March 3, 2025

Forbidden: Jews and the Pig

Perhaps the only thing most people know about Jewish dietary laws is that pork is forbidden. A new book asks why the pig — rather than any of the other animals banned by the Hebrew bible — should have become so inextricably bound up with Jewish identity. Author Jordan Rosenblum points out that at the time of the Roman occupation, the pig was “simply the most commonly encountered nonkosher quadruped.” The imagined qualities of the pig and those of the Jews aligned, a link that still survives in anti-semitic propaganda.

I didn’t want to rehash the history of anti-semitism but I did want to know more about the relationship between pork and Jewish identity. I hope you will too.

Take care