London – The Brussels-based European Jewish Association has hired a lawyer who previously served as chair for a far-right political party with a a history of anti-Semitism to engineer a legal challenge to Poland’s controversial shechita ban.
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The TIMES OF ISRAEL (http://bit.ly/18P9vcH) is reporting that Attorney Roman Giertych, who once headed the now-defunct League of Polish Families, said that, while he acknowledges the charges of anti-Semitism connected with his former party, “It is not the history of myself. There is no anti-Semitism in my life.”
The League of Polish Families popped-up in 2001 as a self-proclaimed successor to the pre-war National Democracy Party, which actively supported the marginalization of Jews, both socially and economically.
Most notable among anti-Semitic rhetoric put forth by the group was a 2000 statement from a senior activist, Ryszard Bender, who proclaimed that Auschwitz was not a death camp.
Giertych’s grandfather, Jędrzej, was a member at the time, as was his father, Maciej, who described Jews in 2007 as “segregationists” who “settle among the rich.”
The hiring of Giertych drew immediate skepticism from some other Jewish groups, including the European Jewish Congress, whose spokesman, Philip Carmel, called the choice of Giertych “ill-advised” and “misconceived.”
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, director of the European Jewish Associaition said in defnse of Giertych that, he is “an excellent lawyer and has contacts in the corridors of power where the decision will be made.”
Giertych, who has been practicing privately since the collapse of his party in 2007, is now entrusted to steer opponents to the ban to a successful outcome after a reversal of the ban was defeated in parliament earlier this month.
When you can’t beat them, Join them !
To be honest, his tie doesn’t look too anti-semitic..
He and his hand guesters doesn’t look right to me..
The guy knows anticemitic stuff well
He might fight it well too
How can he be trusted?
Keep your friends close & your enemies closer. Besides, business is business, right?
It’s so crazy it might work!
The guy looks like a lunitic, and the truth is, anybody that hates, has emotional issues they never sorted out, so he fits the bil
It’s an interesting choice but I’m not completely shocked. Giertych’s family has strong Catholic, right-wing traditions. His grand-father was a right-wing politician in pre-war Poland and a friend of Dmowski. Roman grew in those circles and he’s a staunch Catholic, but he has never been accused of saying or doing anything anti-Semitic.
Tomasz Terlikowski, another famous right wing, Catholic bloger/journalist also defended shehita saying that religious freedoms are more important in this case and that “the left/liberals will first outlaw shehita/halal and eventually they will try to forbid christening babies”.