Marius, Denmark, circumcision and anti-semitism
FEBRUARY 24, 2014 8:31 AM.
Denmark, Kashrut, and Anti-Semitism
Centuries after Shakespeare said “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark,” we have hard proof of a big stink in Denmark and nearby Scandinavian countries.
Only days after Denmark passed a racist law banning kosher butchers, supposedly because Kosher meat slaughtering is “cruel to animals,” Danish authorities showed everyone what real cruelty to animals is.
The Danish Zoo took a healthy young giraffe – named Marius – shot him in the brain with a bolt gun, dissected his body in front of a crowd of children, and then fed pieces of the carcass to the zoo’s lions. Television cameras caught the happy lions at their meal.
Sounding a bit like Nazis, Danish Zoo authorities said they had to kill the giraffe for the sake of racial purity – to protect the genetic lines of their giraffes. They added that the zoo needed lebensraum –living room – space for other, purer giraffes.
They also justified the murder of the giraffe for the sake of the hungry lions. Not since the Roman Empire has there been such governmental concern for the feeding of lions.
“Our giraffes are part of an international breeding program, which has a purpose of ensuring a sound and healthy population of giraffes,” Bengt Holst, scientific director at Copenhagen Zoo, told CNN. He explained that there was not enough room at the zoo for giraffes with inferior bloodlines.
Danish authorities rejected appeals from tens of thousands of people who asked that the zoo find a less-than-final solution for the problem of a genetically inferior giraffe, for example sending him to another zoo, or to nature reserve.
The Danish Giraffe Murder shows Danish hostility to kosher slaughter to be both dumb and hypocritical; the Danes, like the Swedes and the Norwegians, only take pity on those animals being eaten by Jews. Otherwise, they will happily shoot anything that moves.
When Danish, Swedish and Norwegian boys reach their teens, they are often presented with a shotgun or a rifle, and taken by their fathers to kill their first deer or elk.
When Jewish boys reach 13, they learn to read part of the Bible. Jews get gifts ranging from pens to tablet computers.
Religious Jews slaughter animals only to feed themselves, and use a very sharp knife under very strict procedures specifically designed to eliminate animal suffering.
Many houses in Denmark, Norway and Sweden have animal heads on the walls as trophies. This custom is not often seen in Jewish circles.
Scandinavian countries also have laws barring Jewish circumcision, claiming that the practice is cruel to children, though there is clinical proof circumcision reduces many diseases (in men and women), from sexual diseases to cervical cancer. There is much evidence that circumcision by the Jewish timetable (the eighth day) is largely safe and relatively pain-free. Circumcision at a later time in life is more dangerous and complicated.
Limiting kosher slaughter and circumcision has now spread to other European countries, such as Holland. The Council of Europe passed a resolution in October calling on European Union states to “adopt specific legal provisions to ensure that certain operations and practices will not be carried out before a child is old enough to be consulted.”
Nevertheless, many Jews are not impressed by claimed European concern for the suffering of Jewish children, remembering just how many non-Jewish Europeans came to the rescue of defenseless Jews during the past century, especially during the Holocaust.
It seems the real motive for Scandinavian laws against kosher meat and circumcision is simple anti-Semitism or Jew-hatred. These laws are not linked to pain felt by defenseless animals or children, but rather by a desire to inhibit Jewish communities and, more recently, Islamic communities that also have ritual slaughter of animals and circumcision.
After all, in Europe, persecuting Jews is always kosher, and the Jews will sooner or later leave Europe rather suffer the fate of that Danish giraffe who was found to be genetically inferior.
The author of the article Denmark, Kashrut, and Anti-Semitism , visiting professor at UC Irvine and an expert on Arab politics and communications, is the author of Battlefor Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat, published by Threshold/Simon and Schuster. He is a former reporter, correspondent and editor respectively at The New York Times, Cox Newspapers, and The Jerusalem Post, and he served as strategic affairs advisor in Israel’s Ministry of Public Security.
SOURCE: Der Algemeiner. ( http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/02/24/denmark-kashrut-and-anti-semitism/ )
This article was originally published by The Jerusalem Post.
NOTE by KOPJIK: Danish newspapers are daily filled with articles proposing a ban on circumcision, bashing Israel for almost everything etc. Articles about censorship, dictatorship and violation of human rights in Muslim and Arab countries around Israel are almost absent. Evidently Arabs are widely regarded as “the good guys”, while Jews are regarded as “evil” and “the bad guys”. Seventy years after WWII there are definitly lots of anti-Semitism or Jew-hatred in Denmark, but no wild Elks and to the best of our knowledge no Danish boys who reach their teens, are presented with a shotgun or a rifle. And the killing of Marius seem to have been the decision of one man only – and rigorouslydefended by no one other but him.
The image of Denmark in the world have never been worse!
The Danish flag is faded on the international skies.
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DENMARKGiraffe-Killing Danes Anger Jews and Muslims With New Animal Cruelty LawA new Danish law ordering that all animals must be stunned before slaughter effectively bans production of kosher and halal meatBy Lisa Abend / Copenhagen @lisaabendFeb. 28, 201467 Comments
They may kill giraffes in Denmark, but they anesthetize them first. And as of February 24, the same goes for any animal killed for meat in the kingdom. Thanks to a new law that went into effect this week and that seeks to reduce the pain that livestock suffer on their way to becoming dinner, all animals slaughtered in Denmark must be stunned before being killed. The government says the legislation is founded on a concern for animal welfare. But Muslim and Jewish groups, who note that it effectively bans the production of kosher and halal meat on Danish soil, wonder if there are darker motives behind it.
The European Union, like the United States, requires that cows, sheep, and pigs be stunned before slaughter, but makes an exception for ritual slaughter. That was Denmark’s policy as well until last summer, when the agriculture minister at the time, Karen Haekerrup, proposed that the exception be lifted. The measure was approved by parliament on February 18, and went into effect six days later. A few days earlier, the current agriculture minister, Dan Jørgensen, explained the decision to Danish television. “There has to be a balance between religious issues and animal rights,” Jørgensen said. “We are not forbidding ritual slaughter, but it should be conducted by (first) stunning the animal.”
Yet most—though not all—Jews and Muslims believe that their traditions prohibit pre-stunning. Under dhabihaand shechita, (as ritual slaughter under the dietary laws of halal and kashrut, respectively, is known), Islam and Judaism require animals intended for human consumption to be killed with a single slash through the carotid artery in the neck. The practice is intended in part to assure that animals die with as little pain as possible (that is why, for example, both religions specify that the blade used must be sharp and perfectly smooth).
In fact, no animals have actually been ritually slaughtered in Denmark in a decade, and Jews and Muslims in Denmark are accustomed to getting their kosher and halal meat from abroad. That fact, say some, makes the legislation all the more questionable. “From the Jewish point of view, there are no practical effects to this law,” says Finn Schwarz, president of the Jewish Community of Denmark. “So you have to wonder why regulate something that is not happening?”
Benyones Essabar, chairman of the organization Danish Halal, has questions too. He notes that the proposal emerged in the wake of a controversy last summer provoked by the discovery that a Copenhagen hospital was, out of deference to Muslims, serving halal meat to all its patients regardless of their religion. And he points out that Danish Muslims have been actively trying in the past few years to find both farmers and a slaughterhouse that could supply the community locally. “While we are working on it,” he says, “The government has closed the only door.” Like Schwarz, he points out that in other critical areas of animal welfare such as hunting, pig production (Denmark is one of the biggest producers of pork in Europe) and mink farming (ditto), the government has taken no action.
The Danish government is at pains to point out that the new legislation does not, in fact, ban halal and kashrut, since those products are still available for purchase within the kingdom. But given the questions about timing of targets, it’s little wonder that Jews and Muslims outside of Denmark have found an explanation for the ruling that has nothing to do with animal welfare: prejudice. Eli Ben Dahan, Israel’s deputy minister of Religious Affairs responded to the measure by saying “European anti-Semitism reveals its true face,” and called on the Danish ambassador to Israel to prevent the law’s implementation. Noting that Denmark was also home to the Mohammed cartoon scandal, the Saudi English-language newspaper Arab News reports that many in the Middle East are calling for a boycott of Danish products.
It doesn’t help that Sweden and Norway, the two nations that also require pre-stunning, passed their legislation in the 1930s—just like Germany and Italy did. (The Allies eventually reversed the measure in the latter two countries.)
Yet neither Schwarz nor Essabar, whose organization collected nearly 20,000 signatures protesting the new law, believe that anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic sentiments are the true motive for the reform. Rather, they point to a rejection of religion in general. “Denmark is a very secular country,” says Schwarz, “and arguing anything from a religious point of view is counterproductive. So the government knows this is an easy way to show they’re protecting animal welfare. It’s like [they’re giving out] free beer.”
Free beer or not, an ever-increasing number of incidents in Denmark and throughout Europe—from hate crimes to proposed legislation limiting the number of Muslim immigrants to uproars over whether kindergartens should be required to serve pork — have contributed to the sense that neither religious group is “really” Danish. “We are Danes born in Denmark,” says Essabar. “But every time something like this happens, we are marginalized more.”
The marginalization probably isn’t over either. For all the controversy provoked by the pre-stunning law, a bigger storm is gathering over another religious practice shared by Muslims and Jews: circumcision. In December, the Danish Medical Association called on the government to ensure that boys were allowed to decide for themselves whether to have the operation and the Jyllands-Posten newspaper called for an outright ban on the practice of circumcising at birth. Another major newspaper, BT, conducted a survey that found that 87% of Danes supported such a ban.
Even Essabar, who believes that Danes are genuinely tolerant, is beginning to wonder about the impression his country is creating. “We slaughtered a giraffe in a zoo. Our military shoots pigs for practice. So do we really care so much about animal welfare? Something is not as it should be.”
SOURCE: http://world.time.com/2014/02/09/marius-giraffe-copenhagen-zoo/
Hi, I am Marius – the Giraf they killed because I wasn’t usefull to the Copenhagen ZOO.
The veterinarian who killed me “a surplus animal” – which meant that he was doing the right
in killing me of course. Which he did! Might is right!
After my death someone made this poster
and sent it to me – it made me very happy
to know that wanted to spare my life.
After all I think I had the right to live!
During the 1940-ties the Gypsies,
the Jews,
the elderly people,
the mentally sick,
the homosexuals,
the Poles,
the Russian prisonners of war,
the Greeks etc. etc.
thought so too!
But someone named Adolf Hitler thought they were all “useless eaters”.
This projekt was called
Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens
(Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life),
the Euthanasie-program or T4-program.
And it was very popular in Nazi Germany.
Might was right!
I got tears in my eyes when I watched all the children waiting
to see how the Copenhagen Zoo would kill me … 1½ year old only.
I the Copenhagen Zoo I was not even called “useless eater” –
I was just called “a surplus animal”!
“Our function is not to keep the individual animals alive!”, they said.
“We were open about it because we know [the euthanasia] was the right thing to do,”
scientific director, Bengt Holst said. “
If we’re serious about science, we can’t be led by emotion.”Right? – No, might!
Read more: Danish Zoo Kills Healthy Giraffe and Feeds It to Tigers | TIME.com http://world.time.com/2014/02/09/marius-giraffe-copenhagen-zoo/#ixzz2uZWH28Yb *
I liked the Zoo – and I didn’t expect that they would treat me like the Nazi war-criminals treated
the Jews, the Gypsies, the mentally sick people, the homosexuals, the Russian prisonners etc.
But now I don’t like the Copenhagen Zoo anymore!
The men who did it have done it before –
and they will do it again, believe me!
The ZOO produces lots of “surplus animals”!
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The men who killed me are not German Nazi’s –
then why did they behave that way – and as they were?
Did they believe that might is right?
And why did some people think it was okay?
Have some Danes become thinking like Nazi’s?
Is that what they call “animal welfare”?
Marius’s last meal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=917u9M_tOHY *
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