Austrian state proposes plan to make Jewish residents register to buy kosher meat

An Austrian newspaper is reporting that one of the country’s states has created a draft decree that would require observant Jews to obtain permits to buy kosher meat, according to Haaretz. 

Haaretz noted that The Wiener Zeitung reported on Tuesday that Gottfried Waldhäusl, the cabinet minister in the state government of Lower Austria, said the plan is necessary “from an animal welfare point of view,” according to The Wiener Zeitung. 

{mosads}But the president of the Jewish community in Vienna is pushing back against the measure. Oskar Deutsch said it would require compiling a list of the Jews who live in the region, a practice he said was “like a negative Aryan clause,” according to the report. 

“Soon with a star on the chest?” The American Jewish Committee’s Berlin office wrote on its Twitter account. “This is an attack on Jewish and Muslim life! #Anti-Semitism.”

Bald mit Stern auf der Brust? Die #FPÖ schlägt vor, dass sich Juden in Niederösterreich namentlich registrieren u. ihre Religiösität nachweisen sollen, um koscheres Fleisch zu kaufen — Das ist ein Angriff auf jüdisches + muslimisches Leben! #Antisemitismus https://t.co/gP4dNgDfUd

— AJC Berlin (@AJCBerlin) July 17, 2018

Haaretz notes that Jewish and Muslim religious laws mandate animals be conscious when their throats are cut in order for their meat to be considered kosher or halal. Judaism enforces even stricter guidelines on how animals should be slaughtered. Critics have argued that the production of halal and kosher meat is cruel. 

Haaretz reports that the Austrian newspaper did not mention if the plan in Lower Austria extends to halal meat. 

Waldhäusl is the state’s only cabinet minister from the populist Freedom Party, according to Haaretz. The news outlet notes that the group was created by a former Nazi SS soldier in the 1950s, but the party has contended it is not anti-Semitic. 

Despite Waldhäusl’s statement, Klaus Schneeberger, the regional leader of the ruling Austrian People’s Party of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, told the Austria Press Agency that authorities would not establish a registry. 

“Of course, nobody will have to register to buy kosher meat. There will be no such thing,” he said, according to Haaretz.