Kosher Meat Article in New Voices

It's been a year and a half since I submitted my original proposal, and my feature about animal welfare and the kosher meat industry has finally been published in New Voices, the national Jewish student magazine. Click here to read the article.

The article is a summary of many things I've been covering on heebnvegan, but it exposes quite a bit more. It talks about how animals killed for kosher food aren't treated any differently than other farmed animals during their lifetimes. It discusses the questionable practices, in terms of animal welfare and other issues, in kosher slaughterhouses. It quotes several Jews who have had enough with the kosher meat industry and choose to opt out:

"Can kashrut have any meaning if it is applied like this? This isn't the kosher that I was brought up to be proud of. This isn't anybody's kosher. Such blatant and vicious disregard for life has absolutely no place in a religion that sanctifies life."
—Jonathan Safran Foer, author

"I do firmly believe that G-d opposes all unnecessary suffering and abuse. ... And the way animals are raised for food—even for kosher meat—is so horrific that any Jew who truly believes in G-d's view of compassion and mercy to all His creatures should oppose it."
—Josh Balk, The Humane Society of the United States