Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski told his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres that he would act to ensure that the Jewish community can preserve its customs and traditions in Poland.
He was responding to a request from Peres for support in legalizing shechita, the ritual slaughter, in Poland.
The Jewish community in Poland is preparing a petition to be send to Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal on the issue.
In July the Sjem, the Polish parliament, citing animal cruelty, rejected a government-sponsored bill that was meant to allow the slaughter of animals without stunning them beforehand for religious purposes.
Israel has called the ban in Poland “totally unacceptable,” saying that it damaged efforts to rehabilitate Jewish life in a country whose large Jewish community was all but wiped out in the Holocaust.
The issue has caused a diplomatic row – in recent weeks both the Polish ambassador in Israel and the Israeli ambassador in Poland were summoned to their host countries’ ministries of foreign affairs for explanation.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has tasked a special committee headed by Michal Jan Boni, Minister in charge of religious affairs, to find a solution to the crisis.