Friends of Shekel Hakodesh

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Charitable company with a Salford investment property, over half of whose grants are unnamed

Friends of Shekel Hakodesh

Type Charitable company
Founded 2004-01-16 (registered)
Registration ID Registered charity 1101566; company 04700358
Headquarters 9 Fairholt Road, London, N16 5EW
Area served Throughout London, Israel, United States


Friends of Shekel Hakodesh Limited is a charitable company (04700358) incorporated on 18 March 2003 and registered on 16 January 2004; register areas are London, Israel and the United States.[1] Its objects are grants to charitable organisations and needy individuals for Orthodox Jewish religion, education and the relief of poverty in "UK and overseas". In the year to 31 March 2025 income was £710,135 (donations £680,213; investment income £29,922), expenditure £653,218 and funds £977,821 (PDF p.4, 8).[2]

Objects and activities

The charity's registered objects read: "(I) THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE ORTHODOX JEWISH FAITH(II) THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE ORTHODOX JEWISH RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND(III) THE RELIEF OF THE POOR, FEEBLE AND INFIRM AMONGST MEMBERS OF THE JEWISH FAITH"[1]

The register describes its activities as: "advancement of the orthodox Jewish faith, orthodox Jewish religious education, and the relief of poverty in the orthodox Jewish community"[1]

Register classifications: Education/training, The Prevention Or Relief Of Poverty, Religious Activities.[1]

Areas of operation recorded on the register: Throughout London, Israel, United States.[1]

Trustees

Current trustees, with other charities on which the same register trustee ID appears:[1]

Trustees of Friends of Shekel Hakodesh (register, October 2026)
Trustee Appointed Chair Other trusteeships
Yechiel Mechel Ciment not recorded Beis Trana School of London Limited (1135122)
Naftuli Lauber 2025-10-26 —
Jacob Josef SCHMELCZER 2026-08-26 —

Historical trustees (UK Government Web Archive)

Trustees shown in archived register pages
Capture date Trustees listed Source
2021-01-15 Sije Direnfeld; Aron Kaff; Mechel Ciment – also trustee of Beis Trana School of London Limited [3]

The 2025 accounts list N Lauber (appointed 26 October 2025), Y M Ciment, S Direnfeld (resigned 10 November 2025) and A Kaff (resigned 26 October 2025).[2] Companies House records Jacob Josef Schmelczer as appointed on 26 August 2026 and Naftuli Lauber, Sije Direnfeld and Aron Kaff as resident in the United States.[4]

Companies House officers

Companies House lists 10 current and former officers of the charitable company (04700358), 4 of them active.[5] Officers recorded as resident outside the UK: Naftuli Lauber (United States, active); Zvi Hershel Breier (United States, resigned); Zvi Hershel Breier (Usa, resigned); Sije Direnfeld (United States, resigned); Aron Kaff (United States, resigned).[5]

Finances

Income and expenditure, five most recent reported years
Financial year end Income Expenditure
2021-03-31 £666,762 £550,176
2022-03-31 £386,333 £354,366
2023-03-31 £621,987 £553,336
2024-03-31 £826,119 £710,396
2025-03-31 £710,135 £653,218

Source: register annual-return history.[1]

Archived accounts

Accounts no longer on the live register were found in the UK Government Web Archive:

  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2014[6]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2015[7]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2016[8]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2017[9]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2018[10]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2019[11]

Funding in Israel

  • FY2025 grants £555,488: Higher Talmudical Education Limited £87,970; Meorai Tshernobil £54,195; Global Center of Skver £47,409; Kupa Tzduke Beis Shemeh £34,941; Beis Trana School of London Limited £33,315; Other £297,658 (PDF p.14).[2]

Israeli partners

Not identified beyond recipient names; "Beis Shemeh" appears in one recipient's name.[2]

Activity beyond the Green Line and support for the IDF

Findings are graded by confidence. "Partner" findings concern the Israeli recipient organisation, not proven use of UK funds.

Evidence of activity beyond the 1949 armistice line
Finding Confidence
No recipient location is stated.[2] Not established

Support for the IDF: No IDF or military funding is stated.[2]

Controversies and regulatory action

  • No Charity Commission inquiry, Official Warning or Gazette insolvency notice naming this charity was found, and its register entry shows no regulatory alert;[12] it is not among the charities named in the Commission's cheque-cashing class-inquiry announcements (May, September and December 2025) or in the September 2026 statement of results.[13][14][15][16] The charities in the Commission's settlements class inquiry (opened August 2026) have not been named, so it is not known whether this charity is among them.[17]
  • Unnamed grants. Of grants of £555,488, £297,658 (54%) is shown only as "Other" (PDF p.14).[2]
  • Unexplained debtors. Other debtors of £290,523 are not explained (PDF p.16–17).[2]
  • Trustee lists differ. The trustees named in the accounts do not match the register (see Trustees).[2][1]

Other registers and records

Scotland and Northern Ireland

No entry was found on the Scottish Charity Register for this charity (full register download of 14 October 2026 searched by name).[18] No entry was found on the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland register (API name searches returned zero results).[19]

The Gazette

Searches of The Gazette notice feeds (all notices, insolvency and company) for the charity's name found no insolvency, winding-up or strike-off notice; results were limited to Companies House filing lists.[20]

Grants recorded by 360Giving

No grants received or made by this charity are recorded in 360Giving data.[21]

Sanctions screening

The charity's name, its current register trustees, trustees named on archived register pages, trustees and officers named in the accounts read for this profile and (for charitable companies) its Companies House officers were screened against the UK Sanctions List and the OFSI Consolidated List. No match was found. Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor (UK sanctions ID RUS1127) does not appear among this charity's trustees or officers.[22]

Land and property

The register records that the charity owns and/or leases land or property.[1] No title registers were purchased; the HM Land Registry interactive search blocked automated access.[23] Candidate titles and addresses (CCOD dataset and register/accounts data):[24]

  • 346 Great Clowes Street, Salford M7 2FT (title LA8095, freehold, price paid £300,000, proprietor added 8 September 2016) – CCOD match on company number 04700358 (proprietor FRIENDS OF SHEKEL HAKODESH LIMITED); the accounts show investment property of £728,045 whose address is not stated (PDF p.16) (source: [24])

Parliament

Hansard searches for 'Friends of Shekel Hakodesh', 'Shekel Hakodesh' returned 0 contributions in total.[25]

Web archive

The UK Government Web Archive holds 2 archived Charity Commission register pages used in this profile (cited in the sections above). The 2021 archived full print showed the status "Charity reporting is up to date" and "Other regulators: No information available".[3]

See also

External links

  • No current official website.

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Charity Commission for England and Wales, Register of Charities public extract (tables charity, charity_trustee, charity_annual_return_history, charity_area_of_operation, charity_classification), extract dated 14 October 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Charity Commission, Friends of Shekel Hakodesh (1101566): accounts and annual returns Register of Charities; latest accounts downloaded 14 October 2026 ("PDF p." = page of the PDF file).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Register entry 1101566, full print (capture of 20210115) UK Government Web Archive.
  4. ↑ Companies House, Company 04700358 (Friends of Shekel Hakodesh Limited): officers Find and update company information, viewed 14 October 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Company 04700358: officers Companies House, viewed 14 October 2026.
  6. ↑ Friends of Shekel Hakodesh accounts, year ended 2014-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200104).
  7. ↑ Friends of Shekel Hakodesh accounts, year ended 2015-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200104).
  8. ↑ Friends of Shekel Hakodesh accounts, year ended 2016-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200104).
  9. ↑ Friends of Shekel Hakodesh accounts, year ended 2017-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200104).
  10. ↑ Friends of Shekel Hakodesh accounts, year ended 2018-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200104).
  11. ↑ Friends of Shekel Hakodesh accounts, year ended 2019-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200702).
  12. ↑ Charity Commission, Register of Charities, charity overview page (register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/ followed by the organisation number) for every charity in batches 1–7 (175 pages, all retrieved successfully on 15 October 2026) and checked for a "Regulatory alerts" section. Alerts appeared only for Mifal Hachesed Vehatzedokoh (1139320), Ezer Viznitz Foundation (1161881), BC Trust (1155555), Vyoel Moshe Charitable Trust (327054) – all named in the cheque-cashing class inquiry – and The Gevurath Ari Torah Academy Trust (1003102).
  13. ↑ Charity Commission, Serious concerns over use of £22 million triggers investigation by charity regulator GOV.UK, 14 May 2025.
  14. ↑ Charity Commission, Regulator opens next phase of investigation into 105 charities connected to company cashing cheques GOV.UK, 1 September 2025 (re-fetched 14 October 2026).
  15. ↑ Charity Commission, Regulator announces next charities to be investigated as part of inquiry connected to company cashing cheques GOV.UK, 4 December 2025.
  16. ↑ Charity Commission, Regulator concludes investigation into 4 charities as class inquiry continues GOV.UK, 9 September 2026, with Statement of the results of a class inquiry (same date), both retrieved 15 October 2026.
  17. ↑ Charity Commission, Charity regulator opens inquiry into charities working in illegal Israeli settlements GOV.UK, 5 August 2026, retrieved 15 October 2026 (a fact-finding statutory class inquiry initially involving 8 charities which "are not being publicly named at this time").
  18. ↑ Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, Scottish Charity Register download OSCR, CharityExport-14-Oct-2026.csv, downloaded 14 October 2026; keyword search of charity names for the batch-6 charities found no matching Scottish registration.
  19. ↑ Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, Register of charities search API CCNI, searched 14 October 2026 (keyword searches for each batch-6 charity name returned zero results).
  20. ↑ The Gazette: notices matching 'Shekel Hakodesh' The Gazette, searched 14 October 2026.
  21. ↑ 360Giving API: grants received by GB-CHC-1101566 360Giving, queried 14 October 2026.
  22. ↑ Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UK Sanctions List (CSV); Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets (ConList.csv). Batch-6 screening covered 429 name strings: the 25 charity names, current register trustees, trustees named on archived register pages and archived full-print register pages (UK Government Web Archive), Companies House officers of the charitable companies, and trustees, officers and related persons named in the accounts read for this batch (including archived accounts); matching on surname plus forename tokens, reviewed manually (all candidate hits were surname-only coincidences or generic word overlaps); lists downloaded October 2026.
  23. ↑ HM Land Registry, Search for land and property information GOV.UK – the service returned HTTP 403 (bot protection) to automated access on 14 October 2026; no titles were looked up or purchased. Candidate title numbers below come from the free CCOD / OCOD datasets (October 2026 release), not from paid title registers.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 HM Land Registry, UK companies that own property in England and Wales (CCOD) full extract, October 2026 release, matched on charitable company numbers and registered names; title numbers listed are candidates only – no title registers were purchased.
  25. ↑ UK Parliament, Hansard search API: contributions matching 'Shekel Hakodesh' Hansard, queried 14 October 2026 (Spoken and Written endpoints).
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