Feasting and Fasting: The History and Ethics of Jewish Food
384Feasting and Fasting: The History and Ethics of Jewish Food
384Hardcover
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Overview
Judaism is a religion that is enthusiastic about food. Jewish holidays are inevitably celebrated through eating particular foods, or around fasting and then eating particular foods. Through fasting, feasting, dining, and noshing, food infuses the rich traditions of Judaism into daily life. What do the complicated laws of kosher food mean to Jews? How does food in Jewish bellies shape the hearts and minds of Jews? What does the Jewish relationship with food teach us about Christianity, Islam, and religion itself? Can food shape the future of Judaism?
Feasting and Fasting explores questions like these to offer an expansive look at how Judaism and food have been intertwined, both historically and today. It also grapples with the charged ethical debates about how food choices reflect competing Jewish values about community, animals, the natural world and the very meaning of being human. Encompassing historical, ethnographic, and theoretical viewpoints, and including contributions dedicated to the religious dimensions of foods including garlic, Crisco, peanut oil, and wine, the volume advances the state of both Jewish studies and religious studies scholarship on food.
Bookended with a foreword by the Jewish historian Hasia Diner and an epilogue by the novelist and food activist Jonathan Safran Foer, Feasting and Fasting provides a resource for anyone who hungers to understand how food and religion intersect.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781479899333 |
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Publisher: | New York University Press |
Publication date: | 01/07/2020 |
Pages: | 384 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Jonathan Safran Foer is Lillian Vernon Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at NYU, and author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Everything is Illuminated, and Eating Animals.
Aaron S. Gross (Editor)
Aaron S. Gross is an Associate Professor of Jewish Studies in the Theology and Religious Studies Department at the University of San Diego, and the Founder and CEO of the nonprofit advocacy organization, Farm Forward. He is the author of The Question of the Animal and Religion: Theoretical Stakes, Practical Implications.
Jody Myers (Editor)
Jody Myers is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Program at California State University, Northridge. She has written on modern religious thought and expression. She is the author of Seeking Zion: Modernity and Messianic Activism in the Writings of Tsevi Hirsch Kalischer (Littman Library, 2004) and Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest: The Kabbalah Center in America (Praeger, 2007), as well as more than two dozen articles.
Jordan D. Rosenblum (Editor)
Jordan D. Rosenblum is the Belzer Professor of Classical Judaism and Director of the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the author and coeditor of several books including Rabbinic Drinking: What Beverages Teach Us About Rabbinic Literature.
Hasia R. Diner (Foreword by)
Hasia R. Diner is Professor Emerita at the Departments of History and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, and Director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History. She is the former series editor for our Goldstein-Goren series in American Jewish History. Among her many books are Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, We Remember With Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence after the Holocaust, 1945–1962, and Immigration: An American History, with Carl Bon Tempo.
Table of Contents
Foreword Hasia R. Diner xi
Introduction Aaron S. Gross 1
Part 1 History
Introduction to Part 1 Jody Myers 29
1 Food in the Biblical Era Elaine Adler Goodfriend 32
2 Food in the Rabbinic Era David C. Kraemer 59
3 Food in the Medieval Era Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus 83
4 Food in the Modern Era Jody Myers 110
Part 2 Food and Culture
Introduction to Part 2 Jordan D. Rosenblum 143
5 A Brief History of Jews and Garlic Jordan D. Rosenblum 147
6 Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Perspectives on Food and Jewishness David M. Freidenreich 157
7 How Ancient Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians Drank Their Wine Susan Marks 170
8 Jews, Schmaltz, and Crisco in the Age of Industrial Food Rachel B. Gross 189
9 The Search for Religious Authenticity and the Case of Passover Peanut Oil Zev Eleff 212
10 How Shabbat Cholent Became a Secular Hungarian Favorite Katalin Franciska Rac 235
Part 3 Ethics
Introduction to Part 3 Aaron S. Gross 253
11 Jewish Ethics and Morality in the Garden Jennifer A. Thompson 258
12 Ecological Ethics in the Jewish Community Farming Movement Adrienne Krone 273
13 Bloodshed and the Ethics and Theopolitics of the Jewish Dietary Laws Daniel H. Weiss 287
14 The Virtues of Keeping Kosher Elliot Ratzman 305
15 Jewish Ethics, the Kosher Industry, and the Fall of Agriprocessors Moses Pava 317
16 A Satisfying Eating Ethic Jonathan K. Crane 330
17 The Ethics of Eating Animals Aaron S. Gross 339
Afterword Jonathan Safran Foer 351
Acknowledgments 353
About the Editors 355
About the Contributors 357
Index 363