Let’s just keep them out of the hands of agriprocessors! From the Telegraph:
According to a report in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, vets were asked to treat an adult, female giraffe at Israel’s largest zoo, the Safari Park in Ramat Gan.
The team, led by Professor Zohar Amar, took a routine sample of milk and found that it clotted in the way required by Jewish law for kosher certification.
They submitted more milk for verification by the rabbinical authorities and the paper reported that a ruling was made that giraffe meat and milk are acceptable for observant Jews.
The giraffe belongs to the family of grazing animals that have cloven hooves and chew the cud, thereby making them consistent with kosher rules, but the milk test was the final confirmation.
“Indeed, the giraffe is kosher for eating,” Rabbi Shlomo Mahfoud, who accompanied the researchers in their work, said.
“The giraffe has all the signs of a ritually pure animal, and the milk that forms curds strengthened that.”
But Dr Yigal Horowitz, the zoo’s chief vet, said this did not mean there would suddenly be a surge in demand of giraffe food products in Israel.
“This does not mean that tomorrow we are going to drink giraffe milk or eat soup made from giraffe necks,” he said.
“After all, this is an animal in danger of extinction.”
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Flipper would do that. If you said to him, ‘hey, see that cud over there? Go chew it, and I’ll toss you a couple of fried calamari in lemon sauce with garlic,’ he’d launch his sorry tail fin out of the water and chew it.
Muffti was wondering how long it would take to drain the blood out of one of those behemoths.
I knew that about the dolphin…just wanted to see if Tom was paying attention…
Dolphins are mammals, so they’d need to chew the cud and have cloven hooves to (possibly) be kosher.
Expect a major surge in Israeli tourist trips to Kenya.
but everyone knows that the only way to eat giraffe is with cheese or stewed in milk. so that would make the meal unkosher, and eating giraffe without cheese is simply just not worth it
You mean…. Flipper is safe?
I’m up for some Bambi myself.
oh Tom, you must know by now that the koala doesn’t chew it’s cud and the dolphin doesn’t have fins and scales…haven’t we taught you anything about kashrut after all this time?
What’s next– the koala bear? The dolphin?
Rav Mahpud is one of the most machmir kashruyot. It is most respected among sefaradim, and respected by ashkenazi haredim as well. I would not be surprised that they start growing them for meat, specially because of such long neck and tail, them being the best meat for cholent.
The OU had a seminar in La recently that discussed many kosher topics, among them being Giraffe. They said that it is kosher, so this is nothing new.
Reasons why it isnt all the rage in the fancy NYC Kosher restaurants?
Some might think because of its long neck we wouldn’t know where to shecht it.
Others would say that its an aggressive animal (which they are despite what the cute little zoo makes you think) that would be difficult to subdue to be able to slaughter it in a kosher way.
The Real Reason (at least that Orthodox Union gives) Dun Dun Dun.
Its about $25,000 to purchase a giraffe and if it is shechted and checked and deemed to be unkosher because of lung defects etc., someone would be out of a lot of money.