Ultra-Orthodox slaughterhouse faces ax
Ultra-Orthodox butcher Yoel Kraus claims that because he has no ID card and avoids contact with the Israeli authorities as an anti-Zionist, the police are trying to close down the ancient traditional slaughterhouse he operates and imprison him for tax evasion.
For 100 years, if not more, a small poultry slaughterhouse operated peacefully in Mea She'arim in Jerusalem. Now that its operator since 2006 is being sent to prison, it may well be shut down for good. With its demise, one of the most prominent symbols of this ancient ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, established in 1874, could be erased.
In my youth, I studied in Mea She'arim, and I still vividly remember the slaughterhouse. It's a spectacle I'll never forget, the crates of cackling chickens strewn along the broad, steep alleyway in the center of the neighborhood. The slaughterhouse was located in the building behind, on the open first floor, which looked like a hallway. Inside, butchers wearing blue gowns were busily running around. The slaughtered chickens were thrown into conical aluminum cans, waiting for their turn at the noisy feather-plucking machines, which were operated by Arabs. On the side of the road, elderly women and children stood by ready to wrap the freshly slaughtered poultry in fabric bags.
