KOSHER MEAT in the ASSURING THAT Glatt Marketplace REALLY MEANS Kosher RABBI MOSHE T
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ועד הכשרות דבאלטימאר STAR-K KOSHER CERTIFICATION ashrus urrentsVOLUME 38 NO. 1 K SPECIAL MEAT EDITIONK Winter 5776–2016 KOSHER MEAT IN THE ASSURING THAT Glatt Marketplace REALLY MEANS Kosher RABBI MOSHE T. SCHUCHMAN RABBI MOSHE HEINEMANN KASHRUS ADMINISTRATOR STAR-K RABBINIC ADMINISTRATOR Keeping kosher does not preclude being a locavore,1 but it definitely It is written in our Torah, “Ubosor basodeh presents substantial challenges, particularly for carnivores. Barely a handful treifa lo socheilu” (Shmos 22:30), it is forbidden of communities in the world today still host facilities where kosher meat to eat treif meat. While the expression “treif” is processed from slaughter to salting, and sold from steak to salami, all (non-kosher) has become the universal within close proximity to a kosher consumer base. Like most items in the connotation for food that is not kosher, in truth, modern marketplace, it’s much more common to find beef and poultry the word treif specifically refers to an animal products traveling vast distances from slaughterhouse to processor, and whose flesh was torn or ripped. Technically from distributor to retailer, before reaching the dinner table. speaking, if a kosher species of animal or fowl was attacked by a predator, the meat of the THE OLD WAY victim may be deemed treif. However, the meat This very untraditional configuration has uprooted the once prominent of an animal improperly kosher slaughtered is communal fixtures of shochet and bodek (one who checks for abnormalities not treifah, it is called a neveila. Technically, that render meat treifah). It’s also a complete departure from an extreme meat of a non-kosher animal species is the meat version of locavorism that was practiced in many pre-war European kehilos, of a temeiah. Yet, the term “treif” has found its which legislated bans on ‘sh’chutay chutz’, not allowing meat slaughtered way through the portals of the slaughterhouse, in a different city to be sold in town. Besides protecting a major source of as well as the aisles of the non-kosher meat municipal income through meat taxes, such a policy also served to allow the section of the supermarkets. No matter what local rabbinate to closely monitor and uphold kashrus standards. the name, all of these categories of meat are The first generations of immigrants to America maintained this personal forbidden to be eaten. relationship with their meat sources. Up until the 1940s, at least 5,0002 meat The halacha requires that all animals and purveyors making a kosher claim blanketed New York City;3 even smaller fowl used for kosher consumption be of a Jewish communities accommodated hundreds of stores advertising kosher kosher species and slaughtered by a shochet. meat.4 Every neighborhood was served by multiple butchers who were Once shechted, the freshly slaughtered entrusted to provide kosher meat.5 Trust was key because disorganized and animal or fowl must undergo a series of fragmented certification regimes opened the door to rampant fraud. The inspections (bedikos), assuring the health and temptation to cheat has always been strong, due to the higher price fetched wholesomeness of the animal. If the animal by kosher meat and the limited methods of detecting kosher status of the was found to have suffered an internal defect final product.6 Systems from the Old World that effectively ensured kosher such as a rip, puncture, or broken bone, or if the integrity no longer worked in a land of democracy and religious freedom.7 animal appeared to be suffering from an illness CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 or defect that was determined to be terminal had the animal lived, the animal would more 1. The definition of a locavore is “one who eats food grown locally whenever possible.” According to the 2008 Farm Act, the total distance that a product can be transported and still considered a “locally or regionally produced agricultural food than likely be treif. product” is less than 400 miles from its origin, or within the state in which it is produced. Reflecting the growing trend, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture reports that local farmer’s markets have quintupled in the past 20 years. While some treif characteristics may be 2. This figure is mentioned in The Butcher Workmen: A Study of Unionization by David Brody, Harvard University Press, determined by external examination, an 1964. Prof. Timothy Lytton in Kosher: Private Regulation in the Age of Industrial Food (p.27) writes there were 6000 NYC butchers in 1915 advertising kosher meat, of which, 3600 sold non-kosher too. Numbers of kosher butcher shops were animal or fowl cannot be kosher approved tabulated under President Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) which attempted to directly interfere with before being examined internally. The internal the kosher meat trade. In 1935, the Supreme Court struck down the Act as unconstitutional when Schechter Poultry, a kosher business in Brooklyn, successfully sued the government. 3. The site of the UN building in NYC was formerly a slaughterhouse with kosher production! CONTINUED ON PAGE 5 4. Chicago Jewish Chronicle, Dec. 1, 1933 (flps.newberry.org), notes 370 Chicago area kosher meat markets systematically inspected by the Central Vaad Ha-Kashruth. In that same decade, about 300 Baltimore butchers made a kosher claim. 5. The 1935 banquet journal of the fledgling Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore (founded 1933), contains an ad thanking the 34 butcher shops who each donated half a calf once a year. (Reprinted in Yeshurun Journal 18, Kisleiv 5767, p. 170) By mapping the printed addresses one can appreciate the high density of kosher butchers, especially considering that this list represented just 1/9 of the total number in the city. Inside this issue 6. Albeit, spiritually sensitive people are known to possess an innate aversion to non-kosher meat. See Chullin 5b. Rav Chaim Soloveitchik recounted an incident with his father, Rav Yoshe Ber (the Beis HaLevi) who once visited Rav Yehoshua Kosher Meat in the Marketplace.................................................Page 1 Leib Diskin, rabbi of Brisk, during Aseres Yemei Teshuvah. Before departing, R’ Yehoshua Leib provided his distinguished Making the Cut .................................................................................Page 1 visitor with half a chicken to eat during his journey for the se’udah hamafsekes prior to the Yom Kippur fast. When the time came to eat, R’Yoshe Ber felt something was wrong and did not partake of the chicken. Later on, he received a telegram from Shechitah Checklist ..........................................................................Page 2 R’ Yehoshua Leib informing him that a question arose concerning the chicken’s kosher status. R’ Chaim remarked that this episode does not demonstrate that his father was endowed with prophecy or even ru’ach haKodesh. Rather, it’s a matter of Consumer Confidence ....................................................................Page 3 course for someone who is always meticulous to avoid foods with even a questionable kosher status that non-kosher food will never cross his lips! (See Toras Chaim, R’ Y. Herskovitz, p. 185) New Under Star-K .............................................................................Page 7 7. Prof. Lytton outlines various attempts to regulate the kosher meat industry in America throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and explains why each failed. Star-K Mashgichim Review Seminar ..........................................Page 8 Leadership in Kashrus Education KOSHER MEAT IN THE Marketplace RABBI MOSHE T. SCHUCHMAN KASHRUS ADMINISTRATOR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 A CURRENT SNAPSHOT CHECKLIST FOR With the development of refrigeration and Approving a Shechitah Facility transportation networks, economic exigencies RABBI SHMUEL HEINEMANN, KASHRUS ADMINISTRATOR dramatically altered the shechitah landscape. It is easier and more cost-effective to deliver large amounts 1. All the knives of the shochtim must be checked to ensure that they of post-slaughter meat packed into a truck or railcar are sharp and without even the slightest ‘pegima’. This must be done than to transport livestock with its attendant needs for before and after the shechitah. adequate spacing, food and shelter. Therefore, major beef 2. There must be a sink with running water near the place of shechitah production eventually consolidated into the Midwestern for the shochtim to sharpen their knives. 8 heartland, where the majority of cattle is raised and then 3. Animals may not be prodded to the shechitah box with a plug-in transferred to modern feedlots containing over 100,000 electric prod. head of cattle. Feedlots, which proliferated alongside the growth of the fast-food industry post-WWII, are 4. The head restraint in the box which holds the animal during shechitah designed to ‘finish’ cattle (usually 12-18 month old) by must be calibrated so that the animal’s head cannot move during feeding them high protein mixtures consisting of grain, shechitah, but not so tightly that it affects the animal’s breathing. corn, hormones and antibiotics. A few months of this diet 5. A system must be in place, to track any animal that becomes a nevaila. rapidly increases their weight and gives their meat the 6. Animals may not be stunned at any time after the shechitah. 9 taste and texture consumers crave. 7. No hot water may be used on the animals anywhere in the slaughter Today, a few large plants with the capacity to house. shecht hundreds every day have replaced the formerly 10 8. No electric current may be applied to the animal at any point, ubiquitous city slaughterhouses. Similarly, cattle- including when used to tenderize the meat or to facilitate removing raising regions in Argentina, Australia, Chile, Costa Rica, the hide. Mexico, and Uruguay export kosher beef to markets in Eretz Yisroel and North America. Despite the struggle 9. All organs, etc., of each animal must be numbered to identify the to remain viable, smaller beef operations still exist in animal from which they came i.e., tongues, livers, sweet breads, tails, Baltimore, Detroit (lamb), New Jersey, St.