Kosher Slaughter

So someone wrote that the ancient practice of kosher slaughter should be considered rather cruel in our modern times (Calendar Letters, May 29), and now the “truth squad” is already after him (Calendar Letters, June 5).

Just as with arguments about Middle East politics, there are the familiar and inevitable charges of anti-Semitism, the others-are-worse claim (referring in this case to hunters and trappers), the ad hominem (what did you eat last night?) and the denial (it is really very humane, and anyway it makes no difference how you kill).

Yet I for one don’t see why even those of us who believe that animals are there for us to kill them and eat their bodies should have such trouble acknowledging that there are degrees of suffering and cruelty in killing.

It is not for nothing that in most civilized countries, including this one, the great majority of animals are stunned before being slaughtered.

BENJAMIN M. JOSEPH

Hollywood