A number of European countries have laws that prohibit certain Jewish religious practices: for instance, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland ban ritual slaughter. Recently, on June 29, 2011, a vote was taken in the Dutch parliament to join this ban on ritual slaughter of animals. The bill by the small Animal Rights Party passed the lower house of parliament by 116 votes to 30. It must still be approved by the upper house before becoming law. The only opposition to the new law came from the country’s Christian political parties.
These laws against Jewish practices are often presented as not being motivated by anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, it is clear that religious Jews would find it difficult to live in countries that ban significant elements of their religion. When the ban seems to contradict the available evidence, one can speculate on a possible anti-Jewish motive for the decision.
Marianne Thieme, head of the Animal Rights Party, said before the vote. "For us religious freedom stops where human or animal suffering begins." "This way of killing causes unnecessary pain to animals. Religious freedom cannot be unlimited".
The claim of animal suffering was based on two “scientific reports.” The Dutch public and many parliamentarians thought that these had been prepared by the reputable agricultural University of Wageningen. But a court case brought by two Jewish community organizations revealed that The University of Wageningen denied any connection to the reports, nor were any of its employees involved. The documents had in fact been prepared by Wageningen UR, a privatized government organization with a name resembling that of the university.
The Jewish community in a press release said that the experimental report was no more than a pilot test. It has now asked the court to summon the author of the study. In the meantime, the author has admitted that his study cannot be considered “pure scientific research.”
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach describes the Jewish dietary laws as meant “to regulate how man could take animal life without becoming less than human himself. God gave explicit commandments as to which animals man could slaughter, how he could kill them, and which parts of the animal could be consumed. In granting humans the right to devour animal flesh, God ordained that man take life only in the most humane way”. The animal must be killed with respect and compassion by a shochet (ritual slaughterer), a religious Jew who is duly licensed and trained.
Britain's Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks visited the Netherlands to lobby against the law, arguing that pre-stunning failed in up to 10 percent of cases and that caused more pain than the swift cutting of the throat by a razor-sharp knife.
The Nazis were the first to introduce laws against Jewish ritual slaughter as their legal assault against the Jewish People. The Nazis began their reign in Germany with a law on April 21, 1933, the “Law on the Slaughtering of Animals,” as part of the Third Reich's policy against Jews by decreeing a general obligation of stunning before slaughtering. This Nazi law appears to be the inspiration for the legal actions introduced by the other European countries that presently have such a ban.
In contrast to these national bans, European Union regulations require animals to be stunned before killing but allow exceptions for ritual slaughter, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled is a religious right. Animal rights activists insist this is inhuman.
Irrespective of the claims that these laws are not against the Jewish people, they most be opposed by all those wishing to maintain the Jewish religion and its rich culture. Judaism is built on religious laws that regulate the lives of Jews in a direction of greater humanity.
