Pro-British Unionist demonstrators in Belfast protesting the Northern Ireland Protocol affecting trade with the UK. Photo: Jason Cairnduff/Reuters.

British Jewish leaders warned on Tuesday that the very survival of the 150-year-old Jewish community in Belfast was under threat, citing new trading rules related to the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU that could sever the supply of kosher food from mainland Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

A delegation including UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and Michael Black, the head of the Jewish community in Belfast, met in London with the British government’s Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis to press the case.

A statement from the Board of Deputies of British Jews following the meeting noted that while the flow of kosher food had been maintained under the interim trade arrangements made between Britain and the EU after Brexit, a new arrangement to be introduced in September threatens the supply chain.

Known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, its implementation means that a range of goods destined for Northern Ireland from the mainland will be subjected to inspections in the UK itself. The purpose of the new arrangement is to preserve the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which brought the war in Northern Ireland between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British forces to an end — and which seeks to avoid a “hard,” physical border between the six counties of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to the south.

British Jews fear that under the new arrangement, the transportation of kosher food and other Jewish items to Northern Ireland will be prevented. Under EU food safety rules, chilled meat products are not allowed to enter the EU’s single market from non-member countries such as the UK.

“Once kosher food and religious artifacts cannot be supplied, the community is likely to collapse,” the Board of Deputies statement asserted.

Following the meeting with the Northern Ireland Secretary, Chief Rabbi Mirvis tweeted his gratitude for the commitment undertaken “to urgently work with EU counterparts to resolve Protocol challenges preventing the precious Northern Irish Jewish community from accessing kosher food provision.”

The Protocol has been heavily criticized by the pro-British Unionist political parties in Northern Ireland, who complain that the desire to avoid a physical border in Ireland has created another border between two sovereign parts of the UK in the middle of the Irish Sea.

Ironically, concerns about the supply of kosher food on Tuesday came after debate last week over a distinctly non-kosher item — pork sausages — that is a staple of local cuisine. Under the same EU food safety rules impacting kosher products, the transportation of chilled non-kosher meats from the UK to Northern Ireland will also be halted from September.