(Jewish News) Senior Jewish and Muslim leaders this week issued a joint plea ahead of a European Court of Justice hearing into the legality of a Belgian ban on religious slaughter.
Standing together on the issue were Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, and Shiekh Dr Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League and president of Muslim Scholars Organisation.
The pair recalled how bans on religious slaughter had presaged violence against religious minorities in the past, as the court prepared to weigh measures adopted by Belgium’s Flanders and Wallonia regions.
“Food plays an important role in our religious life and how we prepare food represents a key tenet of our faiths,” they said.
