Gorillas queue up for crapper at Ramat Gan zoo
Newsday reports that Israeli gorillas are keeping kosher for Pesach, out of deference to zookeepers who cannot handle leavened bread during the holiday. Apparently the gorillas usually eat bread and cream cheese for breakfast (bettach!), so the change in diet is just as traumatic for them as it is for their primate cousins on the other side of the bars.
The zoo tries to limit their intake to just one or two crackers a day to prevent them from suffering from the most common side-effect of matzo — constipation.
“If they eat too much it does cause stomach problems, so we hope that our public this week will not be feeding their own matzo to the animals,” Emelia Turkel, the zoo’s curator said.
I;ve always thought screwing with your animals for Pesach is wrong, and avoidable — somehow. I mean, we have Shabbes elevators, right? How about an automated feeding system. I know dairy cows have issues because we drink their milk on Pesach, but gorillas? Come on!
P.S. Love the new look!
so…one can tend animals? is this not like John Ashcroft permitting idols as long as their godless breasts are covered? this is sounding like something between crazy pedantry and crazy pr, and at worst it’s simultaneously potentially cruel (will we prevent them from grooming on Yom Kippur?) and insulting (cf a Romanian zoo feeding animals thus).
k&y your posts are so rediculous.
why don’t they just tie an eruv around the cage
eruvs solve everything
Halakhicly, the problem is that not only is there a prohibition on eating hhameitz during Passover, there’s also a prohibition on owning it. So the zoo people can’t own the bread to give to the gorillas.
I don’t see why they don’t just feed them a few extra leafy vegetables to go along with the matza… green leafy vegetables counteract the ‘binding’ effects, as i learned when i had a Vegan Pesahh a few years ago in college.
if anything is clear, it is that animals shoulds be fed based on religious laws for humans, and that we’re ridiculous.
I don’t understand why the Gorillas were eating bread and cream cheese to begin with?