It is a day of celebration for European Jewry. The Constitutional Tribunal of Poland accepted the EJA’s petition, and this morning it annulled the decision of the Polish Parliament to ban kosher slaughter in the country. With a majority of nine judges supporting the petition and five judges opposed, the court determined that the Parliament’s decision to ban kosher slaughter was unconstitutional.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, General Director of the EJA, expressed his great pleasure with the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling and noted that “This is a true holiday for Poland’s Jewish community; but not only for Polish Jews, for we have succeeded in preventing the establishment of a dangerous precedent that would have affected all the Jews of Europe. Had that law been upheld, it would not have stopped in Poland. In recent years, European Jewry has been ‘under attack’ from many anti-Jewish laws, and if these laws would pass, they would make it extremely difficult for many Jews to lead a Jewish lifestyle.”

Rabbi Aryeh Goldberg, Deputy Director of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe, also responded to the decision: “This is the fruit of tremendous efforts that the RCE has invested in the struggle to uphold kosher shechitah in Europe. The presidium and rabbis of the Rabbinical Council of the RCE have expressed their joy in words of thanks and deep appreciation to the RCE’s administration for its strong stand and tireless struggle, until this ruling was achieved. Today, we have come to the close of another chapter in this struggle, with the hope that this will be the final chapter and that this ruling will influence all European countries. In the short time that has passed since the joyous news was received, the offices of the RCE were flooded with hundreds of phone calls from all over Europe, from European rabbis and community leaders who wanted to thank the RCE’s directors for standing firm in leading this struggle.