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Dec. 18, 2020
Hungary’s deputy prime minister called Thursday’s ruling by the European Union’s highest court in favor of banning kosher slaughter a “disgrace,” setting up the first public international clash over the landmark decision.
“Yesterday’s ruling by the European Court of Justice upholding a ban on kosher ritual slaughter in Belgium is a disgrace to the religious freedom and security of the European Jewish community and is yet one more sign of the total collapse of our traditional Judeo-Christian value system,” said Zsolt Semjen, the head of the right-wing Christian Democratic People’s Party, a coalition partner of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz party.
December 18, 2020 12:26 pm Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén, second from left, meets with rabbis in Budapest, Hungary on Nov. 18, 2019. (EMIH)
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(JTA) Hungary’s deputy prime minister called Thursday’s ruling by the European Union’s highest court in favor of banning kosher slaughter a “disgrace,” setting up the first public international clash over the landmark decision.
“Yesterday’s ruling by the European Court of Justice upholding a ban on kosher ritual slaughter in Belgium is a disgrace to the religious freedom and security of the European Jewish community and is yet one more sign of the total collapse of our traditional Judeo-Christian value system,” said Zsolt Semjén, the head of the right-wing Christian Democratic People’s Party, a coalition partner of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz party.
Illustrative: A butcher in Jerusalem, April 26, 2010. (Abir Sultan/Flash90)
The European Court of Justice ruled Thursday that authorities can order that animals be stunned before slaughter in a move decried by Israel and religious groups as attacking their traditions.
The court backed a regulation imposed in the Flemish region of Belgium banning the slaughter of livestock that have not been stunned on animal rights grounds.
The measure was seen as effectively outlawing the Jewish kosher and Muslim halal traditions, which require livestock to be conscious when their throats are slit.
“The court concludes that the measures contained in the decree allow a fair balance to be struck between the importance attached to animal welfare and the freedom of Jewish and Muslim believers to manifest their religion,” the ruling said.
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However, the argument did little to allay the horrified reaction of European Jewish leaders and organizations to the court’s ruling.
“We are told by European leaders that they want Jewish communities to live and be successful in Europe, but they provide no safeguards for our way of life,” Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt president of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) declared in a statement.
“Europe needs to reflect on the type of continent it wants to be,” continued Goldschmidt who earlier this month presciently observed in an interview that the EU Council’s recent, much-heralded declaration against antisemitism did “not correspond to what is fundamentally necessary to safeguard the Jewish communities in Europe.”