Brussels – A ban in Belgium on the Jewish and Muslim methods of ritual slaughter of animals will go into effect on New Year’s Day.
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The Flemish Region, whose capital is Antwerp, passed the measure in July 2017 over vociferous objections by faith community leaders. It becomes effective on Jan. 1.
A similar ban in the Walloon Region, another of the three parts that make up the federal kingdom of Belgium, is set to become effective in September.
“That provinces within Belgium, the law-making capital of Europe, have passed this type of anti-religious measure is an affront to the European values we all hold so dear,” said Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, President of the Conference of European Rabbis and Chief Rabbi of Moscow.
“Time and again, the Jewish community is told by senior EU officials that there is no Europe without the Jews, [but] these bans undermine those statements and put Jewish life at risk. We urge EU leaders to address this directly to the governments of member states. Words are weak when actions hurt. We will continue to make those points to officials when we bring together hundreds of rabbis for our biennial conference in Belgium this spring.”
Goldschmidt said the ban should serve as “a wake-up call” to Jewish communities across Europe to the necessity of building ties with national governments.
In Europe, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Slovenia all ban religious slaughter without prior stunning. Switzerland and Lichtenstein also require prior stunning except for poultry.
Not cool
Classic liberal PETA stuff.
Coming next to NYC after the finish with bris mila and force all yiddisha schools to teach LGBT rights
if tzar bal hachayim is the issue then maybe there is a more humane way to kill animals which is less painful then schita.
The countries that ban kosher slaughter ultimately get to killing people with no compunction .
Shechita has nothing to do with pain and suffering of the animal.
Even if science were to prove shechita is a thousand times more painful than any other method of slaughter we could still only eat meat from animals slaughtered by shechita.
By the way, this was traditionally a left wing liberal issue claiming to want to make death less painful for animals. Now it is embraced by the far right nationalists to make life more painful for Muslims and as an added bonus, for Jews too.