Adam Dickter
Fear over European Kosher bans
Trend of countries outlawing ritual slaughter in name of animal rights tied
to 'a hatred for Jewish life,' says Israeli minister.
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When Holland imposed a ban recently on a type of kosher slaughter,
international Jewish leaders worried about far more than the difficulty
observant Dutch Jews might face in obtaining rabbinically certified
steak or cholent meat.
Noting that such a ban was an early step of Hitler's Third Reich, some
fear the action is part of a growing assault on Jewish life linked to the
spread of anti-Semitism sweeping across Europe.
The production of kosher meat, known as shechita, has long been
illegal in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. And in Switzerland, attempts
to lift a century-old ban caused an anti-Semitic backlash earlier this
year.
"This is a trend that is very much worrying us," said Avi Beker,
secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, who noted that
Sweden has also tried unsuccessfully to ban ritual circumcision, the
quintessential rite of passage for Jewish males. "We regard this as
interference in Jewish religious practices."
The anti-shechita measures have been driven largely by animal rights
groups who maintain the practice is cruel to animals. Kosher law
requires that an animal be killed with a single cut of its throat without
first being stunned, as in non-kosher slaughtering.
But some fear the measures may gain ground in European
governments because of growing anti-Jewish sentiment. Israel's
deputy foreign minister, Rabbi Michael Melchior, said in a statement
reacting to the Dutch initiative that "they simply don't want foreigners
and they don't want Jews."
"The lie that ritual slaughter is cruel simply shows a hatred for Jewish
life," he said.
Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League's national director, who
is currently touring Europe to assess the wave of anti-Semitism, said
the bans are the result of activism between animal rights extremists
"aided and abetted" by anti-Semitic politicians.
"Sometimes anti-Semites will use this as a vehicle to try to isolate the
Jewish community by reaching out to those who are so preoccupied
with [animal rights]," said Foxman in an interview from Rome. "The key
is whether or not there is a history in that country … what other issues
of animal rights have they engaged in to prohibit cruelty? When they
begin and end with kosher slaughter, that's when I become suspect."
Holland has emerged as the most accommodating of the European
nations who have scrutinized shechita. Its ban involved only older,
heavier bulls - not cows or other animals - and was prompted by
concerns that the thicker skin on such animals requires multiple
strokes of the knife, which can cause pain in the animal.
This month, after meetings with members of the Dutch Jewish
community, government officials worked out an arrangement allowing
for the slaughter of such animals, Dutch consular officials informed
representatives of the Jewish Community Relations Council in a New
York meeting. JCRC leaders praised the Dutch government as
"responsive to the needs of the Jewish community in Holland."
In Switzerland, however, where Jews have seen a backlash related to
Holocaust restitution efforts, the government earlier this year not only
resisted efforts to rescind its 100-year-old ban on shechita but
considered a resolution banning the import of kosher meat.
The Swiss Animal Association had called for a national referendum that
would ask Swiss citizens whether kosher meat should be barred.
A poll said 76 percent of the population would have supported the
ban, and debate on the subject prompted the government to abandon
discussion of lifting the ban. Meanwhile, Swiss Jewish leaders received
hate mail.
Jewish leaders increasingly are concerned that the anti-shechita
movement is a harbinger of an assault on other religious practices.
Rabbi Melchior, the former chief rabbi of Norway, noted that during the
initial debate in that country, where shechita has been banned since
the 1930s, a parliamentarian noted that if Jews didn't like it, "let them
go somewhere else."
"It's ominous," said Rabbi Menachem Genack, the Kosher
administrator for the Orthodox Union, the largest kosher-certifying
organization in the world. "This kind of legislation in Europe has to be
understood in the context of European history. A person would have to
be extremely naive not to think that this is linked to anti-Semitism."
Rabbi Genack said there was no serious movement to ban shechita in
the United States, which has a thriving animal rights activist
movement.
"The Humane Slaughter Act, passed in the late 1960s, designates
kosher as a humane means of slaughter," he said. "If the animal is
killed in a steady stroke, it becomes insensate almost immediately.
When the animal is stunned, you can see signs of pain significantly
higher. So kosher slaughter may be more humane."
Adam Dickter is a staff writer for the New York Jewish Week. Comment on this article by clicking here.