Europe OKs banning the practice of Judaism
By Elliot Abrams, TABLET MARCH 11, 2024
JEAN-MARC CHARLES/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Antisemitism, or more bluntly hatred of Jews and Judaism, takes many forms. We saw one on Oct. 7, 2023, when hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza slaughtered well over 1,000 Israelis.
We saw another form on Feb. 13, 2024, when the so-called European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Belgium was entirely free to ban kosher slaughter.
The European Convention on Human Rights seemed like it might protect the Jews. The text of Article 9 (“Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion”) states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.” And Article 14 (“Prohibition of discrimination”) states that “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.”
Clear enough? Not for the Jews. In the case called Affaire Executief van de Moslims van België et Autres c. Belgique, the court found that kosher and halal slaughter can be banned because a country or provinces in it (the ban applies to Flanders and Wallonia, but not to Brussels) had legislated rules requiring stunning the animal before slaughter. Now, it’s true that Article 9—about religious freedom—reads like it would protect shechita, or kosher slaughter, and says nothing about animals. The court acknowledged that “Article 9 of the Convention did not contain an explicit reference to the protection of animal welfare in the exhaustive list of legitimate aims that might justify an interference with the freedom to manifest one’s religion.” Quite so. In fact Article 9 states that “Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
The court found that the practice of Judaism endangered ‘public morals.’ This, on the continent where the very existence of Jews was not so long ago considered a threat to public morals.
So how did the court torture that text into a meaning that did not protect the practice of Judaism? Simple—where there’s a will, there’s a way. “The Court considered that the protection of public morals, to which Article 9 of the Convention referred, could not be understood as being intended solely to protect human dignity in the sphere of inter-personal relations. The Convention was not indifferent to the living environment of individuals covered by its protection and in particular to animals, whose protection had already been considered by the Court. Accordingly, the Convention could not be interpreted as promoting the absolute upholding of the rights and freedoms it enshrined without regard to animal suffering.”
Gobbledygook eliminated, the animals trumped the Jews. And this, the court had to acknowledge, despite the fact that the provisions about freedom of religion are expansive—and do not even mention animal welfare. Let’s be clear: The court found that the practice of Judaism endangered “public morals.” This, on the continent where the very existence of Jews was not so long ago considered a threat to public morals. Nor is Belgium alone; kosher slaughter is also banned in Sweden, Iceland, Norway, and Slovenia. So far. The president of the European Jewish Congress, Ariel Muzicant, said after the February ruling that “We are already seeing attempts across Europe to follow this Belgian ban, now sadly legitimised by the ECHR.”
Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition.
@Arthur: good points. As far as Jewish morals go, breaking the skull of an animal actually invalidates its kosher-ness. There are stories from other sources that claim that the animals who are slaughtered according to the shochet practice go passively to their death, whereas those that are killed before slaughter (if I can say that) are much more likely to protest since they feel what is coming.
@Peloni: you are 100% right! It is solely about Jewish and Muslim practices. I would recommend to anyone who wants kosher food to do aliyah.
@Arthur Wellesley
Yet as is explained in the article, hunting is still permissible, which is inexplicable given the reasons claimed for banning ritual slaughter. Hence, this is not about limiting the suffering of animals nor is about public morals. It is about the Jewish and Muslim practices.
A bronze age people quite rightly acknowledged that animals must be slaughtered as humanely as possible, and mandated the practice with laws referencing the technology available in those primitive times.
Unfortunately we as a people have fixated on the technology of ritual slaughter itself as a command from God and ignoring the purpose behind it since for some reason the compressed-air actuated captive bolt was unknown in ancient Israel. Equally unfortunately, slaughtering as a profession is denigrated in non-Jewish society because the tradition of the shochet being second in holiness to the rabbi is unknown.
While I realize that a trained shochet can use one cut of an unblemished razor to render an animal insensate almost immediately, surely a captive bolt to its forehead that blows its brains out instantaneously works even faster, is thus more merciful and fulfils the Law in a better way.
Now try and convince ‘a stiff-necked people’ of that…