Deputy minister urges Europe to uphold religious freedoms

Europe must protect religious freedoms, and prevent restrictions on ritual circumcision and animal slaughter, Israel’s deputy minister of religious services urged the secretary general of the Council of Europe in a meeting this week.

“It’s inconceivable that that the Council of Europe [will pass a resolution that] violates religious freedoms and goes against the principles of Judaism that have been with the Jewish people for thousands of years,” Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan (Jewish Home party) said. “Freedom of religion and worship is of utmost importance to every religion and human being around the world.”

Ben Dahan was addressing concerns over recent moves by European nations and the council to ban ritual circumcision and animal slaughter.

Last month, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed a non-binding resolution that calls male ritual circumcision a “violation of the physical integrity of children.” The resolution calls on states to “clearly define the medical, sanitary and other conditions to be ensured for practices such as the non-medically justified circumcision of young boys.”

Tuesday, Norway’s health minister said the country would promote legislation to regulate ritual circumcision, and in January of this year, a law went into effect in Poland that banned the slaughter of animals without stunning them beforehand, which conflicts with Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter procedures.

“Circumcision was the first commandment given to the [Jews], and circumcision was the first commandment fulfilled by our forefather Abraham, and it is the first commandment that every Jewish male fulfills,” Ben Dahan said. “This commandment especially is a sign of the eternal bond between the People of Israel and their god, inherent in our flesh.”

Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland told Ben Dahan that it was not the council’s intention to violate Jewish freedom of worship and that the council saw it as its duty to protect the Jews in maintaining their tradition.

In Germany a year ago, the government announced legislation that would legalize ritual circumcisions if they are performed by a medical professional, three months after a local court criminalized the rite and charges were filed against two rabbis. The case elicited comments from a series of Israeli officials, including President Shimon Peres.

At the height of the German circumcision controversy, the leaders of the Jewish community there criticized then-interior minister Eli Yishai and then-Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yona Metzger for their “unhelpful” involvement, saying their comments were a counterproductive interference in the affairs of an independent Jewish Diaspora community.

“The two both unnecessarily strained the debate and contributed to further uncertainty,” the heads of the Central Council of Jews in Germany wrote in a letter to Israel’s ambassador in Berlin, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, the German-Jewish weekly Juedische Allgemeine reported.

A report last year by a Jerusalem-based think tank about the spate of recent challenges to the religious rights of European Jews argued that intervention by Israeli officials could be seen as “foreign country interference and… may put local Jewish leadership in an uncomfortable position.”

JTA contributed to this report.