Aaron Zevi Friedman. Tub Taam, or Vindication of the Israelitisch Way of Killing Animals.

A Response to the First anti-Shechitah campaign in America. The first anti-Shechitah campaign in America was waged by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866. Henry Bergh, president of the Society, sent a letter that year to the proprietor of a kosher abbatoir in New York accusing him of engaging in “barbarous, revolting, and wicked” practices. Bergh further called on him to desist from violating the laws of New York and of God by “mangl[ing] and tortur[ing] his creatures.” Friedman authored Tub Taam to refute Bergh’s accusations. He not only succeeded in silencing Bergh, but in 1885 Bergh even defended shechitah against charges of cruelty leveled by the Philadelphia branch of his Society. See Jeremiah J. Berman, Shehitah (New York, 1941), pp. 288-90, 407-8; Judah David Eisenstein, Ozar Zikhrinotai, 247, 349. Among those who supported the Jewish position in the struggle against the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was Ulysses S. Grant. According to Joakim Isaacs, Grant “was moved [by the English translation]…to eat only ritually slaughtered meat in the latter part of his life.” See J. Isaacs, “Candidate Grant and the Jews,” American Jewish Archives 17.1 [Apr. 1965], p. 15, n. 31.