German Jewish Body to Comeat Anti-schechita Movement in Germany

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith has started a campaign to fight the movement which is being carried on in Germany to bring about the prohibition of Shechita in connection with this movement Chief Rabbi Dr. Catlebach and Herr Arm Schweriner, Syndicus of the Central Union, addressed a public meeting attended by nearly a thousand people at the High School in Hamburg.

Dr. Carlebach said that the Jewish religion forbade all forms of cruelty to animals. Judaism prohibited the hunting of animals for sport. Judaism provided a day of rest for animals as well as for human beings. This spirit also dominates the Jewish laws of slaughtering animals for food. Shechita was the most humane form of killing. All experts agreed that the incision resulted in the animal immediately losing consciousness and that what some imagined to be movements by the animal after the incision were really only reflexes.

The movement to prohibit Shechita, Dr. Carlebach said was inspired not so much by love of the animals as by the desire to curtail the liberties of the Jewish population. It was that which had to be fought.

Herr Schweriner said that there was a grave danger of Shechita being prohibited in Bavaria, unless something happened to prevent it at the last moment.

The Nationalists were moving resolutions for the prohibition of Shechita not only in all the Parliaments of the German States but in all the Parliaments of Europe. The Municipal Councils of the larger cities were being turned into hauling-grounds for anti-Semitic agitation by the expedient of introducing resolutions to prohibit Shechita. It was undeniably a new manifestation of anti-Semitism and must be fought as such, he declared.