U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Schechita

In a dramatic development the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday upheld the right of Jews to slaughter animals according to Jewish ritual law. The high court affirmed without opinion the decision of a three-judge Federal District Court which had declared that Jewish ritual slaughter employing the hoisting and shackling method for positioning an animal prior to the “throat cut” was a “humane” process and that the provision of the Federal Humane Slaughter Law permitting such procedure was constitutional.

The complaint in the suit, which was brought by three organizations and nine individuals claiming to be concerned with “humane” treatment of animals, attacked a 1958 federal law prohibiting government purchase of meat that was slaughtered “inhumanely” and which permitted purchases of meat slaughtered by Jewish ritual procedure including the hoisting and shackling of fully conscious animals prior to the actual slaughter. The complaint claimed that since hoisting and shackling was not permitted in non-ritual situations unless the animal was first rendered insensible to pain the statute violated the First Amendment.

Although in recent years there has been increasing use of a pen for the positioning of an animal prior to the ritual throat-cut the suit presented a serious threat to the Jewish community. The pen, even if not universally employed was in any event developed for use in large animal slaughter and it has not been successfully adopted for use with smaller animals. Equally important, there was widespread apprehension that a time-honored ritual practice should be characterized as being “inhumane.”

LOCAL, FEDERAL ACCOMMODATIONS NOTED

In other terms there was great fear that should the hoisting and shackling procedure be found inhumane a further finding that an exemption for religion was not constitutionally permitted would have left other pre-handling procedures vulnerable to attack and would have had a very serious effect on the concept of religious liberty in America.

The National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) submitted a comprehensive brief to the District Court, prepared by Nathan Lewin, a constitutional lawyer and vice-president of COLPA. In the brief Lewin argued that even if hoisting and shackling preparatory to Jewish ritual slaughter “was found to be an inhumane procedure, accommodation by Congress or local legislatures to the needs of a particular religious community by the inclusion of exemptions in laws of general applicability is a well established practice.”

Howard Rhine, COLPA president, termed the Supreme Court decision “an important victory for the Jewish community” and expressed the hope that “the anti-schechita cabal has at last been laid to rest.” COLPA intervened in the case on behalf of three national Orthodox Jewish organizations, the Agudath Israel of America, the National Council of Young Israel, and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. The Joint Advisory Committee of the Synagogue Council of America and the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council also appeared in the case and were represented by Leo Pfeffer, a constitutional lawyer.