Israeli SC Okays The Other White Meat: Khazzar
The Scotsman reports,
Israel’s supreme court yesterday issued a ruling that promises to make pork more widely available in the Jewish state, sparking the anger of Jewish traditionalists.
Ruling on a petition from secular politicians and a pork distribution company, the court unanimously struck down bylaws in Israeli cities that were used to prevent the sale of pig products and ordered local authorities to make a “re-evaluation” regarding selling pork in keeping with the wishes of their residents.
The decision was praised by civil libertarians, but Eli Yishai, head of the ultra-orthodox Shas party, reacted angrily, saying it “puts a central nail in the coffin of the Jewish identity of the state”.
Bacon tastes goooood. Pork chops taste goooood.
The Jewish State and pork do not mix.
Something I was wondering about: what are pork laws like in the other Middle Eastern countries? No, seriously — is this downright weird for the Middle East generally, or is Israel, like, the eleventh Middle Eastern country to allow pork, or …
(Not implying that there was no pork in Israel before. But you know what I mean.)
the shinui party is looking to erase the jewish identity of israel
For the record: Pork is not always to be Treyf! According to a Midrash, when the Messiah comes pork will beome Kosher…
I am not making this up.
http://www.neveh.org/winston/parsha58/shemini.html
http://www.moshiach.com/explore/kb/index.php?page=index_v2&id=136&c=14
If the Jewish identity of Israel can be destroyed by the appearance of a bit of pork in a shop in these three towns, then there is a serious problem somewhere.
Anyway, what gives? Is the Red Dragon still open in Jerusaelm? You could get prawns there too.
“Bacon tastes goooood. Pork chops taste goooood”
Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin
pie but I’d never know ’cause I wouldn’t eat the filthy motherfuckers.
Seriously though, it is a difficult question to ask. Israel is not the US or Western Europe. It’s a _Jewish_ and democratic state. The laws of the state should reflect the Jewish identity, not the secular/Christian identities of other industrialized nations. The question really is, how do you balance the need to foster Jewish identities without shoving the religion down people’s throats? I’m not sure laws banning pork are the right way to do it, but I ain’t excited about pork being on the menu in the frickin’ Jewish State!
They are just trying to bring the law into line with facts on the ground 😉
Its a good question Solomyr: perhaps by allowing individual Jews to find how they best relate to their Jewish identity; by using state law to enable in this area rather than prohibit.
Those who want to live their lives according to halakha must have their right to do so enshrined in and protected by the law. However, trying to enforce one particular definition of Judaism in order to reflect a wide range of Jewish identity is not the way to do it – degree of observance and sense of Jewish identity are not necessarily the same thing. Ultimately, that path can lead to a sense of alienation and is self defeating.
Not starving Israeli museums that focus on Jewish Heritage of funds, whilst merrily throwing subsidies over the green line might be one small but positive way forward.
i’m with rebdiculous on this one. the reason why eating pigs is so controversial is that they SEEM like they should be kosher, yet they are not. it has true (split) hooves like any other kosher animal, but the pig does not chew it’s cud. so, by just looking at a pig one could assume it is kosher. some have postulated that there could be a type of pig that does chew its cud, but no one’s found it yet.
the following rabbinic teaching is a common one:
The Torah singles out the pig and the camel as needing special attention with respect to their kosher status. The signs of a kosher animal are that it chew its cud and it has split hoofs. If you look at an animal and see that it has claws, like a lion, then you know it is not kosher. If the animal does not chew its cud, then again, it is not kosher.
When we look at the pig, we see that it has split hoofs. Look at the camel, we see that it chews its cud. The Torah therefore points out that the animal needs both of the kosher signs, both a split hoof and the chewing of the cud. The Torah specifically points to the pig and the camel as being non-kosher – although each has one of the kosher signs, it lacks the other.
There is a wonderful lesson concerning the posture of the pig and the camel. When the pig sits down, its feet stick forward, protruding in front of its body, as if to say, “Look at me, I’m kosher, look at my kosher feet.” The camel sits with its feet folded under its body, where you can’t see them, as if to say, “Look at me, I chew my cud, I’m kosher. My feet? Don’t worry about them; they are hidden under my body, where no one can see them.”
We all tend to act a bit like the pig and the camel in the way that we project our attitudes, our criticisms and our Judaism. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses, our mitzvot and our failings. Some of us excel at kindness, at chesed, at social concerns, and are weaker in our Torah learning, our Shabbat and our kashrut. Others of us are great learners, great daveners and meticulous in our kashrut, yet we fall short in our kindness, our concerns and our chesed. That is human nature – strengths and weaknesses.
Yet we have to be careful not to project ourselves in the manner of the pig, saying, “Look at me, I am kosher, I have split hoofs,” yet knowing full well that we have our other not-so-kosher parts. Or like the camel, who says, “Look at me, I chew my cud,” while we conveniently hide our non-kosher feet under our body so that no one can see our failings.
(this version taken from http://www.cjnews.com/pastissues/02/aug8-02/features/rabbinic.htm)
History reveals that you simply cannot legislate no societal values. (sorry, couldn’t resist another attempt at pissing off the grammar orthodoxy out there 😉
You can teach values. You can even exemplfy them, but you sure can’t infuse them into a society via legislation. It’s rather silly to do so.
The purpose of law is to protect the individual and the community from actions (or innactions) of others. Anything beyond that is verging on totalitarianism and is futile. If such attempts did work, the Cultural Revolution would be spreading to a town near you and recreational drugs would be a rare, rare thing.
It’s time heradim took a long, hard look at reality and applied a little scientific method to their doctrines. If so, as a cultural movement they just might survive, they then might survive the next century. Otherwise, they’ll simply become a cultural relic, ala Quakerism.
(which would suit me just fine 😉
.rob adams hates grammar, so embrace clear expression
Jerry’s right. The Jewish identity sure is fragile if allowing stores to sell pork “puts a central nail in the coffin of the Jewish identity of the state”.
I like to think that the Torah is more than a list of what’s on the menu.
The majority of Israelis are secular. So why should the ultra-orthodox get to dictate what the secular people can or can not eat ?
Banning pork is running the state as a theocracy. Is it a Democracy or not?
My Ukranian friend once told me a story about the way he said one can tell the Ukranian Jews from the Ukranian Christians. He said that the Ukranian Jews eat their salo (salted pig fat) with garlic instead of with onions, which is the Christian tradition.
History reveals that you simply cannot legislate no societal values. Tell me about it. This whole no-stealing thing is just futile. And minimum wages? Craziness!
Which — duh — doesn’t mean the state should be involved in everything. Yeah, the pork thing was a bit silly. Though I’m still curious about what Islamic and other Middle Eastern political systems do with pork: banned everywhere else? nowhere else? anyone know?
There’s a difference between a value and a practice.
People steal and cheat, despite the laws, moderated only by the punishment dictated for the act. But, give a teacher the opporuntity to reason with individuals about what they value, and the results of it, and their actions usually follow in due course.
“Come let us reason…”
People stop abusing themselves and others only when they see the lack of (long.short term) fruit in the actions. There’s never been a law (without teaching the reason) that has lasted in a community.
I think, as a faith, we’ve always had two schools of thought on law:
[] observe it because of faith
[] observe it because of reason
.rob adams
8opus: If you want to count Turkey as a Middle East country, there used to be no ban on pork (don’t know the current position). Mind you, that might be a bit of a cop out since although the majority religion is Islam, Attaturk seem to make a point of making Turkey a secular state so its progress would not be held back by relgious traditionalists.
If you want to count Turkey as a Middle East country, there used to be no ban on pork (don’t know the current position). That makes sense. The current vaguely-Islamist party now in power doesn’t seem in a hurry to change it.
I wasn’t really able to find any listings on Google; no systematic studies popped up, anyway. Saudi Arabia bans pork, as one would expect. Pork can legally be sold to non-Muslims and noone else in the UAE, which I didn’t expect.
Oh well.
It is illegal to bring pork products into Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (from the Customs point of view), and many other Muslim countries, I’m sure.
It is ironic how only Jews will argue that it is not appropriate for a state to make laws in accordance with its religion.
YES, it does mean that the “Jewish” part of the Jewish state is that fragile if the people are fighting for pork.
The Torah is about a lot of things, true, but it is mostly about the Jews’ duty to infuse this world and life with holiness.
Trichinellosis, toxoplasmosis, and lots of other -osis’, kashrut is about SPIRITUAL health. The lack of understanding of this, and combative resistance is indeed a bad sign.
This is not supposed to be just like any other country. It is supposed to have a Jewish and moral and spiritual component.
It is very hard to read this news with anything other than sadness.
Adamchik,
On what basis are you saying that only Jews argue that rules of the state should not be based on religion?
Secondly, so what? Suppose that argurment was part of shedding light on the world?
Kashrut is nothing to do with spiritual health and a lot to do with the imposition of social boundaries between Jew and Gentile to preserve the identity of the tribe. It is a product of the exile in Babylonia further developed by the rabbis of the first and scond centuries CE. Rashi found ways around its logical conclusions as, for reasons of economic necessity, did Judo of Prague.
It is illegal to bring pork products into Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (from the Customs point of view), and many other Muslim countries, I’m sure. It is ironic how only Jews will argue that it is not appropriate for a state to make laws in accordance with its religion.
Only Jews? Er, a suggestion: the governments of Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are not models for Israel to emulate. Better that Israel should set an example for Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
This is not supposed to be just like any other country. It is supposed to have a Jewish and moral and spiritual component.
That’s one way of looking at it, sure. But does banning pork enhance that? Maybe social sanctions are more effective than state laws for doing that — particularly because social sanctions require people to buy into them, ie popularizing Jewish practices.
After all, noone would want to confuse the Israeli government for a religious authority, correct? As idiotic as so-called religious anti-Zionist arguments like those of Satmar are, they depend on this confusion in order to work. Let’s not join them.