Hamtramck, Michigan, has one of the highest rates of Muslim residents among US cities, which is why Hamtramck Muslims get to set legal breakthroughs for Islamic law. A case in point: ahead of the approaching Eid al-Adha – Feast of Sacrifice (Wed. June 28), the Hamtramck City Council voted Tuesday night to allow the religious sacrifice of animals on residential property, the Detroit Free Press reported.
In case you’re interested, Eid al-Adha marks Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Ishmael in Al Aqsa Mosque… Do you think Jews should sue for copyright violation or cultural appropriation?
This reminded me that our own Passover sacrifice is due Wednesday, April 14 and that shortly after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir descended from Temple Mount a week ago Tuesday, he received a letter from the Returning to the Mountain movement, asking him to approve conducting the paschal sacrifice at the same holy site, the way Jews had done until 1,953 years ago when the Romans destroyed our second holy Temple.
The Temple lovers wrote Ben Gvir: “This year, in light of the political situation and the establishment of a ‘full-right’ government for the first time, a real possibility exists to conduct the Passover Sacrifice on the Temple Mount with a large audience and in a dignified manner, approved by and coordinated with all the various elements – chief among them the Israel Police, which is under your authority as the state of Israel’s new Minister of National Security. … We have now a golden opportunity to return our old glory and renew the Passover Sacrifice … a move that will surely hasten our redemption and be written in the pages of history as the start of the construction of our Third Temple.”
Who knows, maybe by the time Passover arrives, the country will be ready for such a liberating event…
Here’s an unexpected note about Tuesday’s vote: according to the report, the vote was not unanimous, even though the entire Hamtramck city council is made up of Muslims. It was a 2-2 tie, and Mayor Amer Ghalib cast the tie-breaking vote to amend an ordinance forbidding the religious sacrifice of animals at home.
“If somebody wants to do it, they have a right to do their practice,” Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Mohammed Hassan said at the meeting.
But wait, there’s more. Animal rights advocates objected to the Muslims’ request, claiming the sacrifices will result in cruelty to animals and sanitation. Mayor Ghalib responded with a citation of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. the city of Hialeah, 1993, in which the US Supreme Court ruled that an ordinance passed by the city of Hialeah, Florida, forbidding the unnecessary killing of an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption was unconstitutional.
I mention it so that, when the Biden administration protests the actions of Israeli Jews who dare to defy the status quo by conducting a biblical ritual in the home of their heavenly father – we’ll just cite Babalu Aye v. Hialeah.
