EU COURT UPHOLDS BELGIAN BAN ON KOSHER RITUAL SLAUGHTER
Thursday, December 17, 2020, the last day of Chanukah, the European Court of Justice upheld a Belgian ban on religious slaughter, including kosher slaughter without stunning.
Many other countries in Europe also prohibit Kosher ritual slaughter including Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland.
The announcement on Thursday caused many Jewish groups to protest the ruling. Brooke Goldstein, executive director of the Lawfare Project, said that “the CJEU has once again declared itself an enemy of religious minorities.”
“We are appalled by the court’s decision to explicitly endorse the persecution of minority communities in the E.U.,” she said. “Religious slaughter is a sacred practice in both the Jewish and Muslim faiths. The religious freedom of millions of Europeans has been put in jeopardy by this shameful ruling.”
Yohan Benizri, president of the European Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress, said “the CJEU’s decision to ignore the AG’s recommendation in this case and thus allow the ban on religious slaughter is not only disappointing but undemocratic. No democracy can exist when its citizens are denied basic human and civil rights.”
Daniel Schwammenthal, director of American Jewish Committee’s Transatlantic Institute called the ruling ” Within living memory of the Holocaust, a European court not only bans a core Jewish ritual but potentially Jewish life altogether in Europe,” he went on to say “this is a dark day for Jewish communities in Belgium and across Europe, which have already been living over the past years in a constant state of emergency due to the rise in anti-Semitism and murderous terror attacks,”…
These are but three of the outraged amongst us.
I for one am not shocked nor surprised by the European Court of Justice ruling nor am I outraged by its duplicity in coming to its finding.
I find the response from Jewish organizations curious given these organizations recognise the fact they are living in sovereign countries with democratically elected parliaments and independent judiciaries including the European Court of Justice.
They should be aware that Democracy allows for the majority to hold sway over the minority while protecting the rights of all its citizens and its judiciary to uphold those rights within its courts as they interpret those laws.
If the Parliaments of these countries and the European parliament included make laws that some groups disagree vehemently they can endeavour to change those laws through lawful channels but to suggest they have an inherent right by dint of religion or tradition is debatable and questionable at least.
There is one country where the right to practice Shechita Jewish religious slaughtering of permitted animals is guaranteed and that is the Jewish State of Israel. No other country has an obligation to protect Shechita nor should we demand it. Should a country other than Israel allow Jewish ritual slaughter it is a privilege, not a right and that privilege can be removed by the host country whenever it chooses.
They owe us nothing and given their history dealing with Jews we should be under no illusion to the perfidy they are capable of.
We are living in a momentous time of change some good most dubious at best. We no longer stand on the surety of a post-Holocaust world but have stepped into the end of history as we know it.
The future has already been and is to be again.
Those who are outraged by the banning of Jewish religious slaughter are stumbling over the past, fighting yesterdays battles in a last desperate search for meaning and truth in a world that rejects meaning and distorts truth at every turn they are unable to see this era is drawing to a close and coming to an end.
Its appropriate the European Court of Justice brought down its decision on the last day of Chanukah to remind those who can still think and act like Jews that Hellenists are still amongst us and today’s Greeks are all around us baying for Jewish blood.
Its pure folly that the Jews of the Diaspora seek to maintain the Galut (Exile) and in there doing so look for help from the gentiles, while completely missing the point being made. Jew, you are no longer welcome.
And finally, Jews of the diaspora do not fear to recognise the Haters of Zion who start with destroying the Laws of Shechita and finish by destroying Jews and then themselves.
