Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky

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

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