JUST TELL ME- CAN I EAT THE MEAT OR NOT?

Shortly after we arrived home after havdallah, the phone began to ring. It kept on ringing until the wee hours of the morning. People from literally all over the world were phoning with questions about Rubashkin’s shechita and the scandal caused by the PETA video. We told all and sundry to give it another day or three, to wait for clarification. We felt that the video was problematic in many ways. Purportedly showing slaughtered cows bellowing, our curiousity was immediately piqued. How does an animal whose throat has been cut bellow? Plain and simple, it does not. Having found evidence of fraud by the terrorists at PETA, we figured there might be a lot more to the story.

Here is the rest of the story as reported in Kosher Today:

The smoking gun that PETA used to defame Agriprocessors was a videotape used by one of its employees who clandestinely filmed proceedings at the Postville, Iowa plant, the nation?s largest processing plant of kosher meats. It used a bellowing sound from an animal waiting to be slaughtered in conjunction with a frame allegedly showing an animal thrashing on the floor (a clear reflexive action not associated with pain, veterinarians say) after schechita. A spokesman for Agri confirmed that the company has sent the tape for expert analysis. PETA employee Tal Ronen misrepresented himself to Rabbi Shar Yoshuv Cohen, Haifa?s Chief Rabbi, as a baal teshuva (returnee to authentic Judaism) interested in proper slaughter practices. Rabbi Cohen, who is a life-long vegetarian (not disclosed in the PETA statement) has since written a letter to PETA demanding that he be removed from their Web site as being critical of the video. Similarly a spokesman for the chief rabbinate, who explained policies that are in effect in Israel, was misquoted as saying he would no longer accept Agri products, the only kosher beef slaughtered in the US allowed into Israel. Some press sources used these divide and conquer PR misquotes to create sensation and to further their liberal agenda, say kosher sources. Some rabbis panicked at the thought of being accused of being cruel to animals questioned the practices on the video, further igniting the hysteria that had been created by a clear PR debacle for a community defending a 3000 year tradition of the most humane treatment of animals through the proper process of schechita.

In addition, Kosher Today reported:

Kosher Today has learned that rabbis and organizations involved in schechita have released an unprecedented statement defending practices at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa as kosher and humane….And (Rabbi Genack of the OU) said that the schechita performed at the Iowa facility was a “kosher schechita.” Rabbi Genack said there have been numerous studies about the process and when the humane slaughter act was passed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. government affirmed that schechita is a humane form of slaughter. The rabbi insisted that the movement of the animals after schechita was nothing more than a “reflexive action” similar to chickens that run around after their heads have been cut off. Kosher Today has also learned that a high-level team of inspectors of the USDA that visited the plant late last week also found practices at the plant consistent with humane slaughter laws. Nathan Lewin, noted constitutional attorney who is representing Agri, reminded listeners of a radio talk show that PETA had sent a letter of protest to deceased PLO head Yasser Arafat protesting the use of a donkey in a suicide bombing that wounded several people.