EVERY evening around 5pm, Yisroel Dov Fagil (known to his friends as Bernie) returns, covered in blood, to his home in Golders Green in North London. As a kosher slaughterer, known in Hebrew as a shochet, Bernie has the job of ensuring that meat is killed in accordance with Jewish tradition so it can be certified as kosher. However, proposed rules put forward last month by the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) could effectively outlaw Jewish — and Muslim — methods of slaughter and destroy his way of life.

When I spoke to Bernie he had just been entertaining his family and friends, who had been staying with him for the festival of Sharuot (Pentecost). “We had around a dozen people for dinner. We ate chicken,” he told me, smiling, “I enjoyed it very much.”

Bernie, who is 64, has a silver beard and has been slaughtering animals for 43 years. Sitting in his study, away from his family, he said that there was nothing shameful about shechita. “It’s a messy business. We put on a white boilersuit, wellington boots and rubber aprons and hard helmets, so when the blood starts to fly, we’re protected.”

According to Jewish law, animals should be killed by a method called shechita, in which a smooth knife is used to slice through the arteries of the neck. Although shechita is sometimes described as ritual slaughter, there are no prayers and no ceremony. “We use a perfectly sharp, smooth blade. If you have a blunt knife the animal will feel the ripping and the roughness of the blade. One of the hardest parts of my job is to get a perfect edge on the blade and to get the cutting angle — the bevel — exactly right.”

Although I was unable to see Bernie’s blade, another shochet, who regularly flies to Amsterdam to slaughter meat for the Dutch market, showed me his collection: a 14in blade for sheep and a 17in blade for beef were each kept carefully in a cardboard box. The knives were about 2in wide. Unlike carving knives, they are squared off at the end. This is to prevent the animal from being stabbed accidentally.

The killing is certainly bloody. “The animal is restrained in a pen and then I perform the cut. The carotid artery pumps out blood at a huge rate; it’s like two huge hosepipes,” said Bernie. The Jewish community takes pride in its method of slaughter and defends it vigorously. Among Orthodox communities the job of a shochet is respected. “Killing is not seen as barbaric. It’s a sin for us to give pain.”

Jewish experts deny that the method causes pain. Cutting the carotid artery causes an immediate loss of blood. The pressure in the brain falls dramatically and the animal becomes unconscious immediately. Jews suggest that if an animal is going to be killed, shechita is the best way. However, this method of slaughter, which is used by Muslims as well as Jews, could be stopped by a report by FAWC, which advises the Government on animal welfare. The report recommends that all animals be stunned by electric shock or by a bolt fired at the head, before any cut is made. Muslim and Jewish authorities say this is against their religion and would effectively prevent them from eating meat.

Michael Kestrel, executive director of the National Council of Shechita Boards, regards this as an attack on Jewish life: “This is the only way we have of slaughtering meat for consumption.” He said eating meat is a customary part of Jewish festivals. “My view is that some of the people making these recommendations are genuine animal lovers. Others are anti-Semites.” Leading members of the Jewish community were so upset by the proposals that a delegation led by the normally conciliatory Board of Deputies walked out of a meeting with FAWC officials.

Muslim authorities were just as angry. Dr Abdul Majid Katme is a spokesman on halal meat for the Muslim Council of Britain. “Observant Muslims will not accept this,” he said, “Stunning is wrong. It hurts the animal and makes the blood ooze into the meat. It makes the animal haram (forbidden to eat)”.

There is also a dispute about labelling. Because there are special problems with preparing meat from the hindquarters (legs of lamb, rump steaks etc) for the kosher market, the hindquarters are usually sold to non-kosher butchers. The FAWC would like this meat to be labelled as having been killed by the Jewish religious method of slaughter.

However, Jews believe that this proposal is nothing less than persecution. Kestrel explains: “If non-kosher butchers had to label meat killed in this way, it would be virtually unsaleable and the price of kosher meat would have to rocket to cover the cost. Meat killed for the non-Jewish market doesn’t need a label saying ‘Killed by a captive bolt pistol’ or ‘Gassed to death with CO2’.”

Professor Geoffrey Alderman, an historian and political director of the Campaign for the Protection of Shechita, believes that the Government is unlikely to follow the advice of FAWC. “The Government would outrage the Jewish and Muslim communities by adopting this stupid recommendation. I’d be surprised if it ever becomes law.”

Indeed, there are signs that the Government is backing down. In May Elliot Morley, Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, wrote a letter to The Times attempting to distance his department from the FAWC, emphasising that the views of Jews and Muslim communities would be taken into account. In March an early day motion, was put forward by David Lidington, the Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary with support from MPs on both sides of the House, accusing the FAWC of trying to impose “unacceptable restrictions on religious freedom”.

In political terms this is likely to be a clash of the titans. The religious rights lobby is pitted against the animal rights lobby. And in the middle is the Government wondering how to avoid giving offence.