Something’s Not Kosher: Kosher Controversies Through the Ages

From the ancient to the modern world, perhaps the most debated category of Jewish practice relates to what food is – and is not – kosher. This talk surveys some of these controversies, which often feature heated debate that reverberate for centuries, and even millennia. Topics include: the biblical history of hamantaschen; how cooking fowl in milk became prohibited; why some American Reform Jews refused to eat pork, but ate oysters; the Kosher Meat Riots of 1902; and the recent controversy over the kosher status of the Roman Jewish dish known as the “Jewish Artichoke” (carciofi alla giudia).

Jordan D. Rosenblum is the Belzer Professor of Classical Judaism and the Max and Frieda Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Rabbinic Drinking: What Beverages Teach Us about Rabbinic Literature; The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World; and Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism; and has co-edited 4 books, including: Feasting and Fasting: The History and Ethics of Jewish Food; and Animals and the Law in Antiquity.

Sunday, 7 November, 8 pm Israel / 6 pm UK / 1 pm EST

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Something’s Not Kosher: Kosher Controversies Through the Ages

From the ancient to the modern world, perhaps the most debated category of Jewish practice relates to what food is – and is not – kosher. This talk surveys some of these controversies, which often feature heated debate that reverberate for centuries, and even millennia. Topics include: the biblical history of hamantaschen; how cooking fowl in milk became prohibited; why some American Reform Jews refused to eat pork, but ate oysters; the Kosher Meat Riots of 1902; and the recent controversy over the kosher status of the Roman Jewish dish known as the “Jewish Artichoke” (carciofi alla giudia).

Jordan D. Rosenblum is the Belzer Professor of Classical Judaism and the Max and Frieda Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Rabbinic Drinking: What Beverages Teach Us about Rabbinic Literature; The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World; and Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism; and has co-edited 4 books, including: Feasting and Fasting: The History and Ethics of Jewish Food; and Animals and the Law in Antiquity.

Sunday, 7 November, 8 pm Israel / 6 pm UK / 1 pm EST

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