jews in the d
I
Firsthand
n the winter of 2014, I
witnessed my first kosher
chicken slaughter. Standing
in the snow at Hazon’s Jewish
Food Conference at Isabella
Freedman Retreatment Center in
Connecticut, I listened to Yadidya
Greenberg, formerly of the Jewish
Initiative for Animals. The
shochet (a kosher slaughterer)
held two hens under his arms.
On one side, a factory-farmed
chicken breathed laboriously,
relieved to have her weight off
her scrawny legs and resting in
CARLY SUGAR SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS his grip. On the other side, occa-
sionally wriggling to free herself
from Yadidya’s arm, was a heri-
tage-breed hen raised at Adamah Farm, the on-site
organic farm that provides Jewish food and environ-
mental education for the retreat center.
The difference in health was obvious, and I imag-
ined my Jewish ancestors arguing well into the night
while crafting the kosher law around animal raising,
processing and eating. What would they say about
our modern industrialized food system?
As Yadidya butchered the hens, we continued
to observe striking differences. The breasts of the
factory bird were more than double the size of the
heritage bird. Factory birds are bred for this market
quality. This build, however, is unnatural for chick-
ens, and they often cannot support the extra weight.
Chickens at Adamah Farm live in the compost
yard, with year-round open access to retreat cen-
ter food scraps, insects, grasses and other edibles.
Factory-farmed chickens, even the “free-range” ones,
live in ethically questionable conditions with access
to little more than corn and soy-based feed.
Later that evening, we enjoyed the Adamah chick-
ens as Shabbat dinner soup, and I experienced the
difference in flavor, which is superior. Because they
are older and more muscular, their meat is most
often enjoyed in soups and stews, cooked over a low
flame most of the day. Complete with farm vegeta-
bles and herbs, it was the best chicken soup I had
ever had; except, of course, for my mother’s.
Food
Kosher slaughtering in her own backyard
brings Jewish values home.
TOP: Carly Sugar and one of the chickens she raises in
her Detroit backyard. ABOVE: Jackson Koeppel, Noah Link, Hannah
Regalado Schottenfels and Justin Wedes listen to
Blair Nosan explain the rituals.
36
November 22 • 2018
jn
CHICKENS AT HOME
I have had my own backyard chickens for six
years now. Their eggs are more colorful and nutri-
ent-dense, and I know precisely where they come
from. Through several flocks, I have coordinated
kosher slaughters with friends as an educational
opportunity to face with the hidden reality of being
a meat-eater.
Shechita, or kosher slaughter, involves laws that
ensure a respectful and trained hand, a relatively
healthy chicken and as painless a process as our
ancestors deemed possible. The first event was held
around the time of Passover and brought together 20
people, Jewish and non-Jewish, to learn about kosher
slaughter with an Oak Park-based shochet.
For this year’s shechita, again in my backyard in
Rosedale Park, Detroit, an opportunity arose for a
shechita by Blair Nosan, a Detroit-based food advo-
cate and rabbinical student who had recently studied
shechita with a rabbi in Jerusalem.
“I have been primarily a vegetarian for quite some
time because I think the meat industry is dangerous
for the planet and for my own health. I was never
opposed to humans consuming animals, I just didn’t
think we should be doing it on such an industrial
scale,” Blair says. “That said, as I became more obser-
vant and committed to keeping kosher, finding food
that fit my environmental, animal husbandry and
kosher ethics became harder to imagine.”
Blair was ready to take on her first shechita with-
out the guidance of the rabbi who trained her. She
arrived early to set up and ensure her knife was per-
fectly sharp, free of a single knick that might cause
the chicken more pain than necessary and render the
slaughter not kosher.
As I watched her run her knife against the wet
stone, I realized I had never witnessed a shechita
performed by a woman.
“I did have a particular interest in taking this on as
a woman,” Blair says. “I think our current industrial
food system has shaped our kosher oversight into
an industry-based system as well. This has removed
large areas of kashrut from the home and kitchen
where it used to be overseen largely by women.”
An intimate group was gathered to learn from
Blair and assisted in processing four birds raised with
care by Noah Link of Food Field.
TIME TO SCHECHT
The nervous energy in the yard was palpable. Some
would be witnessing the death of an animal for the
first time, and we all felt the full weight of what it
means to be a meat-eater.
This backyard shechita was our way to reclaim
this part of our food system — to unveil the invisible
parts as much as possible and meet them face-to-
face, despite our reservations. Blair shared with us
ancestral rituals to help us through our discomfort.
Before the confident and final movement of her
knife, an act so rarely seen and foreign-feeling, Blair’s
prayer of gratitude felt so familiar: Baruch atah,
Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu
b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu al hashechita. These words
of prayer transported me to another time. They
reminded me of the countless Jewish ancestors who
have said these words before. In that moment, I felt
connected to them all.
I felt immense gratitude during each part of the
shechita process. Gratitude for food leaders in our
community, for the success of the shechita, for the
lives of the animals and for the privilege to witness
the process. I thought of the number of invisible
food workers involved in similar processes.
The idea of bringing shechita from industrial, far-
away and hidden places into your backyard is almost
unthinkable for most modern Jews. For us, it was an
ideal way of interacting with our food, our heritage
and our community. ■
Carly Sugar of Detroit examinies the intersection of Judaism and
food systems. She is director of Yad Ezra’s Giving Gardens.