KOSHER AND HALAL SLAUGHTER IS MURDER!

There is the usual Dutch racist bullpuckey in the comments under an article in De Telegraaf.
In short: Muslims are barbarians, Jews are greedy, halal and kosher slaughter is mediaeval and disgusting, and if those damned foreigners don't like it, they can damn well leave.

The article, of course, has to do with the looming legislation outlawing schechting of animals in the Netherlands.
Both Geert Wilders and the radical eco-movement are in favour of a ban, the Christian parties are opposed.

Moslimorganisaties somberen over verbod
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/9532769/__Moslims_somber_over_verbod__.html?p=21,1


Jews as money bags:
ze hebben steun van de orthodoxe joden die de dieren op dezelfde manier slachten. Onze grote blonde vriend zal zijn geldschieters wel niet teleurstellen en zal dit verbod niet steunen, schat ik zo in.
Henk, Zeist

Jews as manipulators:
Geweldig die Joodse lobby. De beeldspraak kan eigenlijk niet gebruik worden maar ze zijn werkelijk roomser dan de paus.
jeroen, amerongen

Jews and Muslims as primitives:
Voor alle Moslimbroeders en orthodoxe Joden: "Welkom in de 21e eeuw"
Ad, Amersfoort aan zee

Jews and Muslims as barbarians:
in een beschaafd land doe je zoiets niet meer in 2011.
Jasper, Nijmegen

Jews and Muslims as worth no more than animals:
Het is toch waanzinnig dat men nog luisterd naar geloofswaanzinnige die dieren met een mes willen doden. Laat heb dat op henzelf proberen. Maar niet op dieren die evenveel waard zijn dan alles op de aarde.
Theo Niemeijer, Enschede

Jews and Muslims as foreigners who don't belong in the Netherlands:
We zijn in NEDERLAND, dit soort dingen hoort hier niet!
john, Emmer Compascuum

[Note: Jews have been there for centuries, except for a long period between when they were exterminated in the thirteen hundreds till when Marranos were permitted to enter during the Golden Age.
Many of the Dutch Muslims were born or raised in the Netherlands - the Dutch refused to sweep their own factory floors and pick up their own trash starting in the sixties, and imported cheap labour for that purpose. First Spaniards and Italians, then when the supply of those people dried up, Turks and North-Africans. ]


Jews and Muslims should leave, the sooner the better:
Ik snap niet wat het probleem is. Als de Moslims het hier in Nederland niet naar hun zin hebben, kunnen ze verhuizen naar Egypte byvoorbeeld.
Piet, Bussum

[Note: Piet will probably still refuse to sweep the floor and pick up the trash if they do leave. Many modern Dutch shirk jobs that don't involve sitting down at length. ]

Jews and Muslims can go get stuffed:
Halal of ritueel of what ever het is gewoon bij de beesten af om die dieren zo af te maken. Deze mensen hebben een gedachten patroon van 1000 jaar geleden het is 2011. En anders maar opsodemieteren ook die joden.Wat een onzin dat geloof bah bah get alive.
Rene, Eindhoven

Prehistoric, and a good reason to vote for Geert Wilders:
Dat ritueel slachten moet per vandaag worden verboden. Die maffe en pre-historische activiteiten moeten afgelopen zijn. Hoe zou jij het vinden als je, bij bewustzijn, een mes door je keel zou krijgen. Die mensen zijn helemaal de weg kwijt. Dit moet stoppen. Ik zou er zelfs nu PVV of PVDD voor stemmen en mijn VVD stem daaroor opofferen.
Arnold, Rotterdam


Many of the commenting class have severe problems with Dutch orthography - which might suggest that they themselves were foreigners in the Dutch tongue, were it not that their opinionated ignorance and spitefulness proves them native better than any birth certificate.


[Read all 187 comments here: VENIJNIGHEID. They are in Dutch - consider it an unpleasant language lesson. Underneath a previous artice (OOK VVD there are as of this writing over 300 comments, the vast majority both ignorant and xenophobic. The sentiment that Jews and Muslims should leave is expressed forcefully in any number of ways.]


The consensus is that the Dutch are superior to anyone else, certainly better than Jews or Muslims, and they see no reason whatsoever to be tolerant.
Dutch practices and ideas are the best. As is well-known.
Small-town Holland is the centre of the universe.

As Hesje in Leeuwarden says: "Ik denk dat heel veel nederlanders heel wat positiever over moslims en joden gaan denken als ze ophouden met het kwellen van dieren!" ('I think that many Netherlanders will have a much more positive impression of Jews and Muslims if they were to stop torturing animals').


With each year that passes, I am happier that I returned to the United States.
I am the only Dutch-speaker in my social life. It's a blessing.


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DUTCH HOWLS ABOUT HALAL AND KASHRUS

And again, an article in Hollands' premier newsrag gives the hatefilled side an opportunity to vent their base prejudices.
Predictably, much Netherlandish ignorance is on display too.

The Dutch, unhampered by any knowledge whatsoever, consider kosher slaughter to be a cruel, mediaeval and barbaric ritual drenched in superstition and voodoo.
Or so it would seem from the venomous comments underneath an article. As of this writing, well over two hundred readers have spewed their opinions.

This article: http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/9515748/___Hoorzitting_onverdoofd_slachten___.html?p=23,1



LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!

Quote: "En wie het niet zint heeft keus genoeg te verhuizen. Joden passen zich goed aan, maar weigeren ook maar iets aan hun geloof te veranderen"
Translation: 'Whoever doesn't like it can jolly well leave. Jews adapt very well, but refuse to change anything of their belief.'

Quote: "Beter om een einde te maken aan de vrijheid van geloof,want het schijnt voor hen te betekenen dat alles mag en moet kunnen in de naam van religie en het maakt ze niet uit wat anderen daar van denken."
Translation: 'Better end religious freedom, because it seems that for them it merely means that they can do anything in the name of religion regardless of what others may think about that'


Perhaps the comment that explains the average Dutch position on this matter best:
"Gewoon stoppen met dat ritueel slachten en geen geouwehoer verder. Als ze ritueel willen slachten gaan ze maar naar het land van herkomst, maar niet meer hier. Het moet maar eens afgelopen zijn met dat middeleeuws gedoe,WE LEVEN HIER EN IN HET JAAR 2010"
Translation: 'Just stop that ritual slaughter and no more bullsh*t. If they want to ritually kill (their food) they should just go to wherever they came from, but not here. That mediaeval crap should be over and done with, WE LIVE HERE, AND IN THE YEAR 2010'


Well, there you have it. Jews and Muslims have no place in Holland. Either they cease offending the refined sensibilities of the natives, or they should all get the hell out. Obediently follow the pattern that their neighbors enforce, or leave. Just leave.
It isn't their country, and never will be.

I had not thought it possible that so minute a country could house over two hundred opinions! But actually, it doesn't. They are all mostly the same opinion: Kosher slaughter, and its Muslim equivalent, are disgusting practices that prove Jews and Muslims to be despicable subhumans who have no place in civilized societies. And especially, they should NOT be different. How dare they!
The Dutch majority is always right, and those primitives have no business imposing their deviant practices on decent people.

Difference has never been comfortable in Holland. Being Jewish or Muslim, by Dutch standards, has often seemed an uncharming manifestation of insanity or perversion, much like being provincial, French, or inbred. In the modern era, Jews and Muslims had damned well better adapt.

This is Holland, where the will of the people is sacred and sanctifies all.
Not some theocracy like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or the United States.


NOTE: The article is about the suggestion by the Christian Democrats, Christian Union, and SGP to at least discuss the matter with Jewish and Muslim organizations before imposing laws banning kosher and halal slaughtering.
Naturally, this generated howls of outrage.

Geert Wilders' (PVV) and the left wing parties are all for an immediate a ban, and see no point in even debating the issue.


UPDATE (9:35 AM):

The Telegraaf has now disabled the comment feature from that article and removed all reader-input. Perhaps due to the incredible levels of xenophobia and venom being spewed by the no-necked masses.
One can but hope – the racism and bigotry was getting out of hand.
In the Netherlands, there are limits to freedom of speech.



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DUTCH TOLERANCE NON-EXISTENT

In a move motivated almost primarily by animus against Jews and Muslims, as is made clear by the tenor of the public noise that has preceded it, the Dutch Government will soon ban kosher slaughter and halal butchering.
Henceforth the animal must be entirely unconscious before being killed.

The commentary on webpages and underneath articles in the Dutch language press make it overwhelmingly clear that the Dutch loathe and despise all other religions than their own narrow branches of Calvinism and Catholicism.
In particular, many of them think that Judaism and Islam are primitive and barbaric superstitions which are absurd, backwards, and repulsive.


READERS OF DE TELEGRAAF

As just one slew of examples, those who also read Dutch may scope out the reactions underneath this article: http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/9479931/__Voor_verdoofd_ritueel_slachten__.html?p=1,2

Sorry, I cannot be bothered to translate any of it, as I am more than a little nauseated every time I read Dutch pigheadedness and bigotry in its native tongue.
Ze kunnen verrekken, die venijnige Ollandsche betweters en gal-spuwers.


THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE

The other thing that the discourse as usual makes clear is that the Dutch are convinced that they are a shining beacon of light and civilization which barbarians such as Jews, Muslims, Yankees, and other horrid barbarians would do well to emulate.
Long-time readers will remember that the contrary has been highlighted a number of times on this blog.


The vote in the parliament will have a majority, now that the Dutch Labour Party has thrown its support behind the proposal. Debate next week is expected to be short, and the subsequent vote quick. The sentiment moving the issue is primarily anti-Muslim, but a sneering dislike for Jews has also been evident in the ranks.

Proposing the ban: PvdD (Party for Animals - basically the political wing of the ecoterrorist and Vegan movements).
In favour: PvdA (labour), PVV (Geert Wilders), SP (rebranded Stalinists), Green Left (rabid fringe), D66 (just plain confused).

Still not decided: VVD (Liberals).
Opposing: CDA (Christian Democrats), Christian Union, and SGP.


I shall henceforth avoid all Dutch food products, as well as Netherlandish alcoholic beverages.



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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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KITNIOS AND OTHER STUPID IDEAS

Several times over the last few years Savage Kitten has asked me Peysach-related questions. Which is understandable, as she is a person of Chinese ancestry (what on earth would they know about Passover?) and I am white (naturally, I know everything there is to know about Passover).

[In point of fact, my significant other is of Cantonese extraction. Cantonese ritual celebrations and religious practices always involve food. Hence there is an abiding fascination that even extends to white people in that regard.]


KITNIOS

I have endeavored to answer her questions as best I could.
The KITNIOS thing, however, is a stumper. All I could say was that because chometzdikkes were sold in the same bins, bales, bags, and other containers as dry goods in Eastern-Europe, there was a possibility of contamination. Which inspired a food-related paranoia that simply got worse with each generation, till finally it reached absurd proportions: a chumra against kitnios.

She understands this explanation to a certain extent, because she knows that white people are totally foaming-at-the-mouth-nuts about food, unlike Chinese people. White people are weird. She also assumes that whites have a long history of poisoning each other.

But why do Ashkenazim also avoid soybeans, sunflower seeds, and maize? Beans? Peas? Peanuts? Pepper? Caraway? Cumin? Coriander seed? Every seed and grain shaped edible substance known to man?
Some of these things were not even sold in Eastern Europe - how can anyone possibly suspect contamination? Why does it get worse every year?
How insane are white people?

Chocolate, gottenyu?!?!?

I am sometimes at a loss to defend white people. It's a problem.


"Sweetie-pie, think of it this way: Perhaps the rebbeim were paranoid about aflatoxins during Peysach. Who knows? Has to do with chodosh. Stuff that has been in storage for a while ends up funggoidal in a non-desert environment. The temperate zone is a nasty place. Everything there goes bad. Especially after a long wet winter."


[ ' 'Aha! So aspergillus is the goyish equivalent of chometz!' ']

And presto, a new chumra is born. Avoid ANYTHING during Peysach that may be susceptible to contamination by aspergillus. Which means most seed crops. Al pi Wikipedia: Crops which are frequently affected include cereals (maize, sorghum, pearl millet, rice, wheat), oilseeds (peanut, soybean, sunflower, cotton), spices (chilli peppers, black pepper, coriander, turmeric, ginger), and tree nuts (almond, pistachio, walnut, coconut, brazil nut).
Also included in the ban are soil, decaying vegetation, hay, and mulch.


ESPECIALLY chocolate cake from that fine bakery around the corner!


If she thinks in those terms, she's not likely to gift "white people" with anything chometzdik during this time of year.

I have not mentioned the gebrochts thing to her. Gebrochts are even more insane than kitnios, and I've already learned my lesson. Besides, she's not likely to find ANYTHING made with matze meal that isn't already kosher l'utmostdegree. Not in this city.

DIFFERING FLESHPOT DREAMS

There's an old joke that you have probably heard some version of before: Two Dutchmen are marooned on a desert island. Years later, when they are finally found, they give their rescuers a tour, showing them how they occupied their time and tried to re-create civilized life in the midst of a wilderness.
"This is my church. And that is his church".
Then somebody asks "what about that third church over there"?
"Oh, them!"


Over on Tzipporah's blog (Midianite Manna) there's a discussion about Peysach. And food.
Tzipporah's good man is multiply allergic.
There will be children present.
And...... vegetarians.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!


Can't get more aaaaaaaaaaaaaaack than that, really.

Midianite Manna is, understandably, a wee bit 'stressed'.

I sympathize. Food is fun. But food is frustration.



KOSHER LE WHATEVER

Several times over the last twenty years I have attempted to explain to my own eishes chayil the intricacies of kashrus. Savage Kitten, as you know, is Cantonese-American. So her concepts of food are typically Chinese, but coupled with American exposure and a vibrant Southern-Chinese fascination with what other folks are eating.


"IS IT EDIBLE?"


Most Cantonese people do not quite understand food taboos. Such things seem incredibly 'white' to them. "Waddya mean we can't eat it? Isn't it edible? Does it not bleed?"
Added to that, the Chinese have a passionate appreciation for four-legged treifus that rivals that of the ancient Celts. A pig, to a person from that background, is a fabulous beast.
Savage Kitten 'gets' that Jews do not eat pork. Fine by her, that simply means more for everybody else.

When I tried to explain that certain other tasty things were also out of the question, she shushed me after several minutes of snapper ve kaskeses. The next night she cooked giant shrimp with a butter and fishpaste dressing. It was .... disturbingly delicious.

She absolutely draws the intellectual line at kitnios. When I attempted to clarify the issue, she snapped "oh hush, crazy white man!"
No beans, no seeds, no rice..... clearly I had lost my mind. If not me, then several of my associates.

She still finds it incredible that I don't gift my friends with food. Especially around Easter. 'Sweetheart', I will say, 'chocolate has a whole variety of kitnios.....'
"Well, what about a bottle of whiskey?"
'Errrrrrmmmmm, chometz......'
"There you go again, speaking that goofy white man's language!"

The nearest she comes to understanding Passover is that it somehow involves slaughtering a tender little goat. She's fine with that. Roasted goatling. Yum. Succelent and delicious. Every year she looks forward to watching Charlton Heston chewing up the scenery. It's one of the best bad movies ever.
And the closest she'll ever come to religion.


ETHNIC FOOD

On the other hand, she thoroughly understands that only certain lucky foods get prepared after the headhunt, or before raiding another tribe downriver and stealing their pigs. The description of the water buffalo sacrifice horrified her till I mentioned that it wasn't the only carabao, the rich clan had many others. The pig feast in the highlands elicited a question about spices and washing the crispy skin with coconut juice while the beasts were roasting. And could I also please describe the other dishes.

Maybe I should try to teach her about lumeri mura and lumeri tuwa - the two festivals that mark the beginning and end respectively of the headhunting season after the last harvest of the year, when the rains sweep in from the ocean and new rice wine is drunk, or aremakuwa, after the equinoxes, when it is fortuitous to open a business or start a new venture. As long as it involves a sumptuous array of food, she'll be okay with it.


I don't think that will work for Tzipporah, however.

So, be a mensh, and go to her blog to either share your food ideas, or commiserate.

KOSHER GUATEMALAN GIRLS!

The question was posed on Dovbear's blog "what to do if you suspect that the kosher meat on your table has been butchered and packed by 16-year-old Guatemalan girls forced to work 20-hour days under threat of deportation."
Es iz a sehr tiefe un' shverre shailah, b'emmes.


[See this post:
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2008/12/avi-shafran-and-new-york-times.html
And while you are at it, you might also want to read this:
http://curiousjew.blogspot.com/2008/12/kosher-quandary-ethics-and-kashrut.html
in which Curious Jew notes down what was said at the panel discussion about ethics and kashrus that Steg mentioned here:
http://boroparkpyro.blogspot.com/2008/12/ethics-and-kashrut-panel.html ]



Clearly, what needs to be done is that those girls be obliged to wear very long skirts, baggy and unrevealing clothing that covers them up to the neck and down to the wrist, with complete and modest hair coverings, so that they do not tempt a saintly Mashgiach with their vixenish ways.


If ALL women wore properly modest attire (longs skirts, long sleeves, high collars, and sheitlach), there would soon be peace in the world, the Arabs would start to disappear, and moshiach would come.

It is davka BECAUSE of the horrible modern standards of tzenua, and the unwarranted (possibly even goyish) criticism of frimme companies that do mitzvos like kosher schechting (while charitably providing employment for the unworthies from 'outside', nota bene!), that the world is the mess that it is.

And twenty hour a day employment certainly prevents those damsels from getting into any trouble. We don't even know what they are like - without 20hr a day supervision, who knows? Harlotry, witchcraft, Buddhism, murder, drugs, and unwanted Goytemalan babies! The world is bad enough as it is, please don't make it any worse!


I am, of course, assuming that the mashgechim are NOT working 20 hour days. Their job requires them to be alert and capable of training their eagle eyes on everything in the work place. For a twenty hour shift, at least three mashgechim are required, preferably twice that number to be on the safe side, and to act as a check on any possible licentious behaviour that the girls might engage in.


My respect goes out to the mashgechim at that meat-packer, as I find it hard to even calmly ponder undocumented underage girls working twenty hours a day, but they actually are exposed to them.
If my hands are sweaty at this point just thinking about it, they must be absolutely quivering!
They have my deepest sympathy.

YESHIVA UNIVERSITY'S MAN-WOMAN

A literature professor at Yeshiva University has undergone hormone treatment, and now has breasts. From what little I have bothered to read, the person in question has not taken the next step yet (surgery), and still has certain masculine equipment.
[The particular masculine equipment should probably be seen as mere urinary tract hose at this point - hormones tend to affect sex drive, and there may have been prior issues affecting the libido.]

Apparently the frisson of transgendery is a little too much for some frumme yidden - in between screaming bloody murder they are having several fits of the vapours, and quoting Rav Moshe Tendler, several acharonim, and a few rishonim, with gay abandon.

The poor dears.



The students at Yeshiva University are all adults, and unlike regular goyishe university students, are not at school for the marvelous opportunities for sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Any sex, drugs, and rock and roll they engage in is almost certainly far away from campus in any case.
[And none of the YU men I have met impress me as in any way obsessed with sex, drugs, and rock and roll.]

I must doubt that the professor's particular gender issue has any bearing on the subject she teaches, or affects the ability of her students to absorb the material. And as far as I can tell, the professor in question has no intention of somehow magically becoming a priest in the third temple, and does not have a matchmaker on retainer.


I would therefore respectfully suggest that the hysterical frumme yidden mentioned above should come right out and admit that they are sexually farklempt themselves, having probably hoped that the professor in question would express a physical interest in them. Either that or something else deep within their own sexuality is twisting their knickers.
IF that is NOT the case, I fail to see how it is any of their business what gender he was before, or what gender she is becoming now.
Take pill, boys, and breathe.

GOOD ADVICE

I am usually fairly certain that my employers are happy that I am not in customer service. They should be especially happy today.

This morning our customer-service telephone person told an end-user: "If you can't touch the water, don't pour it on your child."


IF YOU CAN'T TOUCH THE WATER, DON'T POUR IT ON YOUR CHILD


Overhearing this brought two things to mind:
1. "No no, you should hold it under till the skin peels off easily. Then dip it in cold water to maintain the nice red colour."
2. Yad soledet bo ("the hand recoils from it"). One does not violate the rule against melacha on shabbes if one does not heat something to the temperature at which, upon touching it (or the vessel containing it) one instinctively pulls away one's hand.
So, as the main example, and not veering into maachal ben Drosai, one may make tea with water poured ('irui') from the primary vessel ('kli rishon') in which one kept the water hot into the second vessel (('kli sheini')), which will decrease the temperature (yet further), whereupon one places the teabag in the warm water of the second vessel. Or, if the water is too hot to touch, one pours it yet again - into a third vessel ((('kli shlishi'))). Note that the water-heater (primary vessel, the kli rishon) has to be either plugged in or placed on the blech before shabbes.

But this is natural - surely the customer would've grasped this?


The skin of a child is more sensitive than that of an adult, and even among adults, sensitivity to heat varies. Wherefore yad soledet bo is relative, and you clearly shouldn't have your brat make tea on Saturday.