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2 - Jewish Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

Jordan D. Rosenblum
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Summary

In a village in Hesse the peasants enjoyed a stewlike bean soup (probably a form of Schalet). When questioned about what they were eating, they would laugh and say, “Today, I'm a Jew.”

Tannaitic culinary and commensal regulations prescribe social practices that enact and maintain a distinct Jewish identity. Non-Jews are understood to eat different foods in a different manner, resulting in different bodies.

The Tannaim build their Jewish identity via three food practices. First, they understand the ingestion of certain foods to be symbolic, or metonymic, of Self/Other. Concomitantly, a person is embodied by the consumption of – or abstinence from – metonymic food items. As we shall see, this phenomenon is not unique to tannaitic Judaism. One recent example of embodiment through ingestion is the renaming of “French fries” as “freedom fries” in the U.S. House of Representatives' cafeteria from 2003 through 2006. In this instance, differing views on policy toward Iraq led to a desire among some U.S. Representatives to rename a food item, lest by ingesting “French” food, one would become, in some way, “French.” Tannaitic texts reflect this same notion, wherein consuming – or abstaining from – certain metonymic foodstuffs is understood to be an act of embodiment; it is a practice that creates an “Us” and a “Them.”

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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  • Jewish Identity
  • Jordan D. Rosenblum, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Book: Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism
  • Online publication: 06 July 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511730375.003
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  • Jewish Identity
  • Jordan D. Rosenblum, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Book: Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism
  • Online publication: 06 July 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511730375.003
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Jewish Identity
  • Jordan D. Rosenblum, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Book: Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism
  • Online publication: 06 July 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511730375.003
Available formats
×