The European Jewish Association lobbied UK government ministers, including the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Right Hon. Owen Paterson MP, for action after last week’s controversial calls from the president elect of the British Veterinary Association John Blackwell, called the well-established practice of Jewish ritual slaughter in the UK into question.
Responding to last month’s contentious implementation of a unilateral ban on animal slaughter without pre-stunning in Denmark, Mr. Blackwell told UK daily The Times that animal welfare must be kept “out of the religious sphere”, as he defended the Danish government’s moves as having been “purely for animal reasons, which is right”. He further slammed Jewish individuals who attributed attempts to implement an outright ban on Shechita, describing such rhetoric as “very emotive”, concluding that “that’s the difficulty with engagement”.
Commissioner Tonio Borg, Commissioner for Health, last month told Rabbi Margolin in a meeting that he intended to seek clarification on the Danish ban from the Danish government, after Rabbi Margolin told him that scientific evidence has shown that kosher slaughtering “does not inflict more pain to animals than other methods commonly used in Europe”. “Kosher butchering is essential for the continuation of Jewish life and its ban hurts Jews not only in Denmark, but in other places across Europe that import kosher meat from there,” added Rabbi Margolin.
In a letter following on from the meeting of the two men, Commissioner Borg informed Rabbi Margolin that EU Regulations set a precedent for exemption on the pre-stunning rule, allowing that animals subject to particular methods of slaughter prescribed by religious rites may be killed without stunning provided that the slaughter takes place in a slaughterhouse.
He further added that attempts to outlaw Shechita may infringe on Article 10 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, which concerns freedom of religion, and he would be seeking explanations on the Danish authorities’ justification for their move.
Mr. Blackwell’s calls, the first ever recorded by the holder of the presidency of the BVA, have sparked fears across the UK’s established Jewish community, for whom British law has long protected the practice of religious slaughter, as long as it is practiced by licensed slaughterers in a registered slaughterhouse, which is entirely compatible with EU regulations on the protection of animals at the time of slaughter.
Speaking on behalf of the Jewish communities represented by the EJA, Rabbi Margolin pledged to fight against this latest attempt to outlaw Jewish religious practice, with a campaign similar to that mounted in Denmark and Poland, as well as the fight against the proposed ban on religious circumcision in Norway.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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The British aristocracy, including the Royal Family, are avid hunters, yet there is no hue and cry about the pain inflicted on the poor, helpless animals when they’re shot dead so their antlers can be mounted or they’re blown out of the sky so they can end up on the Queen’s dinner plate or as pate in a Fortnum’s hamper. The sheer hypocrisy of this double standard is outrageous.