Both Judaism and Islam have prohibited eating pork and its products for thousands of years. Scholars have proposed several reasons for the ban to which both religions almost totally adhere. Pork, and the refusal to eat it, possesses powerful cultural baggage for Jews.
Prohibition in Jewish law
Pigs should not be eaten because they don't chew their cud. The ban on the consumption of pork is repeated in Deuteronomy 14:8. During the Roman period, Jewish abstinence from pork consumption became one of the most identifiable features of Jewish religion to outsiders of the faith.
The Torah explains which animals are kosher and which are not. Kosher animals are ruminants, in other words they chew cud, and they have split hooves, such as sheep or cows. Pigs are not ruminants, so they are not kosher. Animals that live in water can only be eaten if they have fins and scales.
What does this mean for Muslim and Jewish consumers? Summing up, Muslim buyers can consume kosher products. Jewish buyers cannot do likewise with halal. For many Muslim buyers, non-alcoholic kosher food products are considered halal.
Jewish tradition permits controlled alcohol drinking, whereas Muslim tradition prohibits the use of any alcohol.
Prohibition on mixing dairy products with meat
Others associate it with the general prohibition on certain mixtures set out in the Torah, such as that of coupling animals from different species. Yet others see it as symbolic: the refusal to mix life (milk) and death (meat).
Only eggs from kosher fowl are kosher. These include chicken, Cornish hens, ducks, geese, and turkey. The prohibition of eating blood applies even to the smallest drop of blood, and thus any blood spots found in an egg renders the egg non-kosher.
Another great Jewish breakfast is salami and eggs. There's a world of difference between Italian salami and Jewish salami. Learning the difference between the two salamis is part of growing up.
Jewish barbecue is older than brisket.
This tradition comes from the narrative of Jacob, also known as Israel, in which he sustains a hip injury after wrestling with an angel. As a result, Jews who practice kashrut do not eat the meat that touches a quadruped's sciatic nerve.
» Because the Torah allows eating only animals that both chew their cud and have cloven hooves, pork is prohibited. So are shellfish, lobsters, oysters, shrimp and clams, because the Old Testament says to eat only fish with fins and scales. Another rule prohibits mixing dairy with meat or poultry.
Jews who observe the traditional dietary laws cannot mix meat and dairy, and so avoid them.
Judaism traditionally prohibits tattooing as self-mutilation but modern interpretations have become more lenient. Islam generally discourages tattoos as altering the natural state of the body, though there are differing opinions among scholars.
But what about lamb? Roast lamb was eaten at Passover until A.D. 70, when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. In memory of this, the eating of roasted lamb was prohibited. But many Jews find lamb acceptable as long as it is not roasted but cooked in a pan with liquid.
Christians may eat pork because God has declared it once more to be clean. “What God has declared clean you must not call common” (Acts 10:15). Pork is one of those “foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1Timothy 4:3).
The Torah prohibits cooking, eating or deriving any benefit from the mixture of meat and milk. Although rennet used to make cheese make be derived from a kosher animal source, the rennet itself is an enzyme and is not considered a meat product so it may be used to make a Kosher Cheese.
Kosher pareve means food that is prepared without meat, milk or their derivatives. Examples of kosher foods are beef, chicken, salmon, tuna and milk. Dark chocolate is considered Kosher since it only contains cocoa beans, vanilla beans, and sugar.
(see the Summer 2016 issue of BTUS) And since butter is often made from whey cream or from a blend of sweet cream and whey cream, butter can be non-kosher if it is made with non-kosher whey cream.
A dairy-free lasagna is perfect for Passover. Keep kosher by using a broth instead of milk in a bechamel, and use pasta sheets made of matzah. Photo by Ray Kachatorian. A proper Italian lasagna mixes meat (sometimes pork) and milk.
When all of the ingredients inside a food are "kosher", the food is then labeled as "kosher." Pizza consists of 3 main ingredients: Dough, Sauce, and Cheese. The ingredients used to make the dough (flour, sugar, salt, water, etc.) must be (and typically are) kosher.
The Torah forbids the cooking and consumption of any milk with any meat to prevent one from cooking a kid in its mother's milk. According to Kabbalah, meat represents gevurah (the Divine attribute of Judgment) and milk represents chesed (the Divine attribute of Kindness).
After the liver has been broiled and kashered, it is considered like any other piece of kosher meat which can be fried or roasted in a kosher meat pot, pan, or roaster, without any reservation. Furthermore, liver does not have to broiled within seventy-two hours of kosher slaughter.
Before you worry about what you're going to eat this Thanksgiving, note that the debate about turkey is long over and turkey is accepted as kosher by almost all Jews. (I did find one exception in my research, but that seems to be limited to the descendants of one specific rabbi's family.)
All dairy products, like milk, butter, yogurt, and cheese, must come from a kosher animal. All ingredients and equipment used to produce it have to be kosher, too. Pareve. This is the category for kosher foods that aren't meat or dairy.