Jerusalem, Israel – An Israeli rabbi has declared giraffe meat and milk to be kosher.
“The giraffe has all the signs of a ritually pure animal, and the milk forms curds, which strengthened that view,” the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot quoted Rabbi Shlomo Mahfoud as saying.
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The rabbi based his ruling on a recent finding by researchers from Bar Ilan University who took a milk sample while treating a giraffe at Ramat Gan safari park near Tel Aviv.
They found that the milk forms curds as required under Jewish religious law, a finding confirmed by another research institute.
Giraffe meat is also considered ritually pure because the animal has a cloven hoof and chews the cud.
“Indeed, the giraffe is kosher for eating,” said Mahfoud, who was present when the researchers made their finding.
Yigal Horowitz, chief veterinary surgeon at the safari park, is not overly worried by the development. “This doesn’t mean that tomorrow we are going to drink giraffe milk or eat soup made from giraffe necks.” “After all, this is an animal in danger of extinction.”
where do you shecht it ?
Rabbi druckman
i think thats the reason why we dont eat giraffe meat
if you can’t find where to shecht it, (you can’t find the neck!) then you probably shouldn’t be a shochet!!
the reason we don’t eat it is because the only way you are going to get one is by buying one from the zoo, or chasing one in africa with a cherry picker. and besides, apparantly the meat is very tough!
I assume that giraffes are quite expensive so there is little chance you’ll ever find giraffe steaks at your butcher. But giraffe milk and giraffe cheese are a real possibility.
I don’t see why this is such a shocker. It has been known for a long time that giraffes are kosher. You don’t need a rocket sceintist to tell you that it has split hooves and chews its cud. The reason you don’t see them on the shelves in your butcher is because we are unsure the exact place to shecht it on the giraffes neck.
But there would be a lot of “neck stew”.
Personally I would like a giraffe bag and shoes.
“personally i would like a giraffe bag and shoes”. I kid you not, when I was a little girl, my Shabbos coat had a giraffe-like pattern on it (fake fur, of course!)
this isn’t neias! for years we have known that giraffe are kosher. I think that someone that put out a popular sefer on Chullin actually schechted one a few years ago
“if you can’t find where to shecht it, (you can’t find the neck!) then you probably shouldn’t be a shochet!!”
obviously.
the reason is simple: we have no mesorah for it.
(mesorah is required for animals as well as for birds)
There is no mesorah for turkey, and people eat it.
Ari Z. Zivotofsky takes on a commonly-held misconception about an intriguing animal of the wild.
Misconception: Although the giraffe is a kosher animal, it is not slaughtered because it is not known where on the neck to perform the shechitah (ritual slaughter).
Fact: The makom shechitah (region of the neck in which ritual slaughter is valid) on a giraffe is precisely defined by halachah, just as it is for all animals, and the only impediments to shechting giraffe are cost and practical considerations. (They are among the most difficult animals to restrain.)
Background: This misconception is very widespread and is shared by young and old alike. Children learn it in kindergarten, and senior citizens have told it to me in shul.
Before questioning how to perform the shechitah, it is necessary to ascertain that the giraffe (giraffa camelopardalis) — the biggest ruminant and the tallest mammal — is indeed kosher. The physical indicia of a kosher mammal are that it be a ruminant and have split hooves (Leviticus 11:2-8 and Deuteronomy 14:4-8). A visit to your local zoo will reveal this striped giant standing on split hooves and chewing its cud. There is also an historical record of the giraffe being accepted as kosher. The zemer, listed among the ten types of kosher animals in Deuteronomy (14:5), is identified as the giraffe by Rav Saadia Gaon, Rabbenu Yona, Radak, the Septuagint, and many others.
Regarding the makom shechitah, the Talmud (Chullin 27a) probes for the Biblical source that slaughtering must be performed at the neck, and concludes that it is a tradition, a law given to Moses at Sinai. This would indicate that the entire neck is valid for shechitah. In most animals, one does not think about how to define the neck, because it is a relatively small area. In the case of the giraffe, one might contemplate whether the whole neck really is valid and wonder about the exact location of the acceptable zone. But there is no need to equivocate; the specific anatomic boundaries (cited in Chullin 45a; Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 20:1-2) for the ritual slaughter of all animals apply to the giraffe as well. For a pigeon, the valid region is a few inches long; for a cow, over 12 inches; and for a giraffe, close to six feet. A kashrut expert once quipped that “anyone who does not know where to shecht a giraffe either knows nothing about the laws of shechitah or could not hit the side of a barn with a baseball.”
When I asked Rabbi Yosef Kafich, a leading rabbi and scholar in the Israeli Yemenite community, if there are any halachic impediments to shechting giraffe, his tongue-in-cheek response was that the only problem might be that “at $10,000 per kilo, it would be ba’al tashchit (a waste)!”
all of u go learn a little the real reason is because there’s not enough out there or what hendel said ealier everything else is shtisim
Bon apeitite
If you leave it up to Rubashkin , he will have it on store shelves in no time.
re: place to shecht.
in hilchos shecita, you will see that the giraffe has plenty of place to shecht as opposed to a cow where you only have a couple of inches.
the reason its not eaten is a. they are endangered, b. the meat is not tooo tasty
If you leave it up to Rubashkin , he will have it on store shelves in no time.
06-06-2008 – 9:31 AM
Phew! Such hatred! you obviously feed on hate and personally have no need for giraffe meat or milk, or, you most probably have been eating this till now anyways.
Who are the two guys in the picture? one is slifkin, who is the other?
A clear case of someone with waaaay too much time on their hands starving for attention. There is no chiddush here and the results are purely theoretical. Practically speaking, giraffes have never been harvested for meat on any meaningful scale and probably will not be at any time in our lifetimes.
But seriosly, how many people actully WANT to eat giraffe? Anyone?
The swan is kosher, provided it is kosher-slaughtered. The giraffe is also kosher, in theory. The reason we don’t eat it is not because we don’t know where on its neck to slaughter it; rather, we don’t eat giraffe because there is no continuous tradition that giraffes have been eaten by Jews throughout the generations.
Source:
* Mazon Kasher Min Hachai, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Levinger pp.19,22
Just like the turkey bird it was not excepted at beginning but once it became popular most poskim gave the ok.
(the same with the Bison)
“when I was a little girl, my Shabbos coat had a giraffe-like pattern on it (fake fur, of course!)”
I think it’s back!! Anything “wild”. But I would not wear it with my leopard blouse, zebra blazer or snake shoes.
how about gefilte fish, how do you shecht that?
TSome objectivity Says:
If you leave it up to Rubashkin , he will have it on store shelves in no time.
06-06-2008 – 9:31 AM
Phew! Such hatred! you obviously feed on hate and personally have no need for giraffe meat or milk, or, you most probably have been eating this till now anyways.
06-06-2008 – 10:50 AM
The first comment might have been at an attempt at humor, but the second comment was vicious hate. The person who is called ‘some objectivity’ obviously has a sinas chinam agenda.
My Zeide A”H was proud of the fact that he sampled every single Kosher bird at least once in his lifetime (he was in the chicken business). I don’t recall him saying he’d tried swan!
Some objectivity Says:
If you leave it up to Rubashkin , he will have it on store shelves in no time.
06-06-2008 – 9:31 AM
Phew! Such hatred! you obviously feed on hate and personally have no need for giraffe meat or milk, or, you most probably have been eating this till now anyways.
06-06-2008 – 10:50 AM
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Look who is feeding on hate . You have no idea who i am so how can u possibly saY THAT I DO OR DONT EAT SOMETHING. yOUR A CLASS a hypocrite. Btw i whole haertedly believe that Rubashkin is cabable of farming his own giraffes if only he tried like he did everything else . But of course you think everyone is out to get him.
From what I hear even non Kosher restaurants throughout the world don’t have Giraffe steak on their menus, this is a pretty good indication that we won’t be eating Girafe Pastrami sandwiches any time soon.
The Mokom Hashechita is clearly defined by it’s extemities. Anyone that ever glanced in Simla chadasha would know that. (It was around long before artscroll put out mesechtas shechitas chulin) The baseball and barn analogy are apropos.