GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL VISITS YAD VASHEM

(Brussels 1st October 2021) Belgian Constitutional Court decision to uphold effective ban on Kosher slaughter is an opportunity for other European Countries to stand fully behind their Jewish Communities and protect this central tenet of faith and practice.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin adds that European countries must not fall into the trap of being ‘two faced: solidly protecting us from antisemitism on one side, whilst making it impossible for Jews to practice their faith by legislating against us on the other”.
The Belgian constitutional court on Thursday upheld a decision by the European Court of Justice banning religious slaughter without pre-stunning, thereby also upholding a similar decision by the Belgian Walloon and Flemish governments.
In a statement this morning, Rabbi Menachem Margolin – Chairman of the Brussels based European Jewish Association, a pro-Jewish advocacy organising representing hundreds of communities across the continent – lamented the move but said it provided an opportunity for European countries to show their support to Jews:
“The Belgian Constitutional Court have shamefully upheld a decision that is openly hostile to a fundamental pillar of Jewish practice.
“What gets to the Jewish Communities the most is the two-faced approach of some countries towards Jewish Communities. On the one side they are solidly supportive when it comes to the fight against antisemitism, on the other they have no difficulty in effectively legislating Jewish faith and practice out of existence.
“Worse still these countries are blissfully ignorant of this massive contradiction and its catastrophic effects on Jews across Europe. This decision, if replicated, is a real threat to Jewish life across Europe. Every bit as threatening as rising antisemitism, and in a sense even worse as it directly targets the very tenets of our beliefs. Now is the time for European Countries to stand behind their Jewish Communities and leave Belgium isolated and an outlier of how not to treat Jews”.
 

In 2014, the State of Israel passed a law to officially make November 30th a Day to Commemorate the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from Arab Countries and Iran, a date now marked by Jewish communities around the world. In 2017, a Canadian man of Iraqi Jewish origin, having discovered his own grandfather’s grave in Sadr City, Baghdad, began a process which led to a global moment of unity and remembrance, by jointly reciting annually Kaddish (the mourners’ prayer) and an Azkara (a memorial prayer) together with synagogues across the world, as a testament to Jews buried in no longer accessible cemeteries in Arab countries.
This year, we are calling on synagogues and other Jewish institutions of all backgrounds to join us and say these prayers on the closest Shabbat to the Day of Commemoration, in remembrance of and solidarity with the Jews from the Middle East and North Africa who can not say them in the presence of their departed family members because many of the cemeteries are inaccessible.
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