(Jewish Group) In a first, EU invites Jews and Muslims to stand up for kosher and halal slaughter...

[Behind the Aegis]

In a first, EU invites Jews and Muslims to stand up for kosher and halal slaughter amid local bans

European Union officials in Brussels invited Jewish and Muslim community leaders to discuss meat production, in what some of the guests characterized as progress toward ensuring religious freedom.

The event, which was convened by the EU’s point person for fighting antisemitism, Katharina von Schnurbein, included Jews and Muslims concerned about a two-pronged attack on their traditional methods for slaughtering animals for food that has resulted in bans in some countries. About 30 EU officials and about 20 community leaders were present, according to people who were there.

“We’ve had sessions before at the EU where advocates defended shechitah,” the Hebrew word for the Jewish way of killing animals for food, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, who heads the Brussels-based European Jewish Association, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Thursday’s event, he said, “was the first designed to give us a platform, rather than to just have us come and state our case alongside people with the opposite view.”

Animal rights activists say shechitah and zabiha, the Muslim method for slaughtering animals for food, are cruel because both methods preclude stunning before the animal’s necks are cut. Advocates of the customs say they result in no greater suffering to animals than mechanized slaughter methods with higher malfunction rates and less attention to individual animals.

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