Keeping kosher alive: the year shechita held the line

For Jews in Israel and across the world, 2025 has carried both highs and lows, pride and pain. Our hearts and minds have been filled with the fate of Jewish people.

Yet we often forget that our Jewish lives are shaped not only by global events, important though they are, but by the humble rhythms of daily activity: Our local community, shops, and, no less, what we have for dinner.

Kosher restaurants in the UK remain vibrant, with new imaginative offerings opening on a regular basis. Butcheries, shawarma shops, and caterers are busy. Whether one wants shishlik or a steak, excellent kosher food can be found throughout London, in Edgware and Borehamwood, and in Salford too. This reality depends on something most people never see.

There is a necessary undercurrent of quiet advocacy that keeps kosher food on our tables. Shechita is legal in the United Kingdom only through a derogation, an exemption set out in Schedule 3 of the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing Regulations 2015.

It must be always defended. A single careless phrase in a Bill on agriculture or misinformed food labelling consultation could make shechita economically unviable. A disparaging remark in Parliament can shift public temperature sharply against our community. The work is constant, technical, and mostly unseen.

Over this year, Shechita UK has continued to monitor Parliament daily, meeting ministers, officials, and parliamentarians from all parties. We have corrected misinformation in the media, challenged inaccuracies, and ensured that new scientific evidence reaches the people who make policy.

The year has had its own share of highs and lows, understated compared with what has gone on for Jews in other places, but it remains important for Jewish life in Britain. A few examples stand out:

• An e-petition calling for a ban on “non-stun slaughter” passed the threshold for debate, gathering well over the required 100,000 signatures. Ahead of the Westminster Hall debate, we briefed many MPs, who spoke clearly in support of Shechita and it conforms to animal welfare norms, and the rights of minority faith communities. These contributions corrected longstanding misconceptions about mechanical stunning and the nature of Shechita itself.
• A polemical article about shechita appeared in The Critic magazine. We responded firmly. They eventually acknowledged our reply.
• Scientific research has been a high. This year has seen a great deal of transatlantic work. We saw the publication of three new significant peer-reviewed papers by our esteemed colleagues in Canada, demonstrating that Shechita leads to a rapid loss of consciousness and directly refuting claims that brain blood flow is somehow preserved for prolonged periods. These studies, led by internationally respected scientists, strengthen the scientific foundation for defending Shechita, and have already informed our conversations with the UK  Government and regulators, and EU and global organisations.
• We have maintained active relationships with the devolved administrations, the Food Standards Agency, and the organisations whose work touches on animal welfare policy. We have also advised other faith groups. Engagement has extended beyond the UK. From Belgium to Canada, Cyprus to Spain and, surprising, Israel (each one could be an article unto itself), we have supported Jewish communities facing similar pressures and shared the optics and expertise needed to defend Shechita wherever it is challenged.

As we look back on the year, there have been difficulties, but there have also been real gains: the new Government’s confirmation that policy will not change; parliamentary support; bolstered scientific evidence; and constructive conversations in Britain and beyond.

Perhaps the most heartening success of all is something quieter. Shechita UK is, at its core, a cross-communal organisation. We work together with all Shechita and Kashrut Boards, and with many who are not Jewish at all.

At our twentieth anniversary dinner last year, I said, “our strength lies in the unity of the community we serve and in the partnerships we build.” Long may that continue. With Shechita UK, our hearts and minds can still roam far beyond the mundane, and our appetites satisfied with kosher food.

• Shimon Cohen, Campaign Director of Shechita UK