Sunday, October 13, 2013
Elder of Ziyon
The leader of Poland's Muslim community, Mufti Tomasz Miskiewicz, has been in the forefront of challenging the ban on kosher and halal slaughter that went into effect this year in Poland.
While Jewish groups in Europe have campaigned to overturn the ban, Miskiewicz has been more outspoken and innovative in his opposition. In June he noted that eastern European Catholics have a inhumane practice of bashing the heads of carp to kill them for traditional Christmas dishes, and no one is calling to ban that practice.
In September, the Mufti claimed that legal experts agree that EU law trumps domestic Polish law and that the ban was not legal. I cannot vouch for that legal argument, but he's giving it a shot.
Now, in the days before the major Muslim feast of Eid al Adha, where families traditionally slaughter sheep (in a more painful way than kosher slaughter), the Mufti has said that he will publicly slaughter a sheep himself to challenge the ban.
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While experts have shown that kosher slaughter is far more humane than Muslim slaughter, in either case the religious requirements should not be trampled by people who often use "humanity" as a way to disguise their xenophobia (see the end of this post.) The focus should be on improving existing methods of ritual slaughter, not banning it.
Kudos to Mufti Miskiewicz for standing up to the haters.
While Jewish groups in Europe have campaigned to overturn the ban, Miskiewicz has been more outspoken and innovative in his opposition. In June he noted that eastern European Catholics have a inhumane practice of bashing the heads of carp to kill them for traditional Christmas dishes, and no one is calling to ban that practice. In September, the Mufti claimed that legal experts agree that EU law trumps domestic Polish law and that the ban was not legal. I cannot vouch for that legal argument, but he's giving it a shot.
Now, in the days before the major Muslim feast of Eid al Adha, where families traditionally slaughter sheep (in a more painful way than kosher slaughter), the Mufti has said that he will publicly slaughter a sheep himself to challenge the ban.
.
While experts have shown that kosher slaughter is far more humane than Muslim slaughter, in either case the religious requirements should not be trampled by people who often use "humanity" as a way to disguise their xenophobia (see the end of this post.) The focus should be on improving existing methods of ritual slaughter, not banning it.
Kudos to Mufti Miskiewicz for standing up to the haters.
