In response to foreign protests, particularly from the United States, the Polish Government has decided not to proceed with a proposed ban on kosher slaughtering, foreign correspondents were informed today by a reliable source.
The newspapermen were told that the Government, advise of reaction abroad and especially in America, has decided that the Parliament bill to prohibit Jewish ritual slaughtering is untimely. The Government was undecided, however, whether the bill would be finally killed.
The statement followed a meeting of an interministerial commission to formulate the Government’s attitude on the bill, which was introduced into the Sejm last week by Deputy Janina Prystor, wife of the Senate President, and was said to have the support of a bloc of 100 deputies.
The Federation of Polish Jews in America, headed by Benjamin Winter, had sent a protest to the Polish Embassy in Washington which was forwarded to Warsaw. It warned that passage of the bill “would arouse the most vigorous protests all over the United States.”
The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada had also protested the bill as a violation of the Constitutional provision for free practice of religion and rituals.
As the Government commission was called into session, Polish newspapers stated that there was no chance for the reaching of a compromise whereby kosher slaughtering would be permitted for exclusive Jewish consumption.
Influential in formulating the Government’s attitude toward the bill was the Vice Minister of Cults and Education, Zongollowicz, a Catholic priest. Anti-Semitic newspapers this morning asked the Ministry of Cults not to place any obstacles in the way of the bills.
The anti-Jewish papers declared that Zongollowicz “who, as a Catholic priest does not tolerate cruelty to animals, will not allow the exploitation of the Polish population in favor of the Jewish minority.
Deputy Prystor, in introducing the bill last Friday, declared that it aimed to break the Jewish “monopoly” over the slaughter of cattle. Jewish organizations declared a day of fasting and a world-wide month of mourning in protest against the bill, complaining that it would deprive the Jews of meat, result in the loss of jobs for Jewish slaughterers and butchers, deprive the Jewish communities of an important source of income and violate religious liberties.
The bill would provide fines and prison sentences for slaughterers failing to stun cattle before killing. Stunning contravenes the Jewish ritual code.
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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.
