I thought that Jordan Rosenblum gave a great discussion on the role (or lack thereof) of pork in Jewish culture and identity. The lecture started by discussing Senator George Allen’s controversial and idiotic statement that “my mother made great pork chops,” which was supposed to somehow nullify his jewish roots, but ended up being somewhat of a suicidal political move. From there the talk turned to other examples of pork in history, from Leviticus to Shakespeare.
One pork example that I found to be fascinating was “The Terefah Banquet” menu for (conservative I believe?) rabbi’s being ordained in 1883. The menu included every conceivable form of treif, barring pork. I couldn’t believe that the rabbi’s would go out of their way to indulge in clams, soft-shell crabs and sweet breads. However, these rabbi’s still did not eat pork. This shows the forbidden status of it in Jewish culture: though this particular group of rabbi’s was making an effort to show that kashrut was old-fashioned, swine was still taboo.
Having his talk center on this topic was a great idea, since probably just about all Jews know about the concept of pork being forbidden. Mr. Roseblum appeared very comfortable speaking to our class and was very knowledgable on the information.
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Just to let you know Jews were the center of Eastern European culture before the Holocaust.
Bagels come from a city in Poland that was populated by a Jewish majority. (I'm pretty sure the name of the town was Bialy, or something like that; like the bialy bagel type thing we still eat.)
After the Holocaust, Jews that immigrated to New York brought the concept of the bagel with them; and hence it has become a culturally Jewish food.
actually- it was when jews started immigrating to America in the late 1800s. but still....
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