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Features All Features Foie gras cruelty | Foie gras cruelty |
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| Written by Michael Croland | |||||
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Stop ducking the issue Foie gras, French for “fatty liver,” is produced by force-feeding ducks and geese with a long pipe shoved down their throats, causing their livers to grow to ten times their healthy size and become diseased. As activists and governments from Ireland to Israel say au revoir to foie gras, Jews in particular should take an active stance against this delicacy of despair. Jewish teachings emphasize minimizing animal suffering (tz’aar ba’alei chayim). Although many aspects of modern animal agriculture deprive animals of their natural lives and compromise their welfare, foie gras is the epitome of violating this ideal. Jewish scholars have a long history of condemning the cruel production of foie gras. Rashi condemned force-feeding geese in the eleventh century, arguing that Jews would have to answer to G-d for the animals’ suffering. When a foie gras debate took hold of Eastern Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, leading rabbis deemed foie gras production halachically unacceptable in Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and Romania. Even in Hungary, where production was still permitted, religious Jews generally refrained from eating foie gras. Perhaps the strongest condemnation in modern times has come from Rabbi David Rosen, the former chief rabbi of Ireland. “Pate de foie gras is obtained through the willful desecration of a Torah prohibition,” said Rosen. “Any truly God-revering Jew will not partake of such a product, which is an offense against the creator and his Torah.” Outside of Jewish circles, big names from Paul McCartney to Pope Benedict XVI have been outspoken against foie gras. More than a dozen nations have banned its production. Israel was once the world’s third-leading foie gras producer, but its ban took effect in April. Israel’s High Court found that foie gras production violates the Protection of Animals Law, which forbids torture, cruelty, or abuse to animals. Although some foie gras producers have yet to heed the ban, Israel’s foie gras industry is being phased out slowly but surely. There are only two U.S. states in which foie gras is still produced, after California banned its production last fall, an injunction that goes into effect in 2012. The other, New York, is home to Hudson Valley Foie Gras. Hudson Valley – which produces nearly two-thirds of American foie gras and kills a quarter-million ducks annually – is home to two Israeli businessmen, Michael Aeyal Ginor and Izzy Yanay, who seem to have found a safe haven far from the Mediterranean shores. Both Ginor and Yanay claim that their critics, be they activists, government officials, or erudite Jewish scholars, are misinformed and ignorant. “I don’t think that the people who talk bad about foie gras know scientifically that it’s right or wrong,” said Yanay. According to Yanay, even Rashi would have supported force-feeding had he looked into it in a more “profound” manner. Hudson Valley has managed to avoid a ban in New York. A recent Zogby poll found that four out of five New Yorkers favor such a ban. A bill that would put Hudson Valley out of business passed the State Assembly’s Agricultural Committee 16-1 last month. The bill's Senate counterpart has since been retracted by its sponsor, whose district includes Hudson Valley, primarily because of its potential economic impact. It may only be a matter of time until public outcry is able to shut down foie gras production in New York. Jews should take a stand against animal suffering, particularly when its worst perpetrators are members of our own community. We cannot stand by idly and ignore the “willful desecration of a Torah prohibition.” So long as foie gras production is still legal, it must be denounced.
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