Appointment of a Catholic priest, Dr. Trzeciak, as expert for a special Parliament commission on a bill for banning kosher slaughtering drew the fire of Jewish organizations today on the ground that a Catholic was not qualified to interpret the Jewish religion.
A joint meeting of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Executive of the Jewish Community and the Jewish Committee of Shechita (kosher slaughtering) adopted a resolution demanding that Deputy Emil Rubenstein withdraw as Jewish export for the Parliament committee in protest against Dr. Trzeciak’s appointment.
The conference telegraphed a protest to Premier Marjan Z. Koscialkowski, Minister of Cults and Education Swietoslawski and the Speaker of the Sejm (Parliament) asserting that only Jewish clergymen were authorized to interpret the Jewish religion.
Deputy Rubinstein and Sonator Mosos Schorr visited the Sejm speaker today, declaring that it was degrading to the Sejm to bring a religious dispute before its commission 150 years after the issuance of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Dr. Trzeciak, a university professor, is author of a pamphlet which contends that shechita is not a Jewish ritual but merely a custom, a contention which forms the basis for Deputy Janina Prystor’s bill to outlaw the method of slaughtering.
The bill will be taken up by the Sejm Commission tomorrow. At the same time Jews throughout Poland will observe a day of fast as prayer in protest against the bill and have called upon Jews the world over to join them.
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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.
