By Sharon Goldberg<\/p>\n
I was eighteen and a freshman at Northwestern University when I ate my first slice of pepperoni pizza. That saucy crust smothered with mozzarella cheese and topped with bright red chili-peppered circles marked the beginning of my deliberate departure from Kashrut<\/em>\u2014the Jewish dietary laws with which I was raised. With one bite I\u2019d broken two of them. I\u2019d consumed pork. I\u2019d devoured dairy with meat. I\u2019d eaten traif<\/em>. I did not tell my parents. I felt more pleasure than guilt.<\/p>\n * <\/p>\n Kashrut<\/em> comes from the Hebrew meaning fit, proper, or correct. Kosher food is fit for consumption as defined in the Torah\u2014The Old Testament\u2014and then interpreted, elucidated, and augmented in the Talmud, the codified body of Jewish oral law. Kosher is complicated. In brief, without all the subtleties and minutia, here\u2019s how it works: *<\/p>\n Some guidelines: Cows, sheep, and goats are kosher; rabbits, camels, and pigs are not. Carp and salmon are kosher; crabs and snails are not. Chickens and geese and ducks are kosher; ostrich and emu and hawks are not. BLTs are not kosher. Cheeseburgers are not kosher. A grilled cheese sandwich is kosher if the cheese is kosher. Chicken soup made with a kosher chicken is kosher. Turtle soup and lobster bisque are never kosher. Chocolate covered strawberries are kosher. Chocolate covered grasshoppers are not. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Rabbi Mordechai Becher, who teaches Jewish history and thought at Yeshiva University, says kosher animals were chosen in part for their symbolism. \u201cThe ruminants that have split hooves tend to be tranquil, domesticated animals that have no natural weapons. These are animals whose characteristics we may absorb through eating. We may not eat scavengers, carnivores or birds of prey\u2014these are not characteristics that we want to absorb at all.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n During the early years of my parents\u2019 marriage, our family lived in an apartment across from the Henkins. Although they were Jewish, the Henkins ate bacon. I remember inhaling the smell as it wafted into the hallway: smoky, spicy, sizzling, sweet, sacrilegious. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n When it comes to the health of animals that can be eaten, kosher standards are stricter than U.S. Department of Agriculture standards. If an animal shows any sign of disease, or has broken bones or flaws in its organs, the animal is rejected. Shechita<\/em>, the laws for kosher slaughter, are considered by some as more humane and less painful than traditional slaughterhouse practices. A shochet<\/em>, a butcher who is a pious man well-trained in Jewish law, performs shechita<\/em>. Using a perfectly sharp blade\u2014no nicks or unevenness\u2014the shochet<\/em> cuts a quick, deep slice across the throat of the animal. Shechita<\/em> causes unconsciousness within seconds.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n From the time I was five until I was 14, my family lived with my grandma, my bubbe<\/em>, in an apartment above Goldberg\u2019s Market, her neighborhood grocery store. In the back portion of the store, Mike Zayatz, the butcher, ruled over a domain of steaks, chops, whole chickens, slabs of bacon, mounds of ground beef, and piles of deli meats, none of it kosher. I watched Mike slice pink rolls of traif<\/em> bologna and package it for customers. I craved that bologna. I regularly pleaded with him to sneak me a slice. Every once in a while, he acquiesced. Our secret. Decades later, when I was 54, I learned my parents knew about our subterfuge all along.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Over 1,400 organizations worldwide offer kosher certification (hechsher<\/em>) of packaged foods. Some Jews only trust certain organizations to ensure all the ingredients and their preparation comply with laws. About three-quarters of packaged foods in the U.S. and Canada have some kind of certification and most major brands have reliable Orthodox certification, the most stringent. The best known and most widely recognized in North America is the Orthodox Union\u2019s hechsher<\/em> represented by a U inside a circle. You\u2019ll see the symbol on over one million products. From Doodle\u2019s Macaroni and Cheese Dinner to Ghirardelli Chocolate Fudge Sauce to Campbell\u2019s Bloody Mary Mix.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The laws of kashrut<\/em> have mushroomed and, in my opinion, grown cumbersome, arbitrary, nonsensical, and silly. Rule after rule after rule. Consider the prohibition of meat with dairy. The law \u201cYou shalt not boil a kid in its mother\u2019s milk\u201d (Exodus 23:19) has evolved far beyond food. Keeping kosher now requires two sets of dishes, one for meat and one for dairy; two sets of flatware; two sets of pots and pans; two sets of dish towels, dish drains, sink pads, sponges, placemats, tablecloths, potholders. Some observant Jews use two sets of dishwasher racks. Some own homes with two dishwashers, two sinks, even two kitchens if they\u2019re wealthy. Are they competing to be the most kosher, the most observant, the most pious? Like many women, my mother used both everyday dishes and \u201cgood\u201d dishes, so two more sets. And because we kept kosher for Passover, a holiday which requires removing from the home all products containing wheat, spelt, oats, and rye, as well as all kitchenware that has touched them, my mother stored two more sets of everything. *<\/p>\n A different point of view: It\u2019s not particularly difficult to keep kosher. If you buy meat from a kosher butcher, if you buy only certified kosher products at the market, the only thing to think about is separating meat and dairy. If you live in a big city replete with kosher butchers, kosher markets, kosher restaurants, kosher bakeries, it\u2019s especially easy. Today, unlike the 1950s and 1960s when I was a kid, perhaps kashrut<\/em> is no more challenging than any other dietary choice\u2014vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, lactose free, sugar free, paleo.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n When I was young, Oreo Cookies were not kosher. We ate Hydrox sandwich cookies, an older brand but one not as well-marketed or popular. In 1998, when Oreos earned kosher certification, The New York Times<\/em> featured the news on their front page. That year, for the Israeli Day Parade, the Nabisco Company sponsored a float and workers tossed free Oreo packages to cheering New York Jews. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The only dietary law in the Torah that includes a reason is the one concerning blood. \u201cYou shall not eat any blood, whether of fowl or beast, in any of your dwellings.\u201d (Leviticus 7:26) \u201c. . . for the life of all flesh is its blood.\u201d (17:10) Because of this restriction and because my father only ate well-done meat, my mother\u2019s hamburgers emerged from the broiler as nearly burnt, dark brown balls bereft of any juice. Not until I left home did I learn how a burger was meant to be served: grilled, thick, medium rare, topped with melted cheese and aioli on a brioche bun.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Some Jews believe the laws of kashrut<\/em> originally were simply primitive health regulations now obsolete thanks to modern methods of food preparation\u2014slaughter, refrigeration, stoves. While some of the laws do have health benefits\u2014for example, shellfish can contain harmful bacteria, viruses, toxic algae, and pollutants like mercury\u2014other laws have no known scientific benefit. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n There\u2019s kosher and there\u2019s kosher depending on one\u2019s affiliation\u2014Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist are the main Jewish denominations\u2014and one\u2019s personal beliefs. My family was Conservative, the branch that embraces both tradition and modernity, a sort of middle ground on the observance scale. We ate in restaurants where the dishes were not kosher, but we ate only dairy or fish, usually grilled cheese sandwiches or fried Lake Erie perch. Today, my brother Howard keeps kosher at home and eats only fish and vegetarian foods at restaurants. My brother Sherwin keeps kosher at home, but eats meat and shellfish at restaurants. My cousin Morton keeps strictly kosher at home and eats out only at kosher restaurants. His father, my Uncle David, once ate lunch at my house but only cottage cheese and fruit on a paper plate. Some Jews eat anything but pork. I eat anything anywhere. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Glatt<\/em> kosher is an even higher standard of meat certification. Glatt<\/em> means smooth in Yiddish. Strictly speaking, animals with physical defects that limit their lives are traif<\/em>. My Uncle Bumi, my maternal grandfather\u2019s brother and the most observant member of my mother\u2019s family, was a glatt<\/em> kosher butcher. Meat from his store was guaranteed to be from animals whose lungs were smooth. No adhesions. No holes. No defects. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Dozens of companies specialize in kosher travel. Kosherica offers glatt<\/em> kosher luxury cruises to Alaska, Asia, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and Baltic countries, and trips to five-star resorts. Kosher X offers adventure expeditions to exotic destinations as well as educational and senior trips. Totally Jewish Travel advertises kosher vacations, kosher hotels, kosher resorts, kosher restaurants, and kosher rentals worldwide. No need to stick close to home to stick to kosher.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n When I was in elementary school, my friends and I often strolled down Oberlin Avenue. and stopped in front of Hough\u2019s Bakery. We drooled over the cakes, pies, cupcakes, and cookies arrayed in the window. My parents did not allow me to eat any of them; they might be made with lard. At McDonald\u2019s, I ate only French fries, permitted because the potatoes were fried separately in vegetable oil. On rare occasions, Mom would relent and allow something traif<\/em> to touch my tongue. Once, at a school event, where all the other kids gobbled Sloppy Joe sandwiches, one of my favorite foods and one that Mom rarely cooked, she allowed me to eat one sandwich. But only one. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n On the NPR Podcast \u201cThe Hidden Brain,\u201d host Shankar Vedantam interviewed Azim Shariff, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia who studies religion from a psychological perspective. Shariff says that costly rituals in religion, such as keeping kosher, are indications to other people in your group that you are a true believer. Rituals encourage trust within the group. \u201cIf you weren\u2019t a true believer, you wouldn\u2019t go through all that effort.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n More about mixing meat and dairy. Kashrut<\/em> requires waiting a significant amount of time\u2014opinions vary from three to six hours\u2014after eating the former before eating the latter. The rationale? Fatty residues and meat particles cling to the mouth. The reverse, meat after dairy, requires only rinsing the mouth. I could never remember which was which. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Rabbi Becher says the prohibition against meat and milk serves to remind us where our food comes from. The meat is from a dead animal, the milk from a living animal. Obtaining meat necessitates death, obtaining milk requires life. \u201cThese are foods that have their origin in living creatures and keeping them separate makes us aware of their source.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n As a child, I feared what might happen if I violated kashrut<\/em>. If I drank milk with meat would a holocaust erupt in my intestines? If I consumed a shrimp would I ingest the garbage the bottom feeder consumed? If I ate pork, would I contract trichinosis and die? I know now that none of these calamities is likely. Still, I rarely eat shellfish; it doesn\u2019t sit well in my stomach. Is the queasiness residual guilt? <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n A word about the cow. The sciatic nerve which runs through the hindquarters of an animal is traif<\/em> and must be removed, a process not worth the time and expense in most countries. Some of the tastiest, premium meat cuts are in the hindquarters and thus off-limits: sirloin, round, porterhouse, T-bone, flank, filet. Those are sold to the non-kosher market. In Israel, however, where the demand for non-kosher meat is much smaller, shochets<\/em> remove sciatic nerves and the entire cow is eligible for kosher consumption.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n I ate pizza\u2014Yala\u2019s Pizza\u2014for the first time when I was twelve and working at a carwash fundraiser for Hawthorne Junior High School\u2019s orchestra. I turned immediate devotee. My parents allowed me to eat Yala\u2019s cheese pizza even though it was baked in the same pans as pizza with meat, even though the mozzarella was probably not kosher. But the Yala\u2019s pizza was not allowed in our home. As years passed, my parents\u2019 kashrut<\/em> standards softened; I was permitted to eat the pizza in the garage. Later still, in the kitchen on a paper plate. Eventually, Mom ate Yala\u2019s pizza with me. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n According to the Orthodox Union, 80 per cent of kosher food sales are outside the traditional Jewish market. Some non-Jews view the kashrut<\/em> mark as a sign of purity and quality. Plus pareve<\/em>-certified items\u2014those free of dairy and meat\u2014are suitable for vegetarians and vegans. Kosher manufacturers have taken advantage of the broader market by directly targeting them in advertising. The Hebrew National Company, for example, which sells their hot dogs in supermarkets as well as in kosher butcher shops, has since 1965 used the slogan \u201cWe answer to a higher authority.\u201d <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n During my first year at Northwestern, my parents insisted I eat, not in my dorm cafeteria, but at Hillel House where the food was kosher. Sophomore year, I moved into the Sigma Delta Tau house. While SDT is a Jewish sorority, the food there was not kosher, although no pork was served. My parents allowed me to eat there anyway. A concession. As a junior, I transferred to Bowling Green State University. I lived in an apartment. I cooked what I chose. I ate what I chose. As a graduate student at The University of Maryland, I lived in an apartment with my boyfriend, Erik, who was not Jewish, along with assorted roommates. Our dinner menu included BLTs, veal parmigiana, meatloaf with pork, and Shake & Bake pork chops. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Why do Jews keep kosher? Because they grew up keeping kosher. Because kosher observant people can eat in their homes. Because they\u2019re allergic to dairy. Because they believe kosher food is cleaner, healthier, or safer. Because they are concerned about animal welfare. Because they\u2019re vegetarians. Because kashrut<\/em> is part of their Jewish identity. Because kashrut<\/em> separates them from non-Jews. Because kashrut<\/em> promotes mindfulness about food. Because kashrut<\/em> allows them to welcome the sacred into mundane, everyday acts. Because the Torah says so. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n In the book \u201cTo Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life<\/em>,\u201d Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin suggests that kashrut laws are designed as a call to holiness. \u201cThe ability to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil, pure and defiled, the sacred and the profane, is very important in Judaism. Imposing rules on what you can and cannot eat ingrains that kind of self-control. It elevates the simple act of eating into a religious ritual.\u201d <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n I don\u2019t keep kosher because I never wanted to keep kosher; because I like food and food combinations that aren\u2019t kosher; because the religious mandate means nothing to me; because I\u2019m a secular Jew who feels no need to affirm my connection to Judaism through religious ritual; because I bristle at restrictions, directives, discipline, self-denial; because I don\u2019t care to check, study, question, analyze, and fret about everything that goes into my mouth. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n What about wine? In order for Chardonnay or Merlot or Pinot Gris or any other wine to be kosher, only Torah-observant Jews can be involved in the wine-making process from crushing to bottling. The rationale? In the distant past, pagans offered wine as gifts to idol gods. The rabbis who determined the criteria for kosher wine sought to make certain that no Jew drank a glass of wine tainted by idolatry. Today, the Royal Wine Corp., the top kosher wine purveyor in America, represents more than 69 kosher wine producers. L\u2019Chaim! (To Life!)<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The principle of Pikuach Nefesh<\/em>, the preservation of human life, takes precedence over the laws of kashrut<\/em> and almost every other Jewish law. A Jew is required to break another Jewish law to save a life. If there is no kosher food available and you are in danger of starvation or you are sick and require non-kosher food to get well, traif<\/em> is allowed. A case in point: During World War II, Jewish soldiers stationed overseas found it nearly impossible to keep kosher and survive on army rations. Many ate traif<\/em>. (My father kept kosher while he served, but he was stationed in Hawaii, so keeping kosher was difficult but not onerous.) Resourceful parents of soldiers provided a partial solution. They sent hard kosher salamis to their sons, meat that kept for a long time without refrigeration. Katz\u2019s Delicatessen in New York City promoted the practice with the slogan \u201cSend a Salami to Your Boy in the Army.\u201d They still use the slogan. They still send salamis overseas.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Jews have been willing to die rather than eat non-kosher. Several texts from the Second Temple period, 516 BCE to 70 CE, equate eating pork with submission to foreign domination, to pagan cultures. A book of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bible, 2 Maccabees 6.18-7.42, tells the story of the Greek king Antiochus IV who forced the Scribe Eleazar and a family of eight (seven brothers and their mother) to make a choice\u2014eat pork or be tortured and killed. They chose death. Anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney says this is an example of food becoming a metaphor for self. Desirable qualities are embodied in the food that represent \u201cus\u201d; undesirable qualities are embodied in the foods that represent \u201cthem.\u201d While I appreciate the principle involved, I will not be a martyr over food.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n In an old, gray metal file box, I find my mother\u2019s kosher recipes\u2014chicken soup, Passover muffins, Passover brownies, apricot pastry, honey cake\u2014\u201ccontaminated\u201d by recipes for Mexican pork chops, chicken cheese balls, sausage balls, hot clam dip, enchilada casserole, and brandied bean & sausage soup. Mom made her golden broth with Empire Kosher Chicken, chunks of carrot and celery, parsley root, a whole onion, and Mueller\u2019s fine egg noodles. I\u2019ve never made her soup\u2014I feel guilty about that\u2014but even now I can conjure its simmering smell suffusing the kitchen on Friday afternoons\u2014the scent of Shabbat. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The pivotal, come clean, get-it-out-in-the-open moment between my parents and me took place at the Gang Plank restaurant in Washington, DC during my second year in graduate school. Mom and Dad were visiting and invited my boyfriend Erik and me to dinner. I wanted to order Surf & Turf\u2014lobster tail and filet mignon. Shellfish plus a non-kosher cut of non-kosher meat. \u201cIs it okay?\u201d I asked. I did not wish to be disrespectful, to flaunt my irreverence. \u201cYes,\u201d they said. I knew I was breaking two laws\u2014or was I breaking three? I knew they disapproved. I knew they were disappointed. But I was satisfied with their begrudging acceptance, their acknowledgement I had departed completely from the tradition with which I was raised. My choices were mine alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Not) Keeping Kosher By Sharon Goldberg I was eighteen and a freshman at Northwestern University when I ate my first slice of pepperoni pizza. That saucy crust smothered with mozzarella cheese and topped with bright red chili-peppered circles marked the beginning of my deliberate departure from Kashrut\u2014the Jewish dietary laws with which I was raised. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":323,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[379,382],"tags":[388],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n Mammals with cloven (split) hooves that chew their cuds are kosher. Other mammals are not. Fish with fins and scales are kosher, shellfish are not. Birds that eat grain and vegetables and can fly are kosher. Scavengers and predators are not. Rodents, reptiles, amphibians, and insects are not kosher.
\n Of the permitted animals, birds and mammals must be killed according to Jewish law. The brain, spinal cord, and major nerves of cattle must be removed. All blood must be drained from meat and the remaining blood eliminated by either broiling or soaking and salting. Animals that die of natural causes and animals killed by other animals may not be eaten.
\n Meat (fleischig<\/em>) cannot be eaten with dairy (milchig<\/em>). Fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, and grains are pareve, neutral foods, the Switzerland of kashrut<\/em>. They can be eaten with meat or dairy. Foods that are not kosher are traif<\/em>\u2014a word often uttered with disdain\u2014and forbidden. <\/p>\n
\n I own one set of dishes. Period. One set of all the other stuff. I don\u2019t want to buy, wash, separate, stack, or store multiple sets of anything in my kitchen. I like simple. And to me, keeping kosher is not simple. <\/p>\n