This is the first study of historical attempts by animal welfare groups to ban the Jewish method of slaughter (shechita). It details cases from Australia, Canada, England, Scotland, and the United States, many for the first time, in which anti-animal cruelty groups prosecuted those engaged in shechita as part of their attempts to introduce compulsory stunning of animals before slaughter. Despite claims to the contrary, this study offers clear evidence of underlying, unrelenting antisemitic motivations in the prosecutions, and highlights the ways in which a basic idea of innate Jewish cruelty was always juxtaposed with an overtly Christian ideal of humane treatment of animals across time and borders.
Acknowledgments Introduction: Jews, Shechita, and the Law 2. Criminalizing Shechita: The Halifax Prosecution of Abraham Levitt, 1913 3. The Aberdeen Shechita Case of 1893: Criminalizing the Jewish Method in Scotland 4. The Mansion House Case: Anti-Shechita in London, 1855 5. Manchester Shechita: Criminalizing Orthodox Judaism 1878 and Beyond 6. The Birkenhead Shechita Cases 7. Criminalizing Shechita Down Under: The Sydney Case 8. Outlawing Shechita in America 9. The Massachusetts Anti-Shechita Story 10. The End (or Not) of the Story: Shechita and the Law in the Anglo-American World, 1855-1913
