Mobilized compassion in the German slaughter debate

Mobilized compassion. Anti-Semitism, racism and animal welfare in the German debate on shechita (slaughtering)

Kosher meat is produced without prior stunning of the slaughtered animals. For over 150 years, large sections of the German majority society have reacted to this slaughter process with rejection and hatred. Representatives of animal protection associations stirred up downright feelings of disgust against Judaism as early as the German Empire. Spread on a massive scale by National Socialist propaganda, these negative emotions were also preserved within the Federal Republic of Germany, where they were also mixed with racializing discourses about Muslims from the 1960s onwards.

The project examines traditional and post-1945 transformed tropes and emotions of hostility towards Jews, which are intertwined with animal rights concerns and anti-Muslim racism. The focus is on the Federal Republic of Germany, with selective comparisons being made between the debates on slaughter in Germany and other countries. The legal practices, sensory and veterinary findings, public disputes and the ideologies and feelings contained in these debates, both aggressive and latent, are reconstructed and analyzed in terms of the history of emotions.

Project leader: Rector of the HfJS, Dr. Andreas Brämer

Research assistant: Dr. Fabian Weber

The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)