Anti-Shechita Prosecutions in the Anglo-American World, 1855–1913: “A major attack on Jewish freedoms”

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.