In Banning Kosher Slaughter, European Countries Not Only Trample Religious Freedom, but Also Make a Mockery of the Humane Treatment of Animals

Last month the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) upheld a Belgian law effectively proscribing kosher and halal slaughter, which had been challenged on religious-liberty grounds. Rafi Eis explains what differentiates the Jewish conception of the moral treatment of animals from that underlying the Belgian law—and similar regulations in other European countries. He takes as his point of departure the prohibition against partaking of a limb torn from a living animal, which, according to rabbinic tradition, God gave to Noah when first permitting him and his descendants to eat meat:

Were God merely concerned with animal pain, the Bible would have just prohibited the ripping off of animal limbs while the animal was alive. Instead, the Bible also prohibits consuming these limbs, even if they get amputated by accident. This prohibition is not about animal pain; rather, it forces man to reckon with the value of animal life. Once humans are allowed to eat meat, they must also have additional training to respect the life of the animal. The act of snuffing out animal life can lead to human cruelty, and this must be prevented.

Kosher slaughter similarly has a dual requirement. Not only must the animal be slaughtered in precise fashion; if it is killed in any other way, it may not be eaten. Jewish law, in fact, requires the butcher to see the loss of life. This enables the slaughterer to appreciate fully what he is doing. He is taking a life. If he ignores the act that, he will first become indifferent to the death that he causes and eventually cruel. Stunning the animal before killing it, [as the Belgian law requires and kashrut forbids], allows the butcher to disregard the weightiness of his act.

[Animals’] purpose is not to be human food, but rather to “be fertile and increase on earth” (Genesis 9:17). . . Man may kill animals to support human life, like for food, shelter, and therapeutic medical experimentation. This permission, however, can never lead to cruelty. The animal must be slaughtered with care and compassion, while the slaughterer is fully aware of the seriousness of the act that he is performing.

For this reason, Jewish law prohibits hunting for sport, which degrades and harms animals. That the CJEU prohibits sh’ḥitah, but has little problem with hunting for sport, highlights its moral hypocrisy. The EU is concerned with minimizing pain, but in the process allows the human character to become indifferent to the loss of animal life.

Read more at First Things

More about: Animals, European Union, Judaism, Kashrut

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF