“Belgian Jews regard this as an assault on their religious freedom,” said Lawfare Project executive director Brooke Goldstein. “Belgium’s courts will recognize the ban for what it is—discrimination and hostility against minority faith communities.”
By JNS
Belgium’s Constitutional Court heard a lawsuit against laws passed by two of the country’s largest regional governments, banning kosher and halal slaughter.
It was brought by the Belgian umbrella representative group of Jewish Organizations (CCOJB), with support from the legal think tank the Lawfare Project.
The lawsuit says that the ban in Wallonia and Flanders violates religious freedoms guaranteed in the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. The European Court of Human Rights has previously labeled shechita, or kosher ritual slaughter, as “an essential aspect of practice of the Jewish religion.”
“Belgian Jews regard this as an assault on their religious freedom,” said Lawfare Project executive director Brooke Goldstein. “Belgium’s courts will recognize the ban for what it is—discrimination and hostility against minority faith communities.”
The Flanders ban took effect on Jan. 1, while the Wallonia one will take effect in September.
Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Slovenia all ban religious slaughter without pre-stunning.
Excluding poultry, Lichtenstein and Switzerland also require pre-stunning.
Poland proposed legislation earlier this year banning kosher slaughter until it was removed from the parliamentary agenda.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, who heads the Brussels-based European Jewish Association, a group representing Jewish communities across Europe and has been fighting against the ban on kosher slaughter, stressed that the Flemish parliament decision ‘’has nothing to do with animals and everything to do with targeting Jews and Jewish practices, which have been part of the fabric of European society for millennia.’’
“Kosher meat is responsible for a minute fraction of the cattle slaughtered in Belgium. Minute. Not only that, when compared to the meat most Europeans buy in the supermarket – which equates to mass animal slaughter – Kosher, with minimizing the suffering of the animal as its very core, represents truly humane slaughter. This does not even mention the abhorrent ways most animals are shipped around Europe in containers for non-Kosher meat,’’ he said.
EJP contributed to this report.