Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics, Shmuly Yanklowitz, ed., Academic Studies Press, Boston © 2019, ISBN 9781618119049, p. 269, plus index, $32.95.
WINCHESTER, California – Everyone knows: Jews don’t eat pork. This quasi-truism is so strongly supported in the archaeological record of the Holy Land, that archaeologists have established the presence or absence of pig bones at dig sites as an ethnic marker differentiating Jewish settlements from pagan communities. Of course, there are other distinguishing features of Jewish dietary laws, known as kashrut – chewing the cud, cloven hooves, separating milk from meat, and refraining from eating locusts and “other swarming creatures”.
Is that all? Does keeping kosher simply mean looking for appropriate symbols on food packages? Not so fast says Shmuly Yanklowitz, a rabbinic member of Torat Chayim, an association of progressive orthodox rabbis. In Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics, editor Yanklowitz brings together twenty prominent members of Torat Chayim who contribute evocative essays asking questions about the broader meaning of keeping kosher and offering solution to ameliorate concerns.
Matthew the Apostle said (15:11), “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” This is one distinguishing belief between Christianity and Judaism, which asserts what goes in and out of the mouth has potential for defilement. Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics is not a “how-to” book for keeping kosher, it is a careful examination of the lack of morals and ethics in the modern kosher industry, the organizations certifying them, and kosher-keeping consumers who seem oblivious to problems surrounding kosher productions. Of what value is keeping kosher, Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics asks, if individuals close their eyes to a kosher industry corrupted by greed and tainted by indifference to the natural world?
Through seven sections, Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics examines a broad swath of the kosher landscape. Who inspects the inspectors certifying kosher products and are the stamps on kosher meat truly a mark of adherence to traditional values? What are the moral underpinnings of eating kosher meat and what should they be? There is more to kosher meat than slaying by a trained shochet, there must be concern for animal welfare. Family-owned farms, bought out, are now part of mechanized slaughterhouses, whose chief aim is profit. Does a neglected animal, or one needlessly made to suffer, deserve the label kosher even if properly killed?
Kosher consumers must become advocates against the plight and abuse of workers in kosher establishments, such as cooks, cleaners, and servers. Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics also raises questions about consumers themselves. Among our first actions after birth is eating, and this activity follows throughout our lives; yet too often in modern America we are gluttonous or eat unhealthfully. The authors side with Maimonides who wrote that one should not eat food only for pleasure, but also for bodily health.
Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics also discusses the environment, conservation, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), stressing that the Torah grants humanity responsibility for maintaining the Earth, which gives us crops and sustains life; yet, by polluting the air and water and ignoring how we influence climate, we are failing at this duty as well.
Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics is well-organized and thoughtfully presented, offering germane and urgent issues, even for those not fully compliant with Jewish dietary laws. Its remedies are balanced, middle paths between Jewish law, rabbinic dictum, and modern realities, showing that kashrut’s core values permeate Judaism, so that if the commandments are characterized as wheels driving Judaism forward, the dietary laws are their hubs and spokes.
Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics is a remarkable book, creating a mnemonic, the simple act of eating, reminding us we have custodianship of the Earth, welfare for our fellow humans, and care for ourselves.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. His works include: The Comprehensive Jewish and Civil Calendars: 2001 to 2240; The Jewish Calendar: History and Inner Workings, Second Edition; and Sepher Yetzirah: The Book That Started Kabbalah, Revised Edition. He may be contacted via fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.