Comments on: Dutch vote to ban ritual animal slaughter, Jews and Muslims unite in protest

By: SHARONALE

SHARONALE — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:59:13 +0000

Speaking as a Jew, I would like to offer my support in your decision to abolish as unlawful the Kosher Slaughter method.
This slaughtering method inflicts a lot of unnecessary pain upon the slaughtered animal, which can and should be prevented.
Rabbis have been finding all sorts of ways to bend and go-around the orthodox Jewish traditions and laws, in order to enable acceptance of modern comforts into Jewish way of life. This important issue should be no different.
It’s time to stop this barbarous ceremony! It’s more than possible to be a Jew without it!

My congratulations on your initiative to reduce pain!

By: Hansdampf

Hansdampf — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:36:17 +0000

Ritual slaughter,hope,faith,salvation and eternal
damnation?Welcome Netherland,Switzerland outlawed
the barbaric ritual by popular referendum over
100 years ago.

By: YDSA

YDSA — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 06:07:43 +0000

Banning ritual slaughter will make the Netherlands inferior to the U.S. on religious freedom. If it claims problems exist with slaughter it had better make general regulations with all slaughter instead of what is trying to do which is target the Muslim community with then the Jewish community being dragged along for the ban. The Jews were given freedom of religion and person by Holland escaping inquisition and massacre. This will be a stain on Holland especially since Jewish ritual slaughter is meant to be as swift as anything and Judaism has a prohibition on pain to animals “Tzaar Baalei Chayim.”

By: johaster

johaster — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:41:10 +0000

Anybody thinking that this ban is a break with the tradition of toleration in The Netherlands, it is not.

Radical enlightenment in the Netherlands is about individual rights, not about rights of religious authorities to mistreat humans or animals. Remember the Puritans did not leave Leiden because they were not free to practice religion, but because they were forbidden to whip their believers if they did not attend religious services. A similar story can be told about the Pilgrim Fathers, who did not like to see the freedom of others usurping the moral character of their children.

Spinoza even proposed to introduce a neutral state religion that would substitute the often violent religious cults. Like always, the Dutch found a more viable compromise like the above the one on ritual slaughter. Compromise was the real secret of tolerance.

Fanatics that threatened the peace were usually better tolerated in the colonies, like New Holland (Northern Brazil) and New Netherlands (roughly Tri-State). In fact communists avant la lettre, like Plokhoy settled in New Netherlands (now Delaware)

The Netherlands has a humanistic tradition, the protection of humans and animals against suffering from ancient rituals is entirely in line with this tradition. Whether fundamentalist believers like it or not.

By: jcsalomon

jcsalomon — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:41:11 +0000

Shechita is at least as humane as any other method of animal slaughter. The trachea, the esophagus, and the carotid & jugular veins are severed in a smooth cut, with no pressure or tearing, with a knife so sharp the animal literally cannot feel the cut. Brain blood pressure drops instantly, resulting in an instant and irreversible loss of consciousness. In other words, shechita incorporates stunning at least as effective as electric shock or a bolt to the brain. (More effective, really, considering how often the pre-stunning goes wrong, leaving the animal conscious and in pain.)

Also, electric shock can paralyze the animal while leaving it conscious, feeling pain but not able to thrash about. Shechita causes unconsciousness before the animal can feel pain, though the peripheral nervous system may cause disturbing-looking thrashing about. The Dutch vote is a choice for the semblance of stunning over the real thing.

By: rglenncurry

rglenncurry — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 06:36:50 +0000

If religious freedom means permitting the wholesale slaughter of animals to appease a god, then the true nature of religion as a wanton celebration of death is fully exposed. Killing for food is all well and good, but killing in the name of cultish practices must surely represent, at best, the stagnation of social and intellectual – indeed, moral – evolution. Death for no reason is murder, be it man or beast, and our laws, if they do in fact represent the best of human reason and fairness, must halt these practices and the resulting – and continuing – denigration of non-human species as inferior entities to be abused as we see fit, which they most certainly are not.

By: Strega17

Strega17 — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 03:17:25 +0000

I totally agree with Marianne Thieme. Enough of hiding behind religion to commit cruel acts against animals or people and Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs using the Second World War is to protest this ban is a cheap way to support this horrible way of killing animals and a disrespect to the victims of the war. Religion and its laws are made by men so they should abide to the laws that govern all citizens. Fortunately we have laws that go beyond religion. Muslims and Jews can become vegetarians if they disagree with the non halal and kosher killing. It’s bad enough that we butcher animals but inflicting more pain in the name of religion is not acceptable in the XXI century.

By: giltedged

giltedged — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:21:09 +0000

This is a cruel non-Dutch non-European custom. It should be made illegal fortwith

By: JS7

JS7 — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:01:17 +0000

I am a Jew and I strongly support this ban. Animal or human cruelty are not excused by “tradition” or religion of any kind. I hope an infant-circumcision ban is next.

The rabbi who claims that rabbis are “helpless” to change the religious laws is a liar or misinformed. They make the rules and they can do whatever they want. They make new laws all the time to adapt to new circumstances and new knowledge. Either they make the changes or the whole religion will go the way of the cave man.