Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s Chief Rabbi.

The Dutch political left sees the ritual slaughter of animals as cruel to animals, whilst the right sees it as foreign and barbaric. They will both pass a law next week that will make the killing of animals without stunning them first illegal. This poses a problem for orthodox Dutch Jews and Muslims who’ve been doing it differently for the last couple of millennia.

Jewish and Muslim groups say it will make it impossible for them to eat meat and practice their religion freely. They argue their method of slaughter — by swiftly cutting animals’ throats with a razor-sharp knife — is no more painful or cruel than other methods.

Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s Chief Rabbi, joined the campaign to stop the ban last week amid Jewish fears that pressure to ban ritual slaughter is growing across the EU.

“If pre-stunning were made compulsory under Dutch law, Jews would be unable to practice a central element of Jewish life which has been continuously practised for over 3,000 years. We are worried that it could spread. There has been a non-stop campaign by animal welfare activists to have all forms of ritual slaughter banned. It has to be fought everywhere because if it’s lost anywhere it has a potential domino effect.”

Binyomin Jacobs, the Dutch Chief Rabbi, has even gone so far as to compare the ban to the anti-Semitic laws enacted by a collaborationist government during the Second World War Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

[Source: Telegraph]