Belgium Region Approves Ban On Ritual Slaughter
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — The parliament in the Belgian region of Flanders unanimously passed a resolution last week banning ritual slaughter without stunning.
The decision will go into effect beginning in 2019.
The resolution follows a similar decision approved in May by the Walloon Parliament in southern Belgium, Belgium’s largest region, which is home to just a few hundred Jews. That legislation takes effect in September 2019.
The threat to ban ritual slaughter without stunning has been circulating in Belgium for many years.
Shechitah, the ritual method of slaughtering animals, requires they be conscious when their throats are slit — a practice that critics say is cruel but which advocates insist is more humane than mechanized methods used in non-kosher abattoirs. Muslims slaughter animals in a similar method, albeit with fewer restrictions, to produce halal meat.
Half of Belgium’s Jewish population of 40,000 people live in Flanders. The remaining 20,000 live in the Brussels region. Kosher slaughterhouses in Antwerp, the capital of Flanders, provide meat to many Jewish communities in Europe.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
