HALLAL AND KOSHER ?

You may not be aware of this but there is an alarming campaign to ban Hallal meat throughout Europe. So far seven countries of the EU have signed on to the campaign (Sweden and Switzerland have had a ban for some time) and there is a serious danger that the ban may become official policy of the European Union.

Now this is a matter of religion not politics. It affects Muslims over Hallal and Jews over Kosher. Can’t we put our joint loyalty to Allah (Jews are allowed to swear by and pray to Allah by the way) above the man-made political errors that we all know are the result of incompetent humans?

So you might well wonder why Jews and Muslims are not combining forces to face this challenge together and to defeat it. Why not? Have we allowed our political differences to create such a dangerous gulf that we are both in danger of suffering religious discrimination together and we don’t even care?

The arguments against our methods of slaughter are usually on the grounds of cruelty to animals. This is manifestly wrong on several counts. Technically slitting the jugular vein of an animal with a sharp knife causes an immediate drop in blood pressure to brain. This results in an immediate blackout just like a human being fainting. This is not painful. Indeed we often cut ourselves with knives or paper or other sharp objects and don’t even notice anything until we see blood or rub the sides of the wound. Our method ensures that all the vital organs of the animal are undamaged as the blood gently drains away.

On the other hand shooting with a gun of any kind destroys brain cells and often does not work first time, particularly on heavier animals. Electrocution doesn’t always work right away either. Think of those victims of the electric chair who took so long to go. And stunning also fails to work very regularly quite apart from the fact that it too damages organs.

The fact is that the real cruelty lies in the process leading up to slaughter where animals are prodded with electric charges, often harshly by brutal hands and herded hit and sometimes dragged towards their death hearing and smelling the carnage that waits them. Besides cattle are hauled over thousands of miles in crowded trucks without water and room to move, throughout the European Union and beyond and often many die on the way. Traffic in animals is not going to be banned. Why not? Perhaps cruelty is not the issue or does Big Business fight its corner more effectively?

If cruelty were the issue then forced feeding of geese to produce Foi Gras, or calves for veal, factory farming, docking the teeth of pgs and the beaks of chickens to name only some of the cruelty inflicted on animals in the process of preparing them for human consumption would be banned. But they are not.

It is patently clear that it has nothing to do with cruelty.

Human beings, refugees and migrants are shipped across the European Union and treated in the most inhuman of ways yet many European Countries seem more concerned with animals than with humans. Voters clamour to be harsher on unwanted humans than on animals. The hypocrisy is amazing.

Even in Britain foxes get more sympathy than refugees from Islamic countries.

The same European countries that have banned Hallal allow hunting that often leads to wounding animals who suffer agonizing and prolonged deaths.

Interesting how Switzerland has such an appalling record on human rights and yet really cares about this issue. Hypocrisy or irrational hatred towards others?

Now I will make a confession. I personally would like to see all meat rearing stopped. It takes five Olympic swimming pools of water to raise one beef animal. Cows burp so much methane into the air that they contribute more than cars to global warming and the amount of land it takes to feed a beef cow could feed a thousand African famine victims for a month. On purely humanitarian grounds we ought to stop raising beef for human consumption.

I also admit that I do not like seeing any animals actually being killed. If the average person actually saw what an abattoir is like, even the most modern and ‘humane’ I can guarantee they would have second thoughts. But we hide animal slaughter from the public eye and we only see the sanitised steak.

But until this happens I am favour of freedom, freedom of choice and freedom of religion.

And the ban on Hallal and kosher is a real threat to our religious freedom and practice in Europe. If we don’t start to fight it together we will go down together. It will start with Hallal and then go on to Mosques and Madrasas. Do not think you can draw the line later. It must be dealt with now and we can fight it better together than apart.

Rabbi Jeremy Rosen.