Probably Uncalled For...  

This was definitely one of those stories where the headline caused a double take, and then, right after reading the story, yet another double take. An adult female giraffe at Israel's largest zoo apparently fell ill, so a vet was called in. Seems fairly obvious enough, not much of a story here, I'll grant you, but then, one thing led to another, and before you knew what was going on, giraffes were declared kosher.

You read that right. Giraffes are now kosher, which means the meat and milk (uh, eeeww) are A-Okay for observant Jews, according to a recent rabbinical ruling. Rabbi Shlomo Malfoud proclaimed "Indeed, the giraffe is kosher for eating. The giraffe has all the signs of a ritually pure animal, and the milk that form curds strengthened that."

This all started when the vet's team took a sample of the giraffe's milk, only to find that it clotted in a manner consistent with the kosher tradition. As the giraffe already had cloven hooves and chewed its cud, it was good to go, but the testing on the milk resulted in the animal meeting all the qualifications, so a ruling was issued.

Wow. That global food crisis we've been hearing about on the horizon must be worse than we originally thought. I know I may never view a pack of Hebrew National hot dogs the same way again. And, not to mention, where exactly was PETA in all of this? I mean, they'll fight KFC and the Queen of England, but they won't take on a major world religion? Talk about calling your shots.

All kidding aside, Dr. Yigal Horowitz, the chief vet at the Safari Park, where the giraffe was treated, assured a no doubt curious public that this did not mean there was going to be a widespread call for giraffe for consumption. "After all," Dr. Horowitz said, "this is an animal in danger of extinction." Still though, if an animal's on the brink of going extinct, don't you think the last thing you ought to do is declare it fit for consumption in religious rites or observations? I mean, a little mystery is inherent in any religion, so how exactly would keeping this under wraps hurt anything?