Agreed that a table saw only works for thin splits (~3" or less); however, if I stand on the back side of the saw and pull the split toward me, the kickback would go away from me instead of toward me...but then again, it might throw my hand into the blade, and that wouldn't be good at all. So I'm thinking the table saw is not a good idea.
Yeah, you definitely don’t want to try to pull the wood through the blade from the back. That would be a really bad idea — almost guarantee you lose something important if the wood does catch at all.
The only way I’d even consider using a table saw would be with some type of sled that I could hold the wood on as it went through the blade so I’d have some level of control and the waste side was more or less free to fall off without risk of binding on anything. That said, I’d be manually cutting them with a bow saw before I’d try it.