The news headline that “Austrian State May Require Jews to Register to Buy Kosher Meat”* is profoundly disturbing but fits the bigger concern that anti-Semitism is on the march again.
I belong to that generation, born just after the last world war who thought that its worst excesses had been buried in the ruins of Berlin in 1945.
And while you overheard the casual comment spoken in a matter of fact way, the horrors of Pogroms and the Holocaust were locked in the past.
But not so. The story comes from Haaretz, the respected and influential Israeli newspaper, which revealed that “A regional politician in Austria defended a plan to limit access to kosher meat, conditioning its sale on permits that would be individually issued to observant Jews.
The Wiener Zeitung daily reported Tuesday about the draft decree in the state of Lower Austria, one of nine states that make up the federal Republic of Austria. Gottfried Waldhäusl, the cabinet minister in the state government of Lower Austria who is in charge of animal welfare and several other portfolios, defended the plan as necessary ‘from an animal welfare point of view.’”
And this would involve the authorities in compiling a list of Jewish people which has echoes of the racist laws passed by Nazi Germany and implemented in Austria after its merger with Germany in 1938.
Now “the regional leader of the ruling Austrian People’s Party told the ORF broadcaster that the plan will not be implemented”*, but the mere fact that it should have been put forward is disturbing at a time when there has been a rise in recorded anti-Semitic incidents.
In 2017 CST recorded 1,382 such incidents in the UK - the highest total ever recorded for a calendar year. Three-quarters of these were in London and Greater Manchester. In Greater Manchester 261 were recorded, which is an increase of 27% from the 206 incidents recorded in 2016.**
It is unclear if the decision extends to halal meat as well.
Picture; Italy, 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
* Austrian State May Require Jews to Register to Buy Kosher Meat, Haaretz, Jul 18, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/austrian-state-may-limit-kosher-meat-sales-to-registered-jews-1.6289229
**CST, https://cst.org.uk/
And while you overheard the casual comment spoken in a matter of fact way, the horrors of Pogroms and the Holocaust were locked in the past.
But not so. The story comes from Haaretz, the respected and influential Israeli newspaper, which revealed that “A regional politician in Austria defended a plan to limit access to kosher meat, conditioning its sale on permits that would be individually issued to observant Jews.
The Wiener Zeitung daily reported Tuesday about the draft decree in the state of Lower Austria, one of nine states that make up the federal Republic of Austria. Gottfried Waldhäusl, the cabinet minister in the state government of Lower Austria who is in charge of animal welfare and several other portfolios, defended the plan as necessary ‘from an animal welfare point of view.’”
And this would involve the authorities in compiling a list of Jewish people which has echoes of the racist laws passed by Nazi Germany and implemented in Austria after its merger with Germany in 1938.
Now “the regional leader of the ruling Austrian People’s Party told the ORF broadcaster that the plan will not be implemented”*, but the mere fact that it should have been put forward is disturbing at a time when there has been a rise in recorded anti-Semitic incidents.
In 2017 CST recorded 1,382 such incidents in the UK - the highest total ever recorded for a calendar year. Three-quarters of these were in London and Greater Manchester. In Greater Manchester 261 were recorded, which is an increase of 27% from the 206 incidents recorded in 2016.**
It is unclear if the decision extends to halal meat as well.
Picture; Italy, 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
* Austrian State May Require Jews to Register to Buy Kosher Meat, Haaretz, Jul 18, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/austrian-state-may-limit-kosher-meat-sales-to-registered-jews-1.6289229
**CST, https://cst.org.uk/
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