The USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service, however, sent a detailed advisory to federal meat inspectors on Dec. 22. The three-page document, obtained by The Washington Post, does not mention either PETA's videotape or the Postville plant by name. But it describes what inspectors should do in a scenario that corresponds closely to the situation shown on the tape.
"You are the Public Health Veterinarian" assigned to monitor a kosher slaughterhouse, the scenario begins. "Today the establishment is ritually slaughtering cattle." Seconds after the shochet, a rabbi trained as a kosher butcher, cuts a steer's throat, a plant employee steps forward to make a second cut and pull out the steer's trachea, or breathing tube, and its esophagus, or gullet.
AgriProcessors Inc. sells meat to kosher markets and meat counters like this one in Evanston, Ill. The company's method of slaughtering is being questioned.
(Peter Slevin -- The Washington Post)
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"The trachea and esophagus are dangling from the neck of the animal. . . . You are concerned as to whether the animal is sensible during this process," the scenario continues. "But before you can call the District [supervisor] or adequately examine the animal . . . the steer begins to right itself, and then stands, and starts to stumble around in the bleeding area, flopping its head on adjacent equipment."
In such a situation, the document says, the federal inspector should immediately notify the slaughterhouse that it has a "conscious" animal "at a point in the process where it should be unconscious." After waiting to verify that the animal has been put out of its misery, it says, the inspector should place a "U.S. Reject" tag on the device that restrains the cattle during slaughter and "inform the plant that the slaughter operation is suspended."
"You take these actions because the plant personnel performed a dressing procedure on a conscious animal, and because they failed to react appropriately to address a suffering, conscious animal. In addition, you inform establishment management that they will be receiving an NR [Non-compliance Record] for this egregious violation," it says.
Gary A. Dahl of Aurora, Colo., who has been a USDA slaughterhouse inspector for 21 years and heads a federal inspectors union, said he had no doubt, given the timing and the details of the USDA's instructional scenario, that it was a reaction to the PETA videotape.
Dahl said he could speak only for himself and the inspectors union, not on behalf of the USDA. But he said he considered the scenario a "very, very strong" response that "gives us a guideline and a tool to help us stand up to the pressure we would get from plant management" if an inspector were to shut down a kosher slaughterhouse under such circumstances.
One Orthodox Jewish group, Agudath Israel of America, has called PETA's campaign a "vicious and unethical attack" on Judaism, which "introduced human society to the concept of humane treatment of animals." Noting that Nazi propaganda included photographs of allegedly cruel kosher slaughter, it said, "PETA now follows in that vile course."
The Orthodox Union, the largest association of Orthodox synagogues in the United States and a major certifier of kosher foods, also has defended the plant. But it has refrained from attacking PETA, and its executive vice president, Rabbi Tzvi H. Weinreb, said in an interview that he found the videotape "disturbing."
The images of cattle attempting to rise to their feet after slaughter "certainly appear to be cruel or inhumane," he said. As a result, Weinreb said, the plant has made two changes.
"We asked that they discontinue this practice of excising the trachea and esophagus immediately after the [ritual cut], and they agreed to that. They also agreed to stun or shoot animals which show the kind of motor coordination that's indicative of consciousness," he said. "So both kinds of images that were portrayed on the video are no longer happening."
Israeli newspapers have followed the controversy closely, with Saul Singer, the editorial page editor of the Jerusalem Post, writing that he has decided to avoid beef until he is assured that kosher slaughter is being performed "according to the full letter and spirit of Jewish law."
The Rabbinical Assembly, an association of Conservative rabbis, said the PETA video "should be regarded as a welcome, though unfortunate, service to the Jewish community." When a company "purporting to be kosher violates the prohibition against . . . causing pain to one of God's living creatures, that company must answer to the Jewish community, and ultimately, to God," the assembly said.
The Postville plant was opened in 1987 by Aaron Rubashkin, a Lubavitcher Hasidic butcher from Brooklyn. It is now run by his son, Sholom Rubashkin, who declined through a spokesman to be interviewed.
The spokesman, Mike Thomas, said the phenomenon of cattle moving their heads or struggling to their feet after their throats have been cut is rare but not unknown at AgriProcessors and other kosher facilities. "Biologically, if the cut was done correctly, that shouldn't have happened. It must have been an incomplete cut or a faulty cut," he said. "The only thing we can say is, human error does happen."
