Kosher meat - food security of the Austrian Jewish community in the light of current legal developments

Autor:in

Rahlves, T.; Hofmeister, Stefan

Abstrakt

Current legal and social developments in Europe are leading to an uncertain future for the provision of kosher meat for Austrian Jews. We analyse parliamentary resolutions and aspirations and decisions of the European Court of Justice to provide the background to current legal events in the European Union. We also present and discuss Jewish regulations regarding food and the legal framework for post-cut stunning. We have collated information from the state and regional governments and have consulted representatives of the Austrian Jewish community to estimate the production of and demand for kosher meat. We calculate the amount of kosher meat produced in Austria based on data from Agrarmarkt Austria, a press release of the Provincial Chamber of Agriculture of Upper Austria and information collected during our research. Local production can only satisfy 30 % of the demand for veal, 22 % of the demand for lamb and 32 % of the demand for poultry. No kosher beef is currently produced in Austria. The Jewish community thus depends on imported meat but the European Court of Justice has enabled the prohibition of kosher butchering and Poland will introduce a ban on the export of kosher meat, both of which will change the European market for kosher meat. In summary, recent changes have introduced restrictions on religious slaughtering for the Jewish community. Current local production is not able to satisfy the demands of the Austrian Jews and will have to adapt to the forthcoming changes.

Dokumententyp

Originalarbeit

Open Access Type

Diamond

DOI

10.5680/wtm000005