in the past, said the new video “proves that PETA is out to destroy or make unlawful” kosher slaughter, according to the report in the Forward. Agriprocessors did not return calls seeking comment, according to the report.