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JEREMY:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Eat This podcast with me, 
Jeremy Cherfas.

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Today, a close look at one particular aspect of Jewish dietary laws.

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Now, the thing that almost everybody knows about Jewish dietary laws 
is that pork is absolutely forbidden.

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But why? And by that I don't mean why are pigs forbidden?

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I mean, why is there such a close association between Jews and pigs?

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That's the central question of a new book from Jordan Rosenblum, 
a professor at the University of Wisconsin,

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Madison. The book is called Forbidden: 
A 3000 year History of Jews and the Pig.

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And Rosenblum's point is that if you start from the Hebrew Bible, 
There's nothing special in it that would make the pig stand

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out.

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JORDAN:
If you look at biblical texts, the same text that taboos the pig, 
taboos camels and rock badgers and hares.

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O utside of that text, where they're tabooed, 
the pig only appears five other times in the Hebrew Bible,

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but other biblically non-kosher animals that are also taboo in the 
same passages,

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like the eagle, appear several times more.

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So if all you had was the biblical text, 
you would presume that other animals are even more tabooed.

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So it doesn't stand out. And that's one of the more interesting 
things,

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is that because if you stand 3000 years later and look backwards, 
it seems inevitable.

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But if you start the timeline the other way, 
looking from the ancient world towards the future,

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what unfolds is not predictable. You wouldn't have bet on it.

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JEREMY:
So why does it unfold in that way?

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JORDAN:
Well, a series of things. So I argue that in the Second Temple period,

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you have a series of texts where, um, 
...

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JEREMY:
I think, I think we need to go back and have a quick refresher on the 
history of Judaism,

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very quickly.

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JORDAN:
Very quickly. I'd say there's the biblical period, 
which is ...

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The religion of the Bible is a sacrificial religion.

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T he ancient Israelites would go to a temple.

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Eventually it becomes only one temple, 
the temple in Jerusalem, and they would offer animal sacrifices to

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God, and by a priestly class that would offer them.

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If you live far away, you could send money or animals to the temple.

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A nd then ... I'll skip over a lot of important things.

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I'll skip. I'll just say this history to get us to the things that we 
need for pig. There's one Temple,

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gets destroyed. It gets rebuilt. Then that becomes the Second Temple 
period,

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which is 515 BCE to 70 CE; 515 BC is when that Second Temple is 
rededicated,

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70 CE is when the Romans, and that's going to be important, 
destroy the the Second Temple.

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After 70 CE there's this void, and Judaism tries to figure out what to 
do.

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A re they going to rebuild the temple?

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What are they going to do? A group rises that becomes the sort of 
dominant expression of Judaism until today,

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which is Rabbinic Judaism, that seeks to translate a temple based 
religion to a world that doesn't have a temple.

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So it replaces daily sacrifice with daily prayer, 
sacrifice with study of biblical and rabbinic texts,

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and comes up with rituals to make sense of the world in which those 
communities then live.

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JEREMY:
Okay, back to the second Temple.

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JORDAN:
Zoom back to the Second Temple period. Right. So the temple sacrifice 
is going on.

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T here's some, some text, the book of the Maccabees, 
that talks about the story behind what is the modern Jewish holiday of

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Hanukkah. And they talk about a time when foreign rulers are trying to 
express dominance over Judaism.

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And there are Jews who are forced to either eat pig or be martyred, 
or be gruesomely killed.

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And these texts, in detail, say these Jews who choose to reject eating 
pig and because they view that as

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submitting to the other, to the foreign domination and, 
as represented,

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giving up their Jewish values and Jewish practices.

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And so in these texts, pig starts to take on more weight as an 
important differentiator.

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And what this probably comes down to is the fact that, 
of the meats that are most commonly eaten,

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you think about cow, sheep, goat, pig is the most commonly eaten, 
clearly not kosher meat,

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right? And so it probably stood out that way.

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Right? Because I mentioned the eagle.

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But how common was it for people to eat eagle?

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You know, not so common. And so it seems to take on more weight in 
Jewish sources.

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In fact, if people know about Hanukkah, 
they know about the miracle of the oil.

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But that story doesn't appear until like 600 to 1000 years later.

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So , in the most early versions of the story behind Hanukkah, 
we learn more about the pig than oil.

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And so what I argue is that these texts, 
that starts to stand out more.

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And then non-Jews, you see this in Roman sources, 
for example, they start commenting on,

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hey, it's weird that Jews don't eat pig.

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And then as rabbinic sources come into the fore, 
they start commenting more on how it's important to not eat pig.

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And it starts to become more and more symbolic and talked about more 
and more,

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and then it just becomes a snowball effect.

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Both Jews and non-Jews talk about it more and more and more as 
representing Jewish identity.

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And so that's how that story explodes outward in a, 
in a completely unpredictable way,

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if you're looking at it from antiquity.

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JEREMY:
So if the Romans had been eating, eating camel, 
which a lot of people still do,

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it could have gone to the camel?

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JORDAN:
It could have. That's a whole other ...

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You know, in some, depending on your views of physics.

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Right. In some other parallel universe , 
I, I'm talking about, you know,

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Forbidden: A 3000 year History of Jews and the Camel.

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JEREMY:
So the martyrdom of the Second Temple period, 
when when Jews would rather die than eat pig

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, the rabbis kind of changed their mind on that.

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JORDAN:
Yes. So, and it's interesting because ...

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So in the book of the Maccabees are reflecting a very Greek and Roman 
notion of the idea that to

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reject eating pig is to show self-control and self-mastery, 
which the rabbis also agree with.

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But to pretend to eat pig would be to lose face and to , 
to not live

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a principled life anymore. T he rabbis, 
based on a different interpretation.

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They look at a biblical text that talks about the commandments and 
that you shall live by them.

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And they very clearly say, well, live by them means live by them and 
not die by them.

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And so they say ... Except for three exceptions, 
three exceptions.

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One is murder. So unjustified homicide.

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So someone says, I will kill you unless you kill that other person.

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They say you should let yourself be killed because who are you to 
decide,

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right? Who are you to play God ? Whose blood is redder?

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Idolatry, because for them, that is the complete opposite of 
everything.

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You're supposed to be a monotheist.

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And so to commit idolatrous acts is to violate every principle.

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And forbidden sexual relations. So for example, 
incest.

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B ut eating pig ... If someone says eat pig or die, 
it's better to live by it.

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And so they don't say, you know, so they wouldn't say go order pig 
because you're hungry.

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But if you're presented with the option that is presented in the Book 
of Maccabees,

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they have a very different take on it.

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And that comes ... that's from a different historical perspective.

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A nd that's also one of the the stories that comes out from this book,

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is you're also looking at the history of Judaism as it develops in 
different times and places,

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different legal and exegetical practices develop.

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And the pig is one way of telling that story.

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JEREMY:
The willingness to eat pig or secretly refraining from eating pig.

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I mean, that becomes quite big in in converting countries.

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Like I mean, you've got that in Spain and elsewhere, 
that people who are nominally Christian but are suspected of not

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eating pig are tested.

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JORDAN:
Yes. I mean, there's ... It's long been a theory that you go in Spain 
and you see these big pigs in the window,

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that that is a carryover of the Inquisition, 
where we have records of many people being accused of not eating pig

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and so therefore being suspect that they are secretly practicing 
Judaism.

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So what's the way to show that is, 
look, I have a huge pig in the front.

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Look. Look how Catholic I am. Right.

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And the symbolism of it, right, very clearly points to that.

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Because if someone I mean, we have texts of people saying, 
no, I eat plenty of other non-kosher foods. I just don't like pig,

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right? B ut that is seen as so symbolic that it becomes an easy way of 
letting people

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know how Catholic you are, or attempting to conceal how Jewish you 
are.

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JEREMY:
But the question of no, I don't, I just don't like pig.

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I mean that that conflicts with most people, 
who seem to think that pork is the most delicious meat.

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JORDAN:
Yes. And there are sources going back to the ancient world.

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I t's amazing how many Jewish sources I have found that talk about how 
pig is the most delicious meat.

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And you wonder is, do they have first hand knowledge or not?

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But actually that becomes part of ...

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So for Jewish sources, it becomes part of a way of saying, 
acknowledging,

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right? It's not that pig isn't delicious, 
it's that it is.

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But you're choosing to show fidelity to God by not eating it.

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And then there are other sources that ...

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Christian sources, that say it's the most delicious meat.

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What kind of a god would want you to not eat that?

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JEREMY:
Both of those seem to me to be good points.

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I mean, you know, you're sacrificing yourself, 
and God is demanding that sacrifice of you.

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S o I guess it makes sense. God demands sacrifice, 
and you make the sacrifice,

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right?

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JORDAN:
And you're right that there are both points where what is your ...

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What it often is, is working backwards, 
is, what is your final conclusion.

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And then how can you use pig to support it.

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JEREMY:
Mm. It's interesting that in the discussion of the rabbinical works, 
and you make,

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you make much of this, that they can't even bring themselves to use 
the word pig.

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That seems like kind of magical thinking of a sort.

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JORDAN:
It is. But also, you know, there's ...

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People do this with all sorts of things. You know, 
I grew up ...

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Many family members didn't want to mention the word cancer.

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Right. Because they just, just the fear of it, 
right, made them afraid to say it.

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S o it works two ways. One is it's a cultural way of expressing how 
concerned you are about a thing,

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but also the more you avoid it, right?

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I mean, this is like basic trauma therapy, 
right?

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Like, you know, the idea of exposure therapy is to ...

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If you're avoiding something, it's ... you're making it worse. But 
learning to to deal with it and grapple with it is a way of overcoming

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it. Right. So the more ... That's another argument to make is, 
the more they linguistically avoid it,

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the greater power they're giving it.

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So that's another way it feeds into it.

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So it's one thing to say, oh, the pig is disgusting.

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It's another thing to not even be willing to say, 
you know, that thing is disgusting.

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You've distanced yourself. You've made it, 
you're you're making an even bigger deal out of it.

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And then as each subsequent generation hears that it's farther and 
farther away from something that they're willing to connect to,

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right? That's pushing it more.

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JEREMY:
Did any group of Jews take to the pig in late medieval times?

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JORDAN:
Well, throughout history, one of my first points that I really try to 
make throughout this book,

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that I feel I need to constantly remind people of, 
is: we should never,

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from biblical times to today, presume that all people who identified 
as Jews did not eat the pig.

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Some did not. Some did. Some occasionally did.

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Some didn't ask questions. Right. So the first thing I'm always trying 
to undermine is this idea that that everyone throughout all time and

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space didn't. Right then, there are pockets of times where people talk 
more about actually doing that,

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but I talk about the followers of Sabbatai Zevi, 
this Messianic figure,

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in modernity, who had a series of practices where actually they were 
trying to invert rituals.

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And so they, they would eat pig on the Sabbath as part of their 
rituals,

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right, to purposely violate Judaism in a Jewish way.

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I talk about in the 20s and 30s, 1920s and 30s, 
Jewish communists in Russia trying to show ...

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Like if religion is the opiate of the masses, 
you want to show that you've thrown off your religion and you're

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Jewish. So what better way to do that than to engage in collective 
farming like a good communist of pigs?

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But the ironic thing, right, is to show how not Jewish you are, 
you've chosen something that continuously reminds everyone that you're

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Jewish. It only works, it only is a rejection, 
if everyone knows that you're Jewish and choosing to do that.

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JEREMY:
So. So there were Jews farming pigs in the Soviet Union?

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JORDAN:
Yes.

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JEREMY:
Tell me more about that.

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JORDAN:
So again, it's the idea of how do you show ...

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because Jews in particular were suspect in communism at that time.

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And so they wanted to prove how good communists they were.

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And so again, the point was, if you raise pigs, 
you've thrown off your Judaism and embraced communism as the true

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cause. But in doing so, it only, it only proves that you've thrown off 
...

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If it was someone who was a Christian or had no religion, 
right, and raised pigs,

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it's not worthy of comment. That's, 
you know, dog bites man.

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Right. But man bites dog is a Jew raising pigs.

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So the only way that that whole thing works is if ...

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It's like, if I say to you, don't think of an elephant and you have to 
go think,

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okay, I'm going to think hockey stick and your brain will say, 
is a hockey stick an elephant?

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No. Right. So but every time to make sure you're not thinking of an 
elephant,

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you have to think of an elephant. It's the same thing there .

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To make sure that they know that you're not Jews, 
pigs only work because everyone remembers.

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Oh, that's a Jew who's rejecting Judaism by raising pigs.

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JEREMY:
So he's not a Jew any more?

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JORDAN:
But yet he is. Because you ... Because every time that it's referenced 
to show what a good communist is,

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you have to remember that he's a Jew.

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JEREMY:
But it doesn't stop him being the victim of Stalinist pogroms.

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JORDAN:
No it doesn't. I mean, it's a complex and bitter irony there, 
but for the,

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for the purposes of my argument, that complex and bitter irony proves 
my point,

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right? Which is, using pig to reject Jewish identity, 
it is pointing back to Jewish identity.

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JEREMY:
It doesn't actually get you off the hook.

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JORDAN:
Right. And the another one of the points that I try and hammer home 
towards the end,

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right, is that people ... There's this tradition to, 
like, look down on Jews eating pigs.

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And I'm indifferent to it. I'm not advocating for Jews to eat pig or 
to not eat pig,

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but what I am advocating is for people to see that , 
constantly, we see Jews who've chosen to not eat pig and view that as

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a Jewish identity statement. And Jews who have chosen to eat pig, 
and that ends up being,

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in many complex ways, also a Jewish identity statement.

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And so to exalt or denigrate one or the other is to miss the full 
picture.

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JEREMY:
T here is a whole strand of of religious Judaism that says, 
yeah, it's okay,

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it's fine. How did that come about?

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JORDAN:
So in the, particularly in the 1800s, 
you had a ...

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It starts in Germany, of Jews who are looking at times of the rise of 
the modern nation state,

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and they're looking at questions of emancipation, 
of can a Jew be a citizen?

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Can you be a German and a Jew, Or are you always a Jew?

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And is your allegiance to a separate nation .

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And Reform Jews said, you're first a German.

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You can speak good German, not Yiddish.

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You can engage in German society and you can go to temple and you can 
be a Jew,

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just like you can be a Lutheran or a Catholic and be German.

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And so what these, these Reform Jews started to say is, 
well, let's change the way Jewish practice is,

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to make it more conform with modernity as they understood it, 
and to fit in with that.

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And one part of that was many of them rejected Jewish dietary laws, 
and they said,

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it's not rational. A nd that this is the rise of the claim ...

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For example, this is when trichinosis is discovered, 
and there's this claim, which is not historically true,

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that, oh, Jews didn't eat pig because of trichinosis.

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My point is always that you then have to assume the rest of the world 
was stupid,

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right? And also, as an anthropologist , 
Marvin Harris, has long pointed out,

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then the rule should be thou shalt not eat pork unless it's cooked 
through.

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Right. Because it's just, it's easy. Cook the, 
cook the meat more. Right. S o.

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But they said no. So that's the rational, 
that's the rational explanation for this.

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And now that you understand it, you can eat pig.

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But still many Reform Jews were uncomfortable with that.

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And so in America, for example, for a while there was, 
there were Jews who would eat oysters,

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which are also biblically forbidden, 
because if you're a sea creature,

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you have to have fins and scales. Oysters don't have fins and scales, 
therefore they're not biblically allowed. But oysters were widely

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available in America, or they were very popular.

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A nd they said, oh, well ... There's one reform rabbi who even 
referred to oysters as ocean vegetables.

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Just a vegetable. I love that quote. It's fun.

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But they didn't eat pig because there was such cultural baggage. And 
then eventually in the later 1800s,

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American Reform Judaism said, you know what?

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Even pig, we're going to eat, right?

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N ow that, if you study Reform Judaism moves on, 
has gotten more complicated.

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Some Reform Jews continue that policy.

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Some do not. But again, they're engaging with to what extent they're 
understanding Judaism,

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interacting with what they understand to be the modern world and 
modern values,

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and trying to, to, to fit in multiple allegiances in their minds.

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JEREMY:
There's another kind of strange paradox among American Jews and and 
pigs.

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I mean, Chinese food is replete with pork, 
and Chinese love pork.

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They eat lots of pork. And many Jews like Chinese food.

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And they don't see any ... Even even kosher Jews eat Chinese food.

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So, what's behind the Jewish embrace of Chinese food?

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JORDAN:
So you can still see it today. If you go to the Lower East Side.

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You go to Chinatown in New York City, 
and you look around and you'll see shops with the Chinese characters

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on the window. And then if you look, 
you'll find some older shops that have Yiddish characters on the

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windows. So first is just, if you look at immigration patterns, 
particularly in New York,

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Jewish and Chinese communities butted up against each other.

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Right. I'm relying on several other scholars who've worked on this, 
who pointed out that,

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that there are several factors at play.

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One is the historical fact of just literally being next to each other. 
Right? Like, you're not going to learn about a food if you don't

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interact with that food. Then if you look at other communities that 
near,

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there were Irish, Italian, etc. and if you think, 
there's ...

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there's cultural baggage attached to that.

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So they'll see Christian, Christian iconography, 
they'll see a crucifix,

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for example. Right. And they have a long history of that.

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But if they see a statue of the Buddha, 
right, there's not necessarily the same baggage associated with that,

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even though, there's religious symbolism and such.

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Your average Jew on the street at that moment could choose to not ask 
questions about Buddha,

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but certainly knew what the crucifix represented.

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T hen you have the fact that today people think of Chinese food as, 
not necessarily as cosmopolitan.

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Right. And because they know the difference between, 
you know, moo shu and lo mein and,

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you know, chow mein, but 100 years ago or more that that difference 
wasn't so well known.

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Right. And so someone could go into a Chinese restaurant and just 
point at something and order it.

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And if you, if you take a moment to look at most Chinese food, 
you're going to notice a few things.

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Number one, according to rabbinic law, 
you cannot mix milk and meat.

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There's no milk in most Chinese food.

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You're not going to. ... So even if you're, 
even if you don't keep kosher,

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but you grew up with that, you're not used to it.

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So number one, someone goes in is not going to have to worry about 
milk and meat. Then,

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most meat is shredded or chopped or minced in some way.

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And if you don't ask questions, right, 
if you say, I'll have some of that moo shu,

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don't tell me what meat's in it. I don't want to know if it's moo shu 
chicken, moo shu pork,

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right, moo shu tofu. Just give it to me.

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Right ? Then you can choose to be ignorant of what it is, 
right?

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It's different than ordering a pork chop where you know what it is.

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And then, frankly, the thing that I think really is important to 
remember too,

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is it kind of once someone starts to do it, 
it kind of becomes a tradition,

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right? And so if parents start to do it and they bring their kids, 
the kids just associate it with ...

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It's a thing to do. And actually, if you look at the history of 
Chinese food in America,

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as Jews start to move out of cities into suburbs, 
Chinese restaurants will often follow those patterns,

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because there are ... If you, if they were looking to venture out into 
new territory,

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if there were Jews who would move from the city, 
you're going to have a clientele to start off with who are familiar

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with food, right. And that, and so, 
if you look at the -- and there are many scholars who have done that,

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who look at the rise of Chinese food in America -- 
that's part of that story,

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too. And you can't actually tell the history of Chinese food in 
America without talking about this Jewish connection.

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JEREMY:
The other thing that's kind of vaguely familiar to me is this idea 
that Jewish soldiers,

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Jewish GIs, if they didn't want to eat pork, 
would go hungry during during the war,

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the Second World War. W as that was that something that they embraced 
or was it always a problem?

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JORDAN:
A gain, there's not a consistent picture.

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For some, they said, you know what, 
I'm fighting war, I'm, you know, fighting Nazis.

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I need to eat food so I can survive, 
and remember there's long rabbinic precedent for it.

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There's also, in modernity, lots of rabbinic precedent for, 
if you're in an army,

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violating kosher laws while you're in the army, 
because in theory, your life is in danger at any moment.

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So some just embraced it. S ome ate pork before and so just continued 
to.

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S ome avoided as much as possible. And yeah, 
some, didn't.

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And, and they would go hungry and, 
and because for them, eating pig represented such a

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violation that even though there were allowances and even those 
interpretations that we're choosing to exclude the most

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possible, they , they ... Even though there are allowances, 
they chose not to because for them it represented so much more.

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JEREMY:
Have the rabbis ... I mean, it's interesting that the rabbis can 
decide,

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for example, that oysters are an ocean vegetable.

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Have they kept up with modern trends and ...

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What are they, what do they say about Impossible Meat?

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JORDAN:
Oh, yeah. So Impossible. I'll start to say, 
by the way, the ocean vegetables of oysters was a very small minority

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opinion. It's one that I love because it's so funny.

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But there were ... But that should not be viewed as the normative 
opinion.

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JEREMY:
Point taken .

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JORDAN:
But Impossible ... So the question is Impossible Pork, 
right? So now we have ways of making completely vegetarian and vegan

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fake meat products. And if you look at rabbinic sources going back to 
the Talmud and before,

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there are clear understandings that , 
that if ...

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pork is forbidden, but something that tastes or looks like pork but 
isn't pork,

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it's totally fine. A nd then you start to have ...

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And there's over a hundred year history in America of, 
like, fake pork products.

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-- Beef fry. Bacos, et cetera -- that ended up being certified as 
kosher.

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And along comes Impossible Meats, and they were certified as kosher.

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Their Impossible Sausage, Impossible Beef, 
Impossible Hot Dogs ...

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You're going to have a whole list. And then they came out with the 
Impossible Pork,

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and it seemed just to go too far. But the machinery it's made on, 
the ingredients,

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et cetera. are all the same that continue to be certified kosher with 
other Impossible products.

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But just the fact that it was pork, 
that it was called pork, was the reason that the kosher certifying

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agency involved in it, the OU, which is the world's largest kosher 
certifier,

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because it's, it was deemed so pork like, 
they just won't do it even though every technical reason it's kosher,

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but they won't give their certification because of this baggage, 
right?

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So there's more to the story there. And I mean, 
when this first came out,

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when the story first hit the news, 
I was like, oh, I don't want to talk about this. But then the more I

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read about it, the more I'm like, I have to talk about it because it 
proves my point, which is,

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there's no legal reason to deny it.

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It really is that cultural power of it which exerts such a force that 
they said,

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even if it's legally allowed, just the thought of it just seems so 
anathema that we can't do it.

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JEREMY:
Jordan Rosenblum. And of course, I did have one more question: 
Tell me your favorite Jewish pork joke.

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JORDAN:
I mean, I probably have to go with the standard.

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A rabbi has always wanted to eat pig , 
and so what he does is he goes three towns over,

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puts on a disguise, and he orders the full -on pig.

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And he's waiting. He's waiting. And just before they bring it out of 
the,

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the kitchen, some congregants walk in and they ...

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And even through his disguise, they recognize him. They walk over and 
say hello, Rabbi. And just as they say that,

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out from the kitchen comes a waiter with a silver platter with a full 
hog with an apple in its mouth.

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And they put it down on the table, 
and they walk away.

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And the congregants, their mouths hit the floor, 
and they say, Rabbi,

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you ordered the pig? And he collects himself.

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And he says, I cannot believe this restaurant.

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I ordered an apple, and this is how they serve it to me.

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JEREMY:
That's actually very good. Thank you.

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00:29:23,740 --> 00:29:28,540
Jordan Rosenbloom. I'll put a link in the show notes to his book 
Forbidden,

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which is a fascinating read that covers much more than we could in our 
conversation.

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Not all pleasant going, but very interesting indeed.

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And that'll be at Eat This Podcast.com, 
where you can also find a transcript of this episode and an archive of

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all previous episodes. And let me do that thing of asking, 
if you enjoy Eat This Podcast,

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00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:02,520
why not leave a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts?

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00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:08,910
Or even better, tell a friend. Word of mouth is the best 
recommendation engine.

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00:30:10,050 --> 00:30:14,190
Also, if you haven't already signed up for the newsletter, 
why not do that?

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00:30:14,190 --> 00:30:20,820
I curate a selection of things from around the internet and share them 
between episodes like the podcast.

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00:30:20,850 --> 00:30:28,560
The newsletter is free, though if you can pay a little something, 
that'll help to keep it free for everyone.

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That'll do for now. Till the next time from me, 
Jeremy Cherfas and Eat This Podcast.

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Goodbye and thanks for listening.