Poland Upholds Ban on Ritual Slaughter: A Win for Animal Rights, and a Blow for Jews and Muslims

THE INDEPENDENT
By Jamie Stokes

POLAND---In a statement responding to a vote on Friday that blocked a government-sponsored attempt to overturn the ban on ritual slaughter, Rabbi Michael Schudrich said: "The completely untrue idea that such slaughter is cruel, or even intentionally cruel, has triumphed. This idea gained popularity in Europe in the 1930s, when Norway and Sweden banned ritual slaughter under the influence of Nazi propaganda." The ban, which came into force in January, was the result of pressure from animal welfare groups, not neo-Nazis. Their concern was a response to a massive increase in ritual slaughter in Poland to provide meat for export to Muslim countries and Israel, not the nation’s very small Jewish community. It was a lose-lose scenario.