Rabbi Gershom Baraza; Kosher Check’s Man in China
WRITTEN BY DAVID LITVAK, CASCADIA PUBLISHING
Pesach 2024 Issue of Kosher Check
Kosher Check, a renowned kashrut organization with a global presence, takes great pride in its dedicated team of mashgichim who inspect factories across various countries. Among these exceptional individuals, one of our new representatives stands out: Rabbi Gershom Baraza. Hailing from Barcelona, Spain, and raised in the beautiful Canary Islands, Gershom resides in Hong Kong with his wife and 4 young kids, where he serves as a mashgiach for Kosher Check, ensuring a strong kosher presence in Asia despite the unique challenges it presents.
Gershom loves learning and is on the cusp of receiving his semicha from a widely acclaimed program, where he had the privilege of having the esteemed Rabbi Dovid Schochet z’l as one of his mashmichim. Gershom describes himself as “passionate about kashrut,” and his role as a mashgiach has allowed him to delve into the intricate details of halachot at a profound level.
Before joining Kosher Check, as a part-time hobby to gain practical insights into the industrial application of kashrut laws, Gershom acquired a wealth of experience through various professional endeavors. He worked for a renowned American company in the food and beverage industry in the APAC region, served as a digital marketing and commerce specialist at Amazon, and was involved in the diamond industry in Hong Kong. Gershom believes that his prior skills and experiences, particularly his understanding of Chinese culture and business practices, immensely contribute to his success in kosher supervision.
He explains, “My previous skills and experience with Chinese people are useful for kosher supervision because it helps me understand the business mindset of our Chinese clients. This allows me to conduct thorough inspections and ensure that factories adhere to our kosher standards, ultimately granting them kosher certification.”
One of Gershom’s great assets in his role as a mashgiach in Greater China, is his proficiency in Mandarin and Cantonese. His linguistic abilities, understanding of the local culture, and past business acumen have proven invaluable during his travels to far-flung factories across the Far East. He has inspected companies that produce a variety of products including a mushroom extract, tomato paste, honey, stevia, vegetable extracts, industrial food additives and many more.
China’s vast landscape presents unique challenges for kosher supervision. Gershom recounts the arduous journey he undertook to inspect a tomato paste factory located in a heavily populated Muslim region bordering Mongolia. It took nearly two full days to get to the factory, one full day getting to the capital of the province and the second day to get to the factory itself. On that trip, he experienced travelling through the desert in scorching temperatures and on that very same trip, experienced mountain landscapes with snow and freezing temperatures. Such is the vastness of the landscape of Mainland China and since most of the factories in China are in the middle of nowhere in the countryside, getting to them to perform kosher inspections is one of the biggest challenges.
Despite the long and demanding trip, including rigorous security checks over two days, Gershom found the company to be highly motivated to comply with Kosher Check’s requirements. The product that the factory produces is a simple tomato paste for industrial purposes which is sold to Western food makers. Gershom recalls that they “were very eager to comply to Kosher Check’s requirements” because they felt that having the kosher certification “would make them stand out from their competitors.” Gershom also emphasizes that, in a post-COVID world, Chinese companies have been increasingly willing and eager to do business while being accommodating in adhering to kosher standards.
One of the challenges on these long trips other than the long distances is keeping kosher. In fact, on the trip to the tomato paste company he had to bring his own electric cooker as there was no Chabad House in a 2,000-mile radius. In addition, he notes that all over China he had to be mindful of kashrut even when it came to simple items that may not require Hashgacha like vegetables and nuts. In one remote place in China He found out that condensed milk was added to a simple nut product that other visiting Jews were fond of. “This shows that in China even the most basic product like nuts can potentially be a problem so things that would not normally be a problem in Canada or the U.S. could be a problem in China.”
“In China “, he adds, “it is really hard to keep kosher and we have to be very vigilant in checking every detail when enforcing kashrut,” Gershom notes. However, while he was able to overcome the challenges of keeping kosher on his long trips to factories in Mainland China, Gershom notes that keeping kosher in Hong Kong, his current residence is comparatively easier. He highlights the presence of two kosher restaurants, two Chabad houses, and a wide range of kosher-certified products in local supermarkets, making it more accessible for those who wish to maintain a kosher lifestyle. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that ensuring high kosher standards in Hong Kong can be challenging due to its relatively small Jewish community. Living as a Jew in China and Hong Kong, Gershom attests to the safety and protection offered by these regions. While he acknowledges a minimal presence of anti-Semitism on Chinese social media platforms, he confidently proclaims that China and Hong Kong are among the safest places for Jews. He also notes that there have been very few anti-Semitic incidents in China or Hong Kong and that “the Chinese government has supported the local Jewish community to ensure its safety and protection.” “I have no problem walking on the street in Hong Kong or China with a Kippah and Tzitzit,” he claims. The lack of anti-Semitism in these regions is undoubtedly a positive aspect of life there.
In addition, he believes that after COVID, “many factories are willing to expand to other markets to include kosher certification.” It makes him happy to see companies take kosher certification seriously despite the investment that they have to make, and he believes that they do it “because they appreciate the value of the certification and they realize that the certificate allows them to do business with overseas markets and reach bigger pools of customers.” He even notes that even they realize that not all haschagahs are equal and they are vigilant in ensuring that “our kosher certification has international recognition.” Ultimately, Gershom concludes, “It is rewarding to see non-Jewish people take our kosher standards seriously and that the kosher standards are met in their company.”
So Kosher Check has a great advocate in Hong Kong and China to ensure that kosher standards are met in that huge Asian market that provides kosher ingredients and food to the whole world.
Link to PDF: https://www.koshercheck.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/BCK_2024_web_0.pdf