News Brief

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)

A resolution declaring in favor of the demand made by the Munich Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that no animal should be slaughtered without first being stunned has been passed by a majority of votes by the Constitutional Commission of the Bavarian Diet. The representatives of the Right, the Social Democrats and a few of the members of the Bavarian People’s Party voted for the resolution; the majority of the Bavarian People’s Party, the Free Federation and the Communists voted against.

The fact that the Social Democrats have voted for a resolution which if passed by the Diet will mean the prohibition of Shechita in Bavaria has caused astonishment and indignation among the Jews.

The question of prohibiting Shechita in Bavaria was before the Constitutional Commission of the Diet last March, when a resolution to prohibit Schechita was rejected, but it was decided that the Government should limit the practice of Shechita in accordance with the proportion of the Jewish population in Bavaria.

The action of the Bavarian parliament is a result of a movement conducted over a long period by the Bavarian anti-Semites and the Munich Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This society sent a memorandum to the parliament on April 7. 1926, which after quoting authorities tending to show that Shechita is cruelty to animals, said that only one out of every hundred of the population on German soil belongs to the Jewish faith, and a large part of the Jews themselves do not observe the Jewish dietary laws. It is therefore wrong. the memorandum stated, to take into consideration the religious scruples of less than a hundredth part of the population and to ignore the feelings of humanity of the other ninety-nine.