Free Republic

Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said on the weekend he disagreed with the call of the incoming president of the British Veterinary Association (BVA), John Blackwell, to ban shechita (Jewish ritual slaughter) and Islamic halal slaughter. Clegg said, according to the BBC, that stopping this type of slaughter would “remove the right of Jewish communities in this country, Muslim communities in this country, to stick to their religious beliefs about how they prepare food and how animals are slaughtered.” The Jewish Chronicle quoted Clegg as having said that “no government of which I’m part” would ban shechita. …

Israel has summoned the Polish ambassador to Jerusalem to register a formal protest against that nation’s ban against ritual slaughter (shechitah). In a harsh statement condemning the decision of a foreign democratic nation, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said “Israel is disappointed that Poland has chosen to forbid an important religious ritual which has been common practice among millions of Jews since ancient times. The Parliament’s decision to reject a bill allowing kosher slaughter in Poland is totally unacceptable,” the statement read. “Poland’s history is intertwined with the history of the Jewish People. This decision seriously harms the process of restoring Jewish...

The European Jewish Association (EJA) on Monday called on all Jewish organizations throughout the world to put aside their differences and unite all their efforts towards reversing the Polish parliament’s decision to ban kosher slaughter in the country, reported the European Jewish Press (EJP). On Friday, the lower house of the Polish parliament, the Sejm, rejected a government-sponsored bill to enable the continuation of kosher shechita, or slaughter of animals intended for food. Ritual slaughter has been banned in Poland since January 1 after a Constitutional Court deemed it incompatible with animal rights law.“We must unite all our efforts to...