Rabbi Philip Gibbs became the rabbi of Har El, a Conservative synagogue in West Vancouver, after graduating from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2017. He studied kosher slaughter for birds with Rabbi Shlomo Zacharow in 2014 out of the desire to understand the spiritual weight of eating meat in the Jewish tradition. In 2023 he began studying with Rabbi Zacaharow again to complete the certification for the kosher slaughter of mammals, completing the certification in 2026.