Major British multinational retailer, Marks & Spencer has confirmed that Jewish employees do not have to serve pork products at tills to its customers, if it goes against their religious beliefs, The Jewish Chronicle reports.

The chain founded by Polish-Jewish refugee Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in the late 19th century, confirmed that, in the same way a Muslim member of staff could refuse to handle pork and alcohol, a Jewish employee could decline to sell pork sausages, bacon rashers and sea-food, as well as opt not to work on Shabbos.

“We recognize that some of our employees practice religions that restrict the food or drink they can handle, or that mean they cannot work at certain times,” said a spokesman for Marks & Spencer.”M&S promotes an environment free from discrimination and so, where specific requests are made, we will always make reasonable adjustments to accommodate them, whilst ensuring high levels of customer service.”

The spokesman said that their policy would be applied to other religions, including Christians who did not want to work Sunday’s and Jews who choose not to work Saturday.

Morrisons supermarket joined M&S in saying it would “respect and work around anyone’s wishes not to handle specific products for religious or cultural reasons”.

Sainsbury’s, meanwhile, has issued its official policy on the matter in the form of a pamphlet called “The Little Book of Faith,” according to The Independent. It said it had concluded that just because a person was not able to eat pork or drink alcohol didn’t mean they should be allowed to avoid handling them altogether.

Asda and Tesco both said they were unlikely to employ a person at the checkout registers who could not handle some goods – though the latter said they dealt with the issue on a case-by-case basis.

As expected, a Facebook campaign group calling on people to boycott Marks & Spencer has attracted almost 2,000 ‘likes’ within a day of being set up. The store’s Jewish policy is not attacked in the byline, rather what was highly reported about Muslim staffers refusing to check out customers for religious reasons.

Marks and Spencer customer Matt Syson accused M&S of creating “division and hatred within our communities”.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)