Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel and Rabbi Dennis Katz of Congregation Shaare Tikvah B'nai Zion, both in Chicago, independently wrote letters to Aldermen Burton F. Natarus (42nd) and Bernard Stone (50th), urging them not to push to repeal the foie gras law, which the City Council passed by a vote of 48-1 in April.

Stone said his own rabbi didn't mention the issue to him and he doesn't know who Rabbi Lopatin is.

Lopatin, an Orthodox rabbi, said the issue of foie gras, and by extension all cruelty to animals, "is an issue that Judaism has a lot to say about. It's not just a Jewish issue, I think it's about being a mensch, creating a society where that is a value, being decent and civilized and kind," he said in a telephone interview. He expressed similar views in the letter to Stone and Natarus, he said.

Chicago became the first large city in the country to bar the sale of foie gras, but the supposed delicacy is banned in some 15 countries, including Israel.

Foie gras, which literally means "fat liver," is produced by force-feeding ducks and geese through metal pipes stuck down their throats. During the process their livers expand to more than 10 times their normal size and often burst.

Ald. Joe Moore (49th) introduced the bill in the City Council. Mayor Richard M. Daley is in favor of its repeal, saying it has made the city a laughingstock, and the Illinois Restaurant Association has filed a lawsuit that seeks to overturn the ban. An earlier poll reported that less than five percent of Chicago restaurants had ever served foie gras.

Rabbi David Rosen, an Israeli Orthodox rabbi and former chief rabbi of Ireland, earlier issued an opinion stating that "...pate de foie gras is produced in a manner that is in complete contravention of the Torah's prohibition of causing tsa'ar ba'alei chayim (cruelty or pain to animals). ... Pate de foie gras is obtained through the willful desecration of a Torah prohibition and any truly G-d-fearing Jew will not partake of such a product which is an offense against the Creator and His Torah."

Lopatin agreed, saying that "we evolve, we learn that different things are cruel at different times. It's only in the last few years that this has been recognized as unacceptable, although it's been going on for hundreds of years."

Last year in his Rosh Hashanah sermon, he noted, he mentioned foie gras and the fact that Israel had banned its sale. "I was very proud of Israel," he said. "It's important for us to know that while our priority issue needs to be fighting for Israel and the Jewish people, this is also important. Israel sometimes sets a very good direction for morality," as it did when its soldiers warned civilians that their area was about to be bombed in the recent war with Lebanon, he said.

Lopatin said the Torah is a primer on how we are supposed to behave toward the animals some of us eat. "Under the laws of treif, we are not supposed to eat animals that are physically damaged," he said. "It teaches us that the way we treat animals we want to eat takes into account their health and well-being. The Torah says, if you're going to make animals diseased, it is not going to be acceptable for Jews to eat. It sets a tone for all humanity on how to treat animals. It's not so much the rights of the geese, it's really about how human beings are supposed to behave, the responsibility of every single person who puts something into their mouth to think about it."

Katz said that in his letter, he urged the mayor and aldermen not to reverse the ban. "It's a very painful thing for animals, and I believe that our tradition calls for compassion even when it comes to animal life," he said.

Stone said that "nobody wrote me, and my rabbi (Rabbi Burton Wax of Congregation Ezras Israel) hasn't said a word to me. I don't know who Rabbi Lopatin is. Nobody has called me or said a word to me. I don't know why religion got mixed into this in the first place. Since the ban restaurants are starting to serve (foie gras), the ban has resulted in them serving it. Had we not banned it they probably wouldn't even bother with it, so that's one of the reasons to repeal it. What does Judaism have to do with foie gras? Judaism has absolutely nothing to do with foie gras."

He said he will "absolutely" still attempt to have the ban repealed. "Rabbi Lopatin shouldn't even have brought Judaism into this," he said. "It was bad enough that the City Council was made a laughingstock all over the nation but why should Jews be made a laughingstock now? That's what Rabbi Lopatin is doing now, and I don't even know who Rabbi Lopatin is."

Rabbi Natarus did not return repeated calls from Chicago Jewish News seeking comment.

Lopatin, meanwhile, said he doesn't believe Chicago is a "laughingstock" for passing the foie gras ban. "I feel very proud that Chicago was the city that said, we don't need to have this product here. It's not costing people jobs or creating any hardship. If people want to they can bring it into their homes. It has reached the level where this is something we cannot accept anywhere."