“Modern Family” and “Mad Men” may have come out the big winners, but prominently thrown into the mix at this year’s “Primetime Emmy Awards” was one of the country’s best-known defenders of kosher slaughter.

Temple Grandin, the inspiration for the year’s top TV movie, earned her own enthusiastic applause during an onstage appearance at the August 29 ceremony, held in Los Angeles. Portrayed by Claire Danes in an HBO biopic bearing her name, Grandin gained fame by overcoming obstacles related to autism, eventually becoming an expert in animal husbandry and a best-selling author. Now a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, 63-year-old Grandin (who celebrated her birthday the night of the show’s airing) may be best known professionally for designing a humane system of herding animals to slaughter, a project that plays a central role in the HBO movie.

Grandin’s work with animals brings her into contact regularly with the kosher meat industry, which she has both defended and helped to modify with advice about making slaughter more painless and factories more humane. “She’s really very, very extraordinary,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO and rabbinic administrator of OU Kosher, a branch of the Orthodox Union. “Maybe it’s a function of her autism, which she believes gives her insight into how animals feel and react.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The author of such books as “Thinking in Pictures” and “Animals Make Us Human,” Grandin maintains websites dedicated, respectively, to her autism advocacy and her work with animals. She devotes a section of the latter site to “Ritual Slaughter (Kosher and Halal),” providing a glossary of terms connected to kosher slaughter and citing reports on visits to kosher meat plants as far-flung as Chile and Europe.

In addition to outstanding made-for-TV movie, “Temple Grandin” collected four other Emmy Awards: Best Actress for Danes, and honors for the film’s director and two of Danes’s co-stars.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount