4 ms·

Religious laws like kosher and halal laws didn't develop from disgust. They engrained disgust to steer people away from contracting trichinosis. That was an exc

Religious laws like kosher and halal laws didn't develop from disgust. They engrained disgust to steer people away from contracting trichinosis. That was an exceedingly practical way of putting out a public health message prior to the advent of mass literacy. When my Jewish grandparents came from Ukraine to the US in the 1930s they'd never even considered or been presented with the possibility of eating pork... so famously, my grandma who didn't speak English went into a butcher shop in Baltimore bought a bunch of bacon without understanding it was pig, and fed a piece of it raw to my father, who was a baby... and the butcher apparently shouted at her not to feed that raw to a kid. Which baffled her. Equally baffling to me, I had a beer at the Munich Hofbrauhaus and watched a kid eat a pile of pork tartare.. which looked delicious.. but when I asked, he seemed shocked. He told me there's no trichinae in Europe now, and it's normal to eat raw pork in Germany.. The world comes at you fast, lol.

nivertech 4y ago
The truth is we don't know why and how they developed. I wrote about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32507527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32507527 Similarly like only after living 7 years in Israel I discovered that "white meat" is an euphemism for pork. Also the reality is much more complex. We tend to project our current understanding into the past. The reality of keeping Kashrut back then wasn't as we understand it today. -- The lifestyle of Eastern European Jews from the beginning of the 20th century until World War II - between keeping the mitzvot and secularization [Hebrew] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfrFQH6RzZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfrFQH6RzZc
jnwatson 4y ago
“ When my Jewish grandparents came from Ukraine to the US in the 1930s they'd never even considered or been presented with the possibility of eating pork” I don’t understand how that could occur, since a great deal of pork is produced in Ukraine, both now and historically.
- kevinmchugh 4y ago
  It may have been their first time in a non-Kosher butcher. Ukraine used to have very large Jewish enclaves.

nivertech 4y ago

The truth is we don't know why and how they developed. I wrote about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32507527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32507527 Similarly like only after living 7 years in Israel I discovered that "white meat" is an euphemism for pork. Also the reality is much more complex. We tend to project our current understanding into the past. The reality of keeping Kashrut back then wasn't as we understand it today. -- The lifestyle of Eastern European Jews from the beginning of the 20th century until World War II - between keeping the mitzvot and secularization [Hebrew] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfrFQH6RzZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfrFQH6RzZc

jnwatson 4y ago

“ When my Jewish grandparents came from Ukraine to the US in the 1930s they'd never even considered or been presented with the possibility of eating pork” I don’t understand how that could occur, since a great deal of pork is produced in Ukraine, both now and historically.

kevinmchugh 4y ago
It may have been their first time in a non-Kosher butcher. Ukraine used to have very large Jewish enclaves.