The vote was an assault on freedom of religion that flies in the face of Article 53 of the Polish Constitution, which states that “Freedom of conscience and religion shall be ensured to everyone” and specifies that the “performing of rites” is protected. It was also a slap in the face for Poland’s Jewish community, which has been part of the country’s social landscape for more than a thousand years, and which, despite the Holocaust, has witnessed a remarkable renaissance over the past two decades.