It’s getting tougher to live as a Jew in Europe

Over the course of a single summer in 2020, Jewish graves in Worms, Germany, were vandalised, an Austrian Jew was attacked in the street and a calendar published in the Czech Republic that glorified Nazi leaders. It came in a year during which Europe and the world marked 75 years since the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.

Meanwhile, Belgium, Denmark and Poland have either proposed bans or actually banned ritual slaughter, the method by which millions of Jews and Muslims in Europe require their meat to be killed. In Iceland, Denmark and Norway, a furore has erupted over circumcision, with critics arguing that the practice is inhumane and should be banned for those under the age of 18.

“It is very frustrating, there is no question,” Rabbi Menachem Margolin, president of the European Jewish Association, told Euronews from his office in Brussels.

“You just think, […] why do we have to [do this] again […]. Three weeks ago it was the circumcision issue in Belgium […]. Two weeks ago it was circumcision in Denmark, this week it is ritual slaughter in Poland, I mean what is next?”

Poland’s ban on kosher meat was pushed through by the governing Law and Justice Party (PiS) earlier in September against the objections of its two minority coalition partners, potentially bringing down the Polish government and paving the way for new elections.

The ban on kosher meat was part of a wide-ranging law on animal welfare, which will similarly outlaw Muslim halal slaughter and the production of fur. It is currently in a 14-day review period, but the fact that the PiS was willing to let its coalition collapse to pass it suggests it could stand.

Speaking to Euronews last week when the law was passed, Margolin told Euronews that the campaign for the animal welfare law had distinct antisemitic overtones, presenting the supporters of the law as “good Polish citizens” and its opponents, among them the Jewish community, as bad. But there will also be a practical impact on Europe’s Jewish community.

“Limiting the export of kosher meat from Poland will immediately impact Jewish people from all over Europe because many Jewish people from Europe consume kosher meat coming from Poland,” he said.