CSENGELE – In a small room lined with religious texts, a Jewish rabbi demonstrates how knives are sharpened and inspected before they are put to use slitting the throats of chickens, geese and other poultry at a kosher slaughterhouse in Hungary.
A shochet, someone trained and certified to slaughter animals according to Jewish tradition, whets a knife on increasingly fine stones before drawing the blade across a fingernail to feel for any imperfections in the steel that might inhibit a smooth, clean cut and cause unnecessary pain. “One of the most important things in kosher is that the animal doesn’t suffer,” said Rabbi Jacob Werchow, who oversees production at Quality Poultry, a 3 1/2-year-old slaughterhouse that supplies nearly 40% of