«
»

Chinese Takeout in the New Yorker

by · January 6th, 2009
Eco-Kashrut, Food Safety, Kosher, Rant!

Last week the New Yorker published a longish piece (registration required) about Orthodox rabbis who criss-cross China certifying that various food manufacturing companies are adhering by all the rules of kashrut. It’s a fascinating little piece about what it really means to be a mashgiach, or a person who checks that food is kosher. Here’s a part that caught my eye:

How does the process of kosher certification inspection work? Here’s a composite scenario, as I witnessed it.
The Schmooze: This takes place in the conference room, which is perhaps adorned with a wood-and-brass captain’s wheel from a ship. On the wall, there might be a framed certificate for “High Tech Enterprise 2006″ or a large painted sign with an adage in English. “Only Faulty Product, No Captious Customer” and “People and Products Working Together” were two that I saw. Among those in attendance could be a plant supervisor, an engineer, an export manager, a sales representative, and a factory-hired translator. There is always a lot of chuckling–about what, I don’t think anyone present ever has a clue. Finally, the mashgiach turns on his laptop, signaling that it is time for…
The Review of the Raw Materials… More

(Emphasis mine.)

What struck me is this whole issue of everyone laughing for no reason, a point that is picked up again later in the article. To me, that’s a little microcosm of everything that’s going on in the kashrut industry. Everyone is smiling and chuckling and looking jolly and pious, but no one really knows what’s happening.

A product gets an OU on it when the company that makesmile_like_a_fool.jpgs it pays a significant amount of money to have a rabbi (like the ones in this article), come and inspect the facilities that produce the food. That means that the only person who really knows what goes into our food is these mashgichim. But we all sit around patting each other and ourselves on the back for being so pious, even though the food we eat has been produced and processed thousands of miles away. We’re paying someone else to be responsible for us.

This is not a bad idea in principal, but I think it has led too many of us in the Jewish community to assume that there’s something safer or better about kosher, or even that certified kosher food really is kosher. It might not be.

Bottom line: we are all responsible for being our own mashgichim. We need to be way more aware of where our food is coming from and what goes in it. From a kashrut perspective, but also from a health and ecological perspective. When it’s time to check if something is legit or not, we shouldn’t be grinning like fools–we should get down to business.

Print This Post Print This Post

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Chinese Takeout in the New Yorker”

  1. Yael Says:
    January 7th, 2009 at 3:27 pm

    Dear Tamar,
    I read your post with great interest because my father in law is very involved with South African Kashrut and often travels to the China and dozens of other locations. I couldn’t read the entire New Yorker article but from what I understood from your post you are disturbed most by the fact that at the meetings there is a lot of laughing. You seem to imply that the mashgichim really aren’t doing their job, are out for the money and aren’t being responsible about food. I see the issue from a personal perspective rather differently.

    It’s not easy to travel away from home and family on long flights in foreign countries. I see that it takes a toll on my father in law. Maybe the first time he went to Singapore it was exciting but now it has lost its glitter and its hard work. Despite what the article implies the pay is not excellent, I doubt the figures quoted go directly to the mashgiach, they are probably to the kashrut granting organization.

    Why does my father in law do it? Because it is really important to him that Jews in South Africa can keep kosher easily. I see the passion he has for it, how he researches a species of fish he believes to be kosher in opposition to other rabbis. He is willing to travel to Zimbabwe and towns with tiny Jewish communities in South Africa to make sure they have kosher meat, that he’s shechted with his own hands. Whenever I have a question about a hashgacha I can call him and he knows the person behind the hashgacha. There are many honest, caring, ethical people behind those symbols.

    I understand that for a locavore the idea of eating food from China is close to sin. I can’t speak for all the mashgichim in the world, only one but I know that he is responsible, ethical, extremely serious and professional. The sentence “Everyone is smiling and chuckling and looking jolly and pious, but no one really knows what’s happening.” is the exact opposite of who I know him to be.

    kol tuv
    Yael Maizels

  2. Tamar Fox Says:
    January 7th, 2009 at 3:35 pm

    Hi Yael,

    Maybe I wasn’t as clear as I could have been. I didn’t meant to imply that the people supervising the hashgachot are untrustworthy, or that they don’t deserve to do any laughing. WHat stood out for me in the piece was how often everyone involved seemed to surrender to the idea of “we’re not really sure what’s going on here but we’ll just smile and move on.” In some social situations of course it’s necessary to respond like this, and I imagine that it’s necessary for the mashgichim to get their jobs done, but to me it speaks to a larger problem of us really not knowing what goes into our food. I don’t think being a locavore is the right choice for everyone (I certainly can’t say that I am one) but I think the ideas behind kashrut demand that we be more involved in our own food lives than most of us are.

    The article depicts the two mashgichim as good guys, and I believe that many people working in the kashrut industry are. But I still think that there’s a lot of blind trust and smiling like fools, too. And I don’t think that’s a good thing.

    Best,
    Tamar

  3. Jo Says:
    January 7th, 2009 at 5:45 pm

    This doesn’t address Tamar’s point, but the article reminded me of a lecture by Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, who served for a time as the chief rabbi of Japan in the 1970′s or so. Rabbi Tokayer was once visited in Tokyo by several Japanese representatives of the Ito Ham Company. The rabbi had no idea why these men would wish to see him, but he politely invited them in to talk. The gentlemen explained that their firm produced the highest quality pork products in Japan. Their firm had an excellent reputation, and was well run. Rabbi Tokayer, still puzzled, nodded and said that he was delighted to hear this.

    The gentlemen then said that they understood that kosher meant that a food was pure, clean, of the highest quality. Rabbi Tokayer, figuring that it would be simpler to use this gist of an explanation rather than go into the whole megillah, agreed.

    Not surprisingly, the gentlemen then asked “Rabbi, we would like to have you declare our ham kosher.”

  4. jjj kkk Says:
    January 11th, 2009 at 8:32 pm

    With any food manufactured out of one’s control there is a chance that it is indeed not

    kosher.

    Indeed there have been many scandles w respect to k. especially meat.

    Meat is vulnerable because of the high cost of K. meat compared to non k. look alikes

    which are much cheaper.

    If the purpose of certification is to reduce the chance (probability) of consuming

    something that is not kosher, than might it not be true that a non-certified vegan product

    has a lower chance (probability) of being not kosher than a certified kosher product?

    Convince me that eating meat or in a kosher restauraunt is more kosher than eating a vegan

    product (manufactured at a facility of sufficient size & prominence that it is very very

    likely to have been cleaned and the equipment sterilized prior to use for the vegan

    product)

  5. Chris_B Says:
    January 14th, 2009 at 1:48 am

    Tamar,

    “I didn’t meant to imply that the people supervising the hashgachot are untrustworthy” – but thats exactly what you did in the header to this post.

    I’m personally alot more inclined to call out any chuckling due to attempts to ease any potential social friction. The perception of conflict free or friendly relations in business is very important in almost all of Asia.

    You followup with “or even that certified kosher food really is kosher. It might not be.” So the point of this post was what? To show us an article or to get all snarky about the hashgachots who deal with things I’ve bet you’ve never dealt with in your life.

    Of course I assume a great deal there, but I’m unable to find any evidence that you’ve had to deal with extensive business travel in Asia or kashruth inspections personally. Besides being a skeptical individual, why should I take your sly accusations seriously?

    @3 Jo,

    Funny story but sounds apocryphal. Minor point, dont think weve ever had a “chief rabbi” here in Japan, heck at any one time we’d be lucky to have even a handfull of rabbis in the whole country. I wasnt part of the community here during his time but I hear he was a great guy.

Leave a Reply



Advertise on The Jew & The Carrot