As promised the other day, a thread about why campaigns to ban shechita (kosher slaughter) rest upon a highly misleading claim which is in some ways comparable to the claim that Israel had some sort of connection to the murder of George Floyd:

1.

Before we get to that, a reminder of the basics. (If you already know the basics, jump to tweet no. 12. If you want a TL:DR of the whole thread, jump to tweet 39A.)

2.

Kosher slaughter is performed by means of a single, swift sweep across the animal’s neck by means of a very long and very sharp knife. This causes immediate, rapid blood loss. The animal’s brain is therefore deprived of oxygen, which causes unconsciousness within seconds.

3.

Only after it is unconscious, is the animal then hung up to exsanguinate (i.e. bleed out); it dies from blood loss.

4.

Halal slaughter is performed in a similar way, except for (i) there are fewer knife design requirements (i.e. the knives used may be shorter and blunter) and (ii) an Islamic prayer is recited beforehand.

5.

Kosher slaughter is controversial because, in contrast to “regular” slaughter methods, the animal is not stunned beforehand. This is because, under Jewish law, the animal must be unharmed at the point of killing, but all forms of stunning cause harm.

6.

(Some animals slaughtered by the halal method are stunned beforehand; some are not.

For simplicity, this thread will address kosher slaughter only where possible.

Kosher slaughter + halal slaughter without stunning = “religious non-stun slaughter”.)

7.

The absence of stunning has led a number of individuals and groups to call for a ban on kosher slaughter.

8.

If implemented, a domestic ban on kosher slaughter would force observant Jews to: (i) buy expensive imported kosher meat (could be v expensive if tariffs imposed post-Brexit); (ii) act against their conscience, either by eating non-kosher meat or stunning beforehand;

9A.

(iii) go vegetarian; or, (iv), should they wish to do none of those things and maintain their faith - emigrate!

9B.

Regardless of intention, a ban on kosher slaughter cd therefore have an antisemitic *outcome*: it cd materially damage Jewish life in Britain.

(This is why the far right pushes for a ban on kosher slaughter. Nothing to do with animal welfare!)

10.

A ban *might* nevertheless be justifiable, if it was based on compelling evidence that kosher slaughter causes significantly more suffering than other methods of slaughter.

11.

With that background in mind, let’s look at the evidence which underpins one particular call for a ban.

12.

In 2009, some experiments involving religious non-stun slaughter were done in New Zealand by,among others, a pair of veterinary scientists called Troy Gibson and Craig Johnson.

13.

These experiments were written up in a series of articles in the NZ Veterinary Journal. The first one (highlighted) is a summary of the others. I will refer to them as “the Gibson/Johnson articles”.

14.

Those articles were summarised as providing conclusive evidence that kosher slaughter causes significantly more suffering than other means of slaughter, therefore justifying a ban.

15.

They appear to have influenced the attempt (since partially reversed) of the NZ govt to ban kosher slaughter in 2010.

16.

This attempted ban was eventually reversed in part, but not before traumatizing NZ’s small Jewish community.

17A.

There remain some restrictions on kosher slaughter in NZ. This has had the effect of seeing its Orthodox Jewish population shrink.

17B.

Again, though: a ban on kosher slaughter *might* nevertheless be justifiable, if the G/J experiments made a compelling case that kosher slaughter caused significantly more suffering than slaughter methods where the animal is stunned first.

So: do they make that case?

18.

Joe Regenstein is Professor of Food Science at Cornell University. In 2012, he expressed serious reservations about the Gibson/Johnson articles and the experiments they report on:

19.

@DrTempleGrandin is Professor of Animal Science at @ColoradoStateU. She has written extensively on halal & kosher slaughter. Her criticisms of the Gibson/Johnson articles date back to April 2010.

https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/18665-getting-religious-with-slaughter

20.

Those criticisms now appear on her own website. They centre mainly, though not only, on the length of the knife.

21.

In July 2011, Ari Zivotofsky of Bar Ilan University, Israel, published an article which cited correspondence with Troy Gibson, in which the latter *admitted that the experiments conducted in NZ had no relevance to kosher slaughter*.

22A.

In other words, as early as 2012, one of the scientists who had conducted the experiments in NZ, admitted that those experiments, and therefore the Gibson/Johnson articles, had no bearing on kosher slaughter. (TBC)

22B.