How to Be a Jew… Who Contemplates the Pig

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Religion & Spirituality, Judaism, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

For more than 3,000 years, prohibitions against eating pig has been central to Jewish dietary laws, but it’s also been a potent symbol of Jewish identity. Other non-kosher animals, like horses, rabbits, squirrels, and even vultures don’t carry the same weight that the pig does in the Jewish imagination. Jordan Rosenblum, Jewish Studies professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, joins us to talk about why. His new book, Forbidden—A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig, traces the history of the pig as a symbol of Jewish identity, and recently won the National Jewish Book Award for Food Writing and Cookbooks.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Shalom, hello, what is up and welcome to How to Be a Jew. I'm your host, Courtney Hazelitt,
0:25.9	and I am joined by a highly caffeinated, also in Chicago. The two are somewhat related, Rabbi Dianna Furska.
0:32.9	Coming to you live from the Reform Rabbi conference in Chicago.
0:38.2	I mean, stop bragging.
0:39.6	We've also got producer Josh Cross with us.
0:41.7	How's it going?
0:42.8	What's up?
0:44.1	On this week's episode, we're going to talk about something that Jews can talk about for days.
0:49.2	And that is The Pig.
0:51.7	Love it.
0:52.4	Diana, listeners, listeners, you should know Diana, just like kind of, it wasn't like a cringe.
0:58.7	It was something, because I'm watching her on a screen, I could have said like, oh, did the screen just blip out a little bit?
1:04.5	If it was actually Diana's posture and reaction to my word pig.
1:09.0	You might want to use the phrase visceral reaction.
1:12.4	Visceral, yes, yes.
1:13.9	That is what they'd call that, the SATs.
1:16.0	Yes.
1:16.6	It's a strong feeling of...
1:19.1	Why?
1:20.5	Well, it's...
1:22.2	Honestly, it's disgusting to me.
1:24.7	And I think we're going to get into why.
	...

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