Kosher Food and Drink in History: Law and Reality

An online course in Basic Jewish Studies

The course:

The rabbinic laws of kosher food and drink, anchored in the Bible and developed in the Talmud, were a central aspect of Jewish life and identity throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. This course will examine some of the discussions that arose through history, as Jews encountered economic, social, legal and zoological realities that challenged their commitment to and understanding of those laws.

This course has three goals:

1. To fulfill the requirement to study Talmud as part of Basic Jewish Studies courses.

2. To illustrate the workings and historical complexity of Jewish law (Halakhah) through the theme of food.

3. To provide students with a basic understanding of Jewish food laws, thus creating educated consumers in the contemporary food industry.

No prior knowledge of Jewish law or texts is required for the course. All of the texts discussed in the course will be provided in English translation.

Schedule:

Every week, on Wednesday, I will post a lesson on the Moodle website.

http://lemida.biu.ac.il/

I expect students to devote at least half an hour each week to carefully reading the lesson (with hyperlinks). Once each semester, there will be an assignment which must be sent in to me for grading. The first assignment is due on Friday, 30 December 2016.

Once each semester, the class will have a real honest-to-goodness meeting in an actual classroom. The dates for these meetings are:

First semester – Wednesday, 21 December 2016, at 4pm

Second semester – Wednesday, 17 May 2017, at 4pm

The location of these meetings will be provided at a later date.

Grade:

The final examination will consist of multiple-choice questions, drawn from a list of questions to be distributed towards the end of the second semester. Your final grade will consist of your exam grade plus the average from your four assignments over the course of the year.

Instructor:

My name is Pinchas Roth, and I teach in the Talmud department at Bar Ilan University. I am available for meetings on Tuesdays at 2-3pm, and I try to be as responsive as possible by email, at . Please never hesitate to contact with any questions about the course.

Syllabus:

1. Introduction – Rabbinic law and food

2. Meat as a marker of Jewish identity in the ancient world

Jordan Rosenblum, ‘Why do you refuse to eat pork? Jews, food and identity in Roman Palestine’, Jewish Quarterly Review 100 (2010):95-110

3. Meat – production

Robert Bonfil, ‘Cultural and Religious Traditions in Ninth-Century French Jewry’, Binah 3 (1994):1-17

4. Waiting between meat and milk

David C. Kraemer, Jewish Eating and Identity through the Ages (London: Routledge, 2009), 87-97

5. Poultry – species

Ari Zivotofsky, ‘The Halakhic Tale of Three American Birds: Turkey, Prairie Chicken and Muscovy Duck’, Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society 46 (2003):81-103

6. Loopholes – Udders, fetuses and barnacle geese

Jacob Seide, ‘The Barnacle Goose Myth in the Hebrew Literature of the Middle Ages’, Centaurus 7 (1961): 207-212

7. Fish - species

Ari Zivotofsky, ‘The Turning of the Tide: The Kashrut Tale of the Swordfish’, BDD 19 (2008): 5-53

8. Fish – cooking

Fred Rosner, ‘Eating Fish and Meat Together: Is There a Danger?’, Tradition 35 (2001):36-44

9. Milk and butter

J. David Bleich, ‘Is the Milk We Drink Kosher?’, Tradition 41 (2008):55-70

10. Cheese

M. A. Cook, ‘Magian Cheese: An Archaic Problem in Islamic Law’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 47 (1984):467-499

11. Breast milk

Elisheva Baumgarten, Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), chapter 4

12. Bread - Gentiles

David Freidenreich, ‘Contextualizing Bread: An Analysis of Talmudic Discourse in Light of Christian and Islamic Counterparts’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80 (2012):411-433

13. Bread – “Hadash”

Alfred S. Cohen, ‘Chodosh: Is it Applicable in America?’, Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society 2 (1982):54-71

14. Tithes

Lawrence Schiffman, “Priestly and Levitical Gifts in theTemple Scroll,”The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues, ed. D.W. Parry, E. Ulrich (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 30; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 480-496.

15. Fruits and vegetables - bugs

Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, ‘Better a Meal of Vegetables with Love: The Symbolic Meaning of Vegetables in Rabbinic and Post-Rabbinic Midrash on Proverbs 15.17’, Jewish Quarterly Review 104 (2014):46-56

16. Wine – production

Haym Soloveitchik, Collected Essays, volume 1 (Oxford: Littman Library, 2013), 169-223

17. Wine – domestic consumption

Soloveitchik, Collected Essays – continuation of previous item

18. Wine – commerce

Soloveitchik, Collected Essays, 224-236

19. Passover – ceremonial foods

Susan Weingarten, ‘"In thy blood, live!":"ḥaroset" and the blood libels’, Revue des Etudes Juives172 (2013): 83-100

20. Passover - Matzah

Jonathan Sarna, “How Matzah Became Square: Manischewitz and the Development of Machine-Made Matzah in the United States,” in Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism, ed. Rebecca Kobrin (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012), 272–292

21. Tasty beverages

Elliott Horowitz, ‘Coffee, Coffeehouses and the Nocturnal Rituals of Early Modern Jewry’, AJS Review 14 (1989):17-46

22. Water

Elisheva Baumgarten, ‘Remember that glorious girl: Jephthah’s Daughter in Medieval Jewish Culture’, Jewish Quarterly Review 97 (2007):180-209

23. Fasting

Elisheva Baumgarten, Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), chapter 2

24. Kosher food industry in the modern world

Timothy D. Lytton, Kosher: Private Regulation in the Age of Industrial Food (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 9-34