Jordan Rosenblum

Personally, I found Rosenblum's lecture to be very interesting and relevant in the way people look at Judaism today. The fact is keeping kosher and not eating pigs is one of the first things that comes to people's minds when they think of Jews. It's interesting to think that our eating habits are such a small portion of our identity yet so prominent in people's minds when considering Judaism. One of the reasons I think people refer to the fact that Jews have somewhat strict eating rules is because eating is such a social event, and when it can be limited because of someone's religion, people notice that. I was particularly reminded of this when reading the quote Rosenblum picked out from Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" when Shylock lists an abundance of things he will do with Bassanio (pretty much anything, in fact) except eat. But, since eating takes up so much time and so many things can be accomplished while eating (meetings, socializing, etc.) it was significant.
In my opinion, this topic is one that I would be interested to hear more about because it was though provoking and also has an effect on many people on such a day to day basis.