Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

European Jews Fight Polish Kosher Slaughter Ban

Major European Jewish organizations have started to fight the ban on kosher slaughter in Poland, after the country’s parliament decided last week to leave intact the prohibition on killing animals for meat without first stunning them, which affects both Jewish and Muslim religious slaughter.

The European Jewish Congress, the Polish Jewish community and the Conference of European Rabbis are lobbying the Polish government and selected MPs of EU member states in an effort to reverse the decision, or at least make exceptions for religious purposes. Representatives of these organizations are scheduled to meet tomorrow in Brussels to discuss the course of the struggle.

At the same time, the European Jewish Association has launched a pan-European campaign against the decision. EJA director Rabbi Menachem Margolin has held a series of meetings with the Polish representatives in the European Parliament and with senior Polish government officials, urging them to join the fight against the decision.

Following these talks, Margolin noted that he got a positive response from many of the EU Parliament members with whom he spoke, adding that some said the Polish Parliament’s decision contravened the Polish constitution.

“Kosher slaughter has been proven scientifically to be a method that is not any crueler than other slaughter methods, as it is sometimes portrayed by anti-Semitic organizations throughout world, and it is essential to maintaining a Jewish lifestyle,” he wrote to a Polish lawmaker.

For more go to Haaretz

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.