Have they not learned a thing?

So I'm home now for over a week and I've still not been able to get the trip to Poland out of my head. Thoughts about what I've learned, what I saw are at the forefront of my mind even while doing something as mundane as grocery shopping or laundry.  But yesterday, as I sat down to my morning decaf, I read an article in the comments and features section of the Jerusalem Post and what I read scared me.

It was an article called 'Poland and shechita'.  You can look it up online in the web version of the JPost....

Polish lawmakers have decided that ritual slaughter is now illegal.  This includes religious slaughter - or shechita - as well as dhabiha - otherwise known as halal.  

Clearly this ban is not motivated by any type of concern for the animals' feelings and we know this since they didn't bother banning hunting.  If they had done their homework, they would have learned that shechita is the most humane way to kill an animal. The shochet's knife must be incredibly sharp with no nicks.  The animal should not feel the cut and since the carotid arteries, which bring blood to the brain, are severed with that swift cut, the animal is rendered unconscious within seconds.  

But I suppose gathering a hunting party and blowing the animal's brains out with a shotgun is not only a sport, but fun as well.

And we wouldn't want the Poles to not have their fun.

Why this new law is scary is because of this:

(and be ready to be sickened...)

One of the fist things the Nazis did when they rose in power in 1933, was to pass extensive animal protection legislation.  Germans would face prison time for neglecting or abusing an animal. And while millions of Jews were being slaughtered in more horrific ways than one could possibly imagine, Nazis were obsessing over the suffering of lobsters in Berlin's finest restaurants.

Does Poland have that short of a memory span that they have forgotten that it was the Nazis who originally banned ritual slaughter in 1933?  And if their motivation is to keep the Muslims out of Poland (I didn't see a single Muslim in Poland while I was there....) it is a terrible decision.  

For a country that has tried to distance itself from the permanent bloodstain of millions of Jews that covers their land, this decision is a blatant move towards anti-semitism and not a move towards tolerance and religious freedom......