Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Kosher Food — Made in China

Woody Allen once said, “My view of reality is that it has always been a grim place to be … but it’s the only place you can get Chinese food.”

In this week’s New Yorker, writer Patricia Marx tags along with rabbis/kashrut supervisors working in China — the fastest-growing exporter of kosher goods on earth. The rabbis in Marx’s story don’t care much for Chinese food (and one of them has never even heard of Woody Allen), but they do offer a theory on the affinity that Western Jews have for Eastern dishes: “Are there any foods that Jews don’t like?”

To the backdrop of China’s thriving kosher food industry, books such as “The Jewish People’s Bible for Business and Managing the World” — yes, managing the world — and “The Jewish Way of Raising Children” were Chinese-language bestsellers last year, Marx writes.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.