What is a kosher chicken?


WHO, WHAT, WHY?
The Magazine answers...





As insults were traded among contestants on the losing team in this week's Apprentice, Sir Alan Sugar berated the contestants for not knowing what a kosher chicken was.
It had to rank as one of the most peculiar spectacles in the history of the BBC reality game show, The Apprentice - a full-blown barney about what is and isn't kosher. Contestants in this week's episode had been flown to Marrakech in Morrocco and instructed to bargain for a number of items on a shopping list, including a kosher chicken.
The losing team was penalised because the chicken it had bought was not kosher. Sir Alan, who is Jewish, was affronted by the lack of knowledge among team members about the meaning of kosher, and was particularly scornful of contestant Michael Sophocles who bought the chicken yet claimed to be "a good Jewish boy" on his application to the programme. THE ANSWER
Chicken killed with a single cut across the neck
Killing needs to have been by a shochet, using a knife called a chalaf






Kosher is the term most people would associate with food conforming to Jewish law, but the word to describe the actual method used to slaughter animals is shechita.
According to the Torah - the body of written Jewish laws - the laws of shechita were given to Moses at Mount Sinai, and must be followed if Jews wish to eat meat. As Shilom Cohen, from Shechita UK, an information resource on Jewish religious animal slaughter, explains: "It is absolutely the only method used, according to Jewish law. Eating kosher food is the foremost principle of being an orthodox Jew".
Shechita is performed with an extremely sharp knife, known as a chalaf, making single cut across the front of the animal's neck, severing several arteries in order for it to bleed to death (as Jews are forbidden from consuming blood). Mr Cohen confirms that "this principle is the same, whether for a bird or a cow".
Advocates of shechita argue that this is the most humane form of slaughter, with the animal being rendered unconscious by the procedure. But opponents say the practise of stunning an animal before slaughter is more humane.
Halal confusion
For the Apprentices, the task of finding the right person to perform shechita would have been particularly difficult in a predominantly Muslim country like Morocco.
Only a shochet can perform shechita. He (never she) must be trained both religiously and physiologically. In England and Wales, he must have his licence renewed every year by the Rabbinical Commission for the Licensing of Shochetim (unlike other slaughtermen in the UK who are covered for life). WHO, WHAT, WHY?

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Since as far back as 1928, shechita has been protected by various pieces of legislation in UK law. A change in the rules in 1999 set out that for animals to be killed according to religious requirements, it must be in an approved slaughterhouse.
Back in Marrackech, Michael's attempts to procure a kosher chicken in fact resulted in the team buying a halal chicken - a killing in accordance with Muslim holy law. The two types of religious slaughter, halal and shechita, are similar, in that both involve cutting the animal's throat. However, the most obvious difference between the two is that the latter does not require any kind of ritual blessing. If Michael and the rest of the team had realised this they would have known that what they were buying was definitely not kosher.

Huh. I would never have know that fact, thanks.

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YVW lol

That was quite comprehensive - thank you. I didn't know about the term "shechita". That's a new bit of info.
One other bit I can add is that there are different groups among the Orthodoxy that claim different standards for "Kashruth" or degree of "Kosherness" As a "mainstream" Jew I have always found it humerous that each group claims their Kashruth standards to be better than the others. It adds a little spice to the entire Kosher debate. But I guess every religion has these sects operating that claim their methods or sect is more "true" than the others.