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This is a hybrid fertile animal made by crossing a cow and bison, both of which are kosher animals.
Is a mule treif?
Without commenting on its kosher status or lack thereof…
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…BEEFALO?
Ok, I’ll explain my joke. A mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey, which are both treif. Some people…
It should be Kosher as long as it has the Simanim. Can it cross-breed with a cow or a bison? If so, then it’s clear that it’s Kosher.
Buffalo and beef. Why not, they are of the bovine specie? It’s not like a sheep and cow were crossbred. Ask your LOR. I cannot bring myself to ear buffalo meat, for some reason, though.
Bison are just a different type of cow, just like Blacks and Whites are different types of people. Bison and Cattle will breed naturally and produce fertile offspring. Based on DNA analysis, it turns out most American Bison are part cattle. By way of contrast, donkeys and horses do not mate in the wild, and the offspring are usually sterile.
SF – Not only do there have to be the simanim of a kosher animal, there has to be a mesorah of us eating it, like for example turkey. Not all Jews have a mesorah to eat it, but things got crossed along the way and now basically we all eat it.
The difference between eating turkey and eating bison (beefalo) is that beheimos and chayos have explicit simanim clearly enunciated in the Torah. The Torah does not specify simanim of kosher ofos. the simanim for birds are from divrei sofrim. A better question would be is a bison/beefalo a beheima or a chayah requiring kisui.
I have seen bison meat with chashuva hechseirim. Bison is very lean and one must be careful not to overcook it. An overcooked bison burger very closely resembles a hockey puck both in appearance and texture.
That hockey puck costs and arm and a leg. So THAT’S a far better reason to avoid cooking one.
The Chazon Ish ruling on the zebu would indicate that bison may be kosher but we can’t eat it anyway.
Nechomah: The Chumras HaRama of Mesorah is Davka by birds, not animals.
Twisted: I think everyone holds nowadays that had they discovered that the zebu can cross-breed with a cow before the Chazon Ish was Niftar, that he would have been Modeh that it was 100% Kosher.
twisted: The ruling of the Chazon Ish on the zebu is not so simple. The Chazon Ish did not rule that a zebu can’t be eaten no matter what. He only responded to a ruling from Rabbi Herzog zt”l. R’ Herzog wrote that we do not require a mesorah on new animals, and therefore a zebu can be eaten. The Chazon Ish wrote that he disagrees, and if the zebu is a new animal, we shouldn’t eat it because we do require a mesorah.
The question is, what defines a new animal? Many scientists regard the zebu as being the same as regular cattle, and even call it by the same species name.
The other question is when do we require a mesorah? For a new animal we’ve never seen before is one thing. But a beefalo is not a regular animal. It comes from 2 animals, and we have a mesorah on each of them. Does the mesorah get passed down to their offspring?
This is not a question for people here. This should be decided by a knowledgeable Rav.
There are two kinds of domestic cattle. cattle without shoulder humps like European cattle and humped cattle like the Zebu and other Indian and eastern breeds. both varieties are inter-fertile. Zebus and zebu crossbreeds relatively resistant to heat and so are more commonly raised in the southern U.S. and South America. Humped cattle are shown in Egyptian friezes and were undoubtedly known in ancient Israel and Bavel. When Abaye and Rava had a barbecue, the steaks came from a Zebu or related variety..
Bison, on the other hand, were never farmed until recently and while kosher, may very well be chayos. Other kosher wild animals that are currently farmed are deer, American Elk and Eland (a kind of big antelope) in South Africa.
Interestingly, besides the American bison that we all know, there is a European variety, called Wissent, that is found in eastern Poland and Belarus. The RAMAH must have been familiar with it.
1. There are two separate halachic issues: 1) whether a Beefalo (a Bison-Cow hybrid) is a kosher animal; AND 2) whether it is permitted to breed them because of a distinct isur of mixing separate animals (the “mule”) issue.
2. There should be no problem with eating a “Beefalo” since it is just a funny looking cow (as are all Bison), and they are clearly cattle with which we have always been familiar. Unlike mules, they naturally mate and produce fertile offspring. No shailoh.
3. The “zebu” was due to a person ignorant about biology asking a shailoh based on a false premise, i.e. saying that since a “zebu” is a new animal we have no experience with, do we need a separate mesorah to hold it to be kosher. If the person did his research properly before asking, the question would have been based on “a zebu is a funny looking cow from India – that is in all ways just another type of cow, not a separate species”. When one asks a shailoh, one states facts and the Rav answers on the basis of those stated facts, and if you mess up with your facts, the answer you receive is no more relevant than the misstated facts upon which the shailoh was based.
i’m no rabbie, but yes, buffalo is kosher. i’ve had it before.
I recently had a discussion about this with my Rabbi #1…. Jews are not permitted to cross breed animals, or plants, but we are permitted to take benefit from the results. So, if you have a male and a female of an existing cross-breed, you are permitted to eat them, or breed them. Sorry, I can’t provide referenced… so…. read at your own risk.
the psak from Outsider’s Rav illustrates a major difficulty in paskening practical halachah. The Rav is undoubtedly correct that it is assur to crossbreed animals. The question is, what constitutes crossbreeding. Everyone agrees that breeding a jack donkey on a horse mare, thereby producing a mule, is assur. What about breeding a Limosin bull on a Holstein cow? Limosin cattle are hardy and disease resistant so their heritable traits are desirable. Here’s a case where the Rav really needs some hands-on (or hands-in) experience.
Secular, what you imagine cannot be done. The animal that has cloven hooves but does not ruminate is the pig. It is impossible to crossbreed any ruminant with a pig nor is it possible to crossbreed two ruminates and end up with a non-ruminant. On second thought, It might be possible with modern genetic engineering and recombinant DNA, but not through the normal, barnyard variety of gentech.
SF, Ok, How did we get the Cavendish banana? I know that there has been or is an effort being made to breed back the domestic cow to it’s ancestral form, the Aurochs. But an Aurochs is still a ruminant. How would one go about doing what you propose? How many rungs on the evolutionary ladder do you have to go back to get a critter that has cloven hooves but isn’t a ruminant?
Not only is it kosher, but it has less fat than regular beef, and is therefore better for you. In some out-of-town places, like Denver, it’s been hard to come by lately because of the upheavals in the schita industry. But it has all the benefits of beef with less of the risks of disease associated with fat, etc.
SecFrum, Don’t know about that. domestic dogs, no matter what their size and shape, are still dogs and have all of the features, however modified, of the ancestral form, the wolf. If you could come up with a dog that’s, say, a strict herbivore with the dentition and digestive tract to match, you might have something
This thread is a load of bull
oomis: I know where the word came from, but it just sounds very funny. (Also, the time of night at which I posted that may be a factor in why I said anything at all… don’t remember when that was, though.)
SecFrum, I’m skeptical but not prepared to dismiss your premise. If you’re selectively breeding for desired traits, as was done with dogs, the traits have to be there to start out with, however latent they may be. It’s an interesting concept though.
I seem to recall that the Chazon Ish was based on the shach that we eat only sheep goats and cows (- not the Rama). Of course, a Zebu might be a cow. A buffalo is a bit harder to consider a cow, probably. Its physical appearance is very different.
There is no doubt whatever that a Zebu is a cow and was certainly known to Tannaim and Amoraim. A Bison, however, is certainly kosher but is a sufaik chaya. Chayos like deer or antelope, are certainly kosher bur require kisui hadam.
Good questions. Are we permitted to breed a dog and wolf? What about a coyote and dog? A dingo and dog? How differenet are dogs and wolves in the first place?
Some breeders actually do use original wolf stock to develop their dogs, to give them a certain “wild” look that is some people like to have. So this question isn’t entirely theoretical.
“The Chazon Ish wrote that he disagrees”
Based on what rishon?
“A buffalo is a bit harder to consider a cow, probably. Its physical appearance is very different.”
A Great Dane and a Yorkshire Terrier have very different physical appearances, but both are dogs.
“A dingo and dog? How differenet are dogs and wolves in the first place?”
Same species, all of them.
Charlie, I think you’re getting the American Bison and a Buffalo mixed up (maybe) True Buffalo look very much like cows.
Outsider, You are correct in stating that a buffalo is a different animal, but the fact is that American Bison are commonly called buffalo even though they technically aren’t. Beefalo is a domestic cattle/Bison hybrid
Re dogs. All domestic dogs, coyotes, dingos are, in fact, genetically wolves.
I have raised this issue with our local Rav. Is conventional taxonomy and halachic taxonomy the same? If animals don’t resemble one another are the different minim, even though they are the same species according to conventional taxonomy? Are juvenile forms a different min than adult forms? As stated above, a great dane and a dachshund are taxonomically identical, are the different minim al pi halacha?
To the Zebu advocates: Any mehadrin frozen meat comming to EY from South America will have a “guaranteed no zebu” stamp on the kashrus label. The Chazon Ish, as others before him read that Shach out of its context, (horn characteristics of chaya) to equate the “we only go my mesorah in determining chaya status as we do by birds” to we use the mesorah limitation of birds to all determinants of animals. He gave a reason, that we may dismiss as not relevant today, and we may say that he was given wrong information, yet things change very slowly here, and many will not dare go against the Chazon Ish. As an a former American, in my carnivorous past I ate bison, and if I was zoche to a situation in which I could keep cows, I would keep Zebu. It is rumored to have an incredible “glatt rate”.
Redleg, the attempt to back breed the Aurochs (bovis primogena) has its roots in Nazi ymshm purity ideas. The result is the Heck cattle. If you are the type to shun Volkswagon and such, you should avoid Heck also. Another breed to watch is the Belgian Blue, a massive animal that sports huge muscle developement. Some breeders shave them to better show off the big bulges.
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