On December 17, an EU high court upheld a Belgian law that effectively prohibits the kosher and halal slaughter of animals. The ordinance in question requires that animals be stunned before being killed, and the court defended it on the sophistical grounds that it only forbids “one aspect of the specific ritual act of slaughter.” Ben Cohen comments:

[T]he Luxembourg-based European Union Court of Justice (ECJ), which is the final arbiter of EU law, drew a line between the “civilized” and the “uncivilized” in terms of how farm animals that are slaughtered for human consumption are treated by different religious groups in Europe. On the “civilized” side of the line are those carnivores whose meat is stunned before slaughter, which the ECJ deems to be humane. On the “uncivilized” side are those—overwhelmingly Muslims and Jews—whose religious commandments strictly forbid the stunning of animals before they are slaughtered.

While there are many more Muslims than there are Jews in Europe these days, the roots of this enmity towards ritual slaughter lie in the anti-Judaic and anti-Semitic traditions that have persisted and so often flourished throughout the continent’s history. . . . The method of sh’ḥitah (kosher slaughter) has been twisted and distorted by anti-Semites in various libels involving ritual murder and theologically mandated cruelty allegedly practiced by Jews down the ages. And lest we forget, one of the first legislative actions undertaken by the Nazi regime in Germany was a ban on kosher slaughter, which was depicted in official propaganda as an ugly, alien, and thoroughly un-German practice.

Instructively, the ECJ’s ruling came just weeks after the EU Council, the bloc’s main coordinating body, issued a solemn six-page declaration against anti-Semitism.

No matter how many words the EU expends on the evils of anti-Semitism, no matter how many definitions of anti-Semitism it adopts, any restrictions on the supply or sale of kosher products will render all of those efforts meaningless.

After several weeks of passionate political conflict in Israel over judical reform, the tensions seem to be defused, or at least dialed down, for the time being. In light of this, and in anticipation of the Passover holiday soon upon us, Eric Cohen considers the way forward for both the Jewish state and the Jewish people. (Video, 8 minutes. A text is available at the link below.)