Preparations are being made here for the forthcoming International Congress of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which will open here on May 12th. It is planned by various organizations, led by the anti-Semitic Hakenkreuzler press, to launch a move at the congress for the prohibition of the schechita, the Jewish method of slaughtering animals for food.
The Austrian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals adopted a resolution at its annual general meeting to start a vigorous campaign for the prohibition of Schechita in Austria, and to take steps to influence Mgr. Seipel to bring a bill into Parliament which would provide for the legal prohibition of Schechita in the country. Dr. Melkus, the President of the Austrian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, contended that the resolution was not anti-Semitic in character, and claimed that Jewish members of the Society were supporting the resolution.
The local anti-Semitic press, in its move to prepare public opinion for the anti-schechita move, now contends a large number of Jews are members in the societies for the specific purpose of preventing the societies to oppose the schechita. The schechita, the papers assert, constitutes a desecration of the civilization of centuries. This time, however, the delegates to the international congress will free themselves from the influence of the Jews and will deliver a heavy blow to the Jews by the adoption of a resolution asking for the prohibition of the schechita, the papers write.
The present anti-schechita move is being repeated at the same period, the pre-Passover season, as last year when the Hakenkreuzler organ “Volksampf,” which was then conducting a ritual murder agitation in connection with the approach of Passover, started a vehement agitation demanding the prohibition of schechita in Austria.
The Board of the Vienna Jewish Community organized a movement to counteract the campaign. Dr. Seipel received a delegation of the Agudath Israel, headed by the President. Dr. Pinchas Kohn, and told them that the Catholic majority in Austria would never tolerate a prohibition of shechita. Such ideas, he siad, were entirely foreign and repugnant to Catholics, and the Government would do nothing which would prevent the free exercise of religious laws, which in addition were regarded by the Jews as Biblical commands.
The move goes back to 1925 when the Austrian Federal Ministry of Lands and Forests issued an order to its officials to see that the slaughtering cattle in Austria should be carried out only by pole-axine. The Board of the Vienna Jewish Community pointed out that this order amounted to a prohibition prohibition of schechita and re-opened the ### on which it was thought had been settled after the anti-schechita campaign of 1903-05 when the Supreme Court had decided that a similar order issued as the fine was illegal.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
