JEWISH METHOD OP KILL ING CONDEMNED.

Evening Star, Issue 14036, 17 April 1909, Page 11

JEWISH METHOD OP KILL ING CONDEMNED.

The following extracts from a remark’ able speech delivered before the BadenBaden Society P.C.A. by Herr Edgar Loewi, the son of a Rabbi, shows that the more enlightened of the Jews are not in favor of the antiquated and barbarous Schechita as still generally practised ; The previous speaker has sought to imparts on you that the Schechita (the Jewish method of slaughter) lias existed foi centuries—that no alteration of the rite u admissible—and that its prohibition would be an attack on the Jewish faith, and an act of oppression on a par with the treatment meted out to the persecuted Jews of Russia. . . . It is probable that in ancient

times the Jewish method of killing was the quickest and the most humane, and that it was instituted because among ether nations animals were lulled in a still more ' barbarous manner. It was considered humane, and also ordained on hygionii grounds, the animal being minutely examined both before and after death, and in case of any malformation or disease tlu use of its flesh as food being absolutely forbidden. . . . The old Latin proverb “ Tempera mutantur," etc., still holds good, and our views on many sub-' jects change daily. Laws which were approved a few decades ago have to be modified or abrogated because they are eithei too drastic or too lenient, or because the] do not meet the needs of the present day, And shall we in an age of progress, whin we are fighting in the cause of humai treatment- for man and beast, be told by thoughtful men, who wish their viewi to be taken seriously, that a barbarou' method of slaughter is an indispensable necessity, because in their opinion—ai opinion which has been refuted on count less occasions by more competent authorities—this method is expeditious and • immune, because its prohibition would: ' leave conscientious Hebrews no alternative but vegetarianism It is my deliberate opinion that the survival of the old preposterous belief in the practice of human sacrifice by the Jews—a belief which has endured for centuries in the minds of the ignorant and brutal masses, wilt whom the instinct of persecution is s< strong—a belief which has robbed thouhands of useful, industrious, and cstinr able people of their lives and property—the survival of this belief is, in mj opinion, due to the practice of the ■ “ Schochita.” —From ‘ Animals’ Friend.’