The issue of kosher slaughter in Poland ‘’is currently being examined by the constitutional court,” said Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski during a meeting with the Speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein, in Jerusalem.
“I hope the verdict will protect religious rights, so that no one in our country feels limited. This is very important to us,” he said, after Edelstein insisted that Poland must respect religious freedom and reject laws forbidding Jewish rituals like circumcision and kosher slaughter.
Kosher and halal slaughtering were both banned in Poland after the Constitutional Court, ruling in November 2012 on a motion from animal rights groups, deemed it incompatible with animal rights legislation.
In order to enshrine ritual slaughter in Polish legislation designed to streamline the way that Polish procedures correspond with EU rules, the Polish government drafted regulations to again allow ritual slaughter. But in July, the Sjem, the Polish parliament, rejected the government bill that would have reinstated the practice.
Komorowski said that sometimes parliaments are “forces of nature that are hard to control,” and that the executive branch of Poland’s government did not initiate the ban.
“Such decisions have broad ramifications in Europe, like the Council of Europe’s call to limit circumcision. I am convinced that we can find a common denominator with our friend, Poland,” Edelstein said.
‘’It is important for Jews to feel wanted and not rejected by European countries.”
Earlier, the Polish president said his country will stand by Israel and defend the interests of Jews everywhere, at a reception at Israeli President Shimon Peres’ residence.
“We are sensitive to every manifestation of anti-Semitism in Europe in general and in Poland in particular,” Komorowski said, adding that “Poland is well aware of the security challenges confronting Israel.
“Poland fully comprehends the distinctive need for Jews to live in their own sovereign state after such a long absence,” he added
At a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Polish president praised the relations between Poland and Israel which, he said, ‘’are not only focusing on the reflecting on the past together, the tragic past, the past that was especially difficult and tragic in the period of the Nazi occupation and the Jewish Holocaust.’’
‘’It is really a possibility for us now to develop direct relations, human relations, between our young people in Israel and in Poland, representatives of our military, our business community, our trade, our culture. An element of this process is also the intensification of political and diplomatic relations,’’ he added.
Komorowski was due to visit the Palestinian Authority later on Tuesday, and meet with President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem.

 

by: Maureen Shamee