Pork is kosher, if it's cloned, says Rabbi Yuval Cherlow

In a development which is sure to cause bitter disagreement within the Jewish community, Rabbi Yuval Cherlow said yesterday in an interview with Israeli news site Ynet that cloned meat should not be subject to the rules that apply to the consumption of regular meat.

In the most controversial part of the interview, Rabbi Cherlow, who is a Modern Orthodox rabbi and posek based at Yeshivat Hesder Amit Orot Shaul in Kfar Batya, Raanana, Israel, says that “cloned meat produced from a pig shall not be defined as prohibited for consumption – including with milk.”

The interview, which was timed to preface his speech at a Bar-Ilan University symposium entitled “Science and Halacha” Rabbi Cherlow advocated rabbinic approval of cloned meat “so that people would not starve, to prevent pollution, and to avoid the suffering of animals.”