"I was always so impressed by my shver’s tremendous ahavas Yisrael — the time, money, and energy he gave to people"

Took over: Badatz Igud Rabbonim (BIR) kosher certification in Manchester, England

Position: Rav hamachshir

Succeeded: Father-in-law, Dayan Osher Yaakov Westheim

Year: 2020

Before I took over

My father-in-law’s hechsher had a unique aim: to provide mehadrin foods for bnei Torah so their families could have all products, including candies, at a high kashrus standard without high pricing. I did shimush under my father-in-law and went to check companies, productions, and wineries for him. During the eight-year period that my father-in-law’s hechsher supervised their own shechitah, I was the rav hamachshir. When we closed that shechitah, I was asked to do shechitah for other hechsherim in the United Kingdom. A year or two before his petirah last April, my father-in-law had pneumonia, and he told those close to him that he wanted me to take over BIR so what he had built up over decades would continue for the benefit of the tzibbur bnei Torah and not go down the drain.

The biggest challenge I faced right away

COVID. My shver passed away from COVID in April 2020. In March, when it was already clear that borders were closing, he held meetings and made it clear that he wasn’t satisfied with relying on Zoom for supervision. This made things very challenging from the start — and that was before we knew how long borders would be shut. We needed to find mashgichim who could travel from A to B, get them the right permits, and send them to factories. The Israeli factories were easiest, and we sent US-based mashgichim to Mexico, but it was challenging to find people with permission to travel to the Far East and elsewhere, and travel to and from the UK was restricted. On one occasion, I had a permit and a special invitation from a company in Spain, but I was sent back as I don’t have Spanish citizenship or a passport. Baruch Hashem, we managed, and things are much easier now, although not completely free of red tape because travel isn’t yet back to normal.

My first big decision

I try to visit all the factories that manufacture for our hechsher myself. At one of them, I saw that over time, things had changed slightly, so I met with the owners and told them a few things in the koshering process needed to be modified to meet our stringent standards. They were worried about the heat damaging the machinery and immediately said they couldn’t do it. I told them this was non-negotiable at our end and had the mashgiach show them a video of how we did this in other factories and had no problems, and we left it at that. I knew they could work with other hechsherim if they so desired with the way they were kashering at present, but as it didn’t meet our mehadrin standards, we were not prepared to leave it as it was. The buyer, of course, was disappointed. Baruch Hashem, three months later, the factory decided to upgrade the process and stay with us.