Proponents and opponents of bills pending now in the New York State Legislature, dealing with kosher slaughter, engaged in heated debates, which at one time ended in the exchange of blows, at a meeting held here yesterday by Friends of Animals, Inc.
The latter organization, which considers the shackling and hoisting method of shechita now used for kosher slaughter of large animals as “inhumane, ” backs a bill which would not outlaw the shackling and hoisting, but would provide that all kosher meat slaughtered under the shackling and hoisting method be so labeled.
Friends of Animals, Inc., contends that more than half of the kosher-slaughtered meat in New York is sold as non-kosher. Under labeling, retail purchasers who consider shackling and hoisting “inhumane” could abstain from buying such meat, and thus force meat packers to switch to other methods of slaughtering.
Opponents of this draft measure assert that the bill would infringe on religious freedom. Most of the Jewish organizations, except some ultra-Orthodox, are backing a bill that would substitute the use of pens for shackling and hoisting.
During the meeting under the auspices of the Friends of Animals, Assemblyman Seymour Posner, a Bronx Democrat, supported the views favored by most of the Jewish organizations. Among the speakers who took the other side was William Gottlieb, public relations director of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism. An unidentified woman in the audience called Mr. Gottlieb an “Arab lover, ” and a fight ensued between that woman’s husband and another man. Police broke up the fight but no one was arrested.
Predictions were made here today that none of the bills dealing with so-called “humane slaughter” would pass in the New York Legislature this year.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
