Shimon Cohen
Last month, The Critic, which describes itself as “Britain’s most civilised magazine for arts, culture, politics, fashion and much more,” published an ill-informed, alarmist article attacking Shechita, entitled The problem of ritual slaughter (17 October 2025).
On behalf of Shechita UK, Shimon Cohen immediately penned a response to the piece. However, The Critic were not interested. We have therefore published the response here:
The Critic magazine styles itself as “Britain’s most civilised magazine.” Last week, however, it published an article steeped not in civilisation but in ignorance. Its authors accused Jewish and Muslim communities of practising “atrocious violence,” claiming that “Parliament has not merely accommodated belief but has surrendered legal authority to theology,” and went so far as to allege that “millions of people buy ‘ritually slaughtered meat’ and become unwitting participants in religious rituals alien to them.” These are not civilised, critical arguments. They are a noxious blend of poor science and bad legal analysis, a tangle of prejudice and presumption masquerading as moral clarity. Representing Shechita UK, which defends the Jewish community’s right to humane religious slaughter across Britain, Europe, and growingly, worldwide, we must respond.
Shechita, the Jewish method of slaughter, is not merely lawful; it is humane, ethical, and scientifically demonstrated to be so. The Critic piece’s central falsehood is the claim that “forms of Jewish and Islamic ritual slaughter that forbid the stunning of the animal before the ritual cut” cause “acute stress responses in non-stunned animals and prolonged periods of consciousness.” That is simply untrue. The latest peer-reviewed scientific evidence demonstrates the opposite, that with Shechita the brain ceases to function almost instantly, leading to loss of consciousness and insensibility within seconds. Another recently published paper disproves the oft-repeated claim, endlessly chanted by misguided animal-rights lobbyists, that Shechita causes “prolonged periods of consciousness”. It does not.
In fact, Shechita conforms fully to the EU’s own legal definition of stunning. Namely, “any intentionally induced process which causes loss of consciousness and sensibility without pain, including any process resulting in instantaneous death.” By causing the immediate cessation of cerebral perfusion, Shechita achieves precisely that.
The Critic further claimed that “studies consistently record acute stress responses in non-stunned animals and prolonged periods of consciousness after neck incision — up to 2.5 minutes in birds even when performed correctly, and much longer where blades are blunt or the cut shallow – during which behavioural and neurological signs indicate severe pain and panic.” However, this is simply untrue in regards to Shechita. Shechita exclusively uses a surgically sharp, undamaged (no nicks) blade, called a chalaf, rapidly and uninterruptedly.
Jewish law is not only concerned with the act of slaughter, “the fate of animals’ final moments,” but with their entire welfare. It forbids causing needless pain and demands that animals be healthy, uninjured, calm, and raised to high welfare standards. Animals for Shechita are raised on lower-density farms, with proper feed, shelter, and access to the outdoors. These are not modern concessions but Jewish obligations that inspired modern animal-welfare codes.
The Critic insinuates that consumers are “unwitting participants in religious rituals.” Regarding kosher meat, this is again, false. In the UK, Shechita operates on a slaughter-to-order basis. Its legal status is a derogation within the law, not a separate system. When this derogation was introduced in the 1930s, it had nothing to do with animal welfare issues; it reflected the small size of the Jewish community and the limited number of kosher butchers. Shechita has always been, and remains, a community service, a method of slaughter performed solely to provide kosher meat for Jewish community consumption. It is not a commercial enterprise for the wider public. Any meat sold to the non-kosher market comes mainly from perfectly conducted Shechita, typically hindquarters or animals excluded for technical halachic reasons, not from any “botched” slaughter, as The Critic also wrongly claimed.
Now to turn to the issue of labelling. In Britain, every kosher product is clearly labelled and certified with a hechsher, the mark of kosher certification granted by an authorised rabbinic body, confirming compliance with all requirements of Jewish dietary law, including animal welfare, supervision, and hygiene.
The Critics call for “mandatory labelling” is therefore misplaced and, as the Food Standards Agency’s 2024 survey found, generally unwanted by respondents. What would such labels look like anyway? As I explain, one-dimensional labels on meat packages, with words such as “stunned” or “non-stunned” on them are pejorative and misleading. Shechita meets the definition of stunning; it is simply not mechanical. True transparency of any labelling system would require specifying which of the methods were used in production, such as, gas asphyxiation, electrocution by head tongs, immersion in electrified water, or a captive bolt fired through the skull. Each of these methods can often and do go horrifically wrong.
The magazine points approvingly to bans on “non-stun slaughter” in Germany, Flanders, and elsewhere, yet omits their often-sinister origins. The first European bans on Shechita were enacted not for animal welfare but to exclude Jewish refugees. Switzerland’s 1893 prohibition was explicitly intended to deter Jewish migration after the pogroms of Eastern Europe. Norway followed in 1929 under the influence of fascism and antisemitism. These shameful precedents are nothing to emulate Across Europe, from the Netherlands (2011) and Denmark (2014) to Belgium (2017–2019) and beyond, bans and proposals raised against Shechita and Halal slaughter have often been driven less by genuine animal welfare concerns than by populist and xenophobic politics that exploit such issues to stigmatise minorities and faith communities. Britain, by contrast, has always taken a different path, one of tolerance, evidence, and respect. When Parliament debated this issue earlier this year, the Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs reaffirmed that Shechita remains “an important and longstanding religious freedom.” That understanding must be defended, not derided, valued, not vilified, as this self-styled “civilised” publication has chosen to do.
The piece also notes approvingly that the European Court of Human Rights upheld the Belgian ban on “non-stun slaughter” in 2024, finding it compatible with freedom of religion.” However, it omits that the court did so only because imports of kosher meat remained permitted, thereby ensuring the continued provision of kosher meat, in some way, for Jewish communities.
This is not a debate about cruelty or kindness. If it were, we’d be scrutinising the 90% of UK pigs stunned using high-concentration CO₂, a method the Government is now pushing to ban. The real welfare crisis lies in mainstream slaughter, not religious derogation of Shechita, a necessity for the Jewish community, which is a minuscule minority. Even RSPCA-assured plants have faced abuse exposes.
Instead, this debate is about scientific evidence, animal welfare, and freedom of faith in a democratic society. Shechita is a humane, scientifically validated practice, legislatively protected in the United Kingdom, to continue to provide kosher meat for the Jewish community. To caricature it as barbaric is not merely false, it is dangerous. So consume The Critic with care, their ignorance needs to be called out.
Shimon Cohen has been the Campaign Director of Shechita UK for over 25 years.