Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Jews and Their Neighbours in Eastern Europe Since 1750. Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 24, by Israel Bartal, Antony Polonsky, and Scott Ury (eds.) 2012.  Oxford University Press, Oxford

Ritual Slaughter. Reining-In Jewish Privileges and Freeing the Poles, Not Picking on the Jews

I limit my review to Przemyslaw Rozanski and his article on the 1937 Schechita law in Poland. Even though Rozanski has a pronounced Judeocentric bias, he does provide some useful information, which I cite. Most of this work is the standard fare, wherein Jews are merely objects of perception, and never have any agency.

Rozanski summarily dismisses the premise that ritual slaughter (schechita) is barbaric. (p. 347). In fact, some Jews also affirm the barbarism of ritual slaughter. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/german-guilt-diffusion-bought-from-jews-menuhin/

EMANCIPATION OF POLES FROM JEWISH ECONOMIC DOMINANCE

The problem at hand was a long time coming. The author comments, “…the fact that for a long time Jews had held a monopoly on the slaughter of farm animals and the Christian population had not objected.” (p. 354).

The author continues, “On the other hand, the Polish authorities supported those clauses of the bill that would allow Christian consumers to purchase meat that was not slaughtered according to shehitah.” (p. 347). So this was not about cramping the religion of the Jews: It was about freeing the Poles!

THE ECONOMIC RATIONALE OF THE SCHECHITA LAW

Rozanski comments, “The Polish authorities claimed that the basic problem caused by shehitah was that butchers refused to buy whole animals directly from farmers, but took only the forequarters or the hindquarters, as Jews consumed only the forequarters. Farmers suffered losses, as they had to sell animals to wholesalers at a lower price.” (p. 347).

In addition, “The price of meat purchased by Christians was much higher than that of kosher meat. In the opinion of the Polish authorities, shehitah made animal slaughtering practically a Jewish monopoly.” (p. 348).

EMPLOYMENT INEQUITIES CAUSED BY JEWISH RITUAL SLAUGHTER

Author Rozanski writes, “In addition, Christians could not find employment in slaughterhouses and with wholesalers because a Christian was not able to slaughter animals according to shehitah.” (p. 348). He then brings up the Jews that became unemployed because of the new Schechita law (p. 351), evidently not making the connection with the Poles who earlier could not be employed because of the proliferation of Schechita slaughterhouses!

TACIT ADMISSION: THE SCHECHITA PROCESS, AS IT EXISTED, HAD BEEN A HIDDEN TAX ON POLES

The author makes this revealing comment about the consequences of the Shechita law, “It is also estimated that the income of the kehilot, which was dependent in part on the sale of kosher meat, had been halved…” (p. 351). Now the Jews could still do schechita for their own communities. However, the halving of the income of the kehilla (Jewish community structures), in the wake of the Schechita law, shows how Poles, up to that time, had been forced to subsidize the Jews whenever Poles had bought meat.

THE ENACTMENT OF THE SCHECHITA LAW

The law went into effect on January 1, 1937. (p. 351). It had nothing to do with religion. It restricted schechita in proportion to the size of the local Jewish, Karaite, and Muslim communities. The law banned schechita totally only in provinces where the Jewish, Karaite, and Muslim population was below 3%. Even here, however, local authorities could allow schechita. (p. 351). So the law did not abolish ritual slaughter: It only reined-in some of the economic privileges that Jews, at the expense of the Poles, had enjoyed for so long.

THE SCHECHITA LAW IN BROADER CONTEXT

Finally, let us keep some perspective. Some form of law restricting Jewish ritual slaughter was passed not only by Poland, but also earlier by the “enlightened” western European nations such as Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and parts of France. (p. 359). Moroever, these nations had proportionately much smaller Jewish populations than did Poland, so their Jewish yoke, if that, had been much lighter.

So get off Poland’s case!