New Zealand has banned the kosher slaughtering of animals, the Shechita. The country’s new animal welfare code, which took effect last week, mandates that all animals for commercial consumption be stunned prior to slaughter to ensure that they are treated “humanely and in accordance with good practice and scientific knowledge.”
The new rules were rejected by New Zealand’s Jewish community. “This decision by the New Zealand government, one which has a Jewish prime minister, is outrageous,” said Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, acting president of the Organization of Rabbis of Australasia. “We will be doing everything possible to get this decision reversed.”
Gutnick, who travels frequently to New Zealand to oversee Shechita, added: “One of the last countries I would have expected to bring in this blatantly discriminatory action would have been New Zealand.”
David Zwartz, chairman of the Wellington Jewish Council and a former head of the country’s Jewish community council, declared: “I am sure there will objections made that this action is an infringement of the right of Jews to observe their religion.”
Agriculture Minister David Carter rejected a recommendation that kosher slaughtering practices be exempted from the new code. The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee did recommend a dispensation for in 2001, but the new code does not allow any exemptions.
