How to Be a Jew… Who Contemplates the Pig

For more than 3,000 years, prohibitions against eating pig has been central to Jewish dietary laws, but it’s also been a potent symbol of Jewish identity. Other non-kosher animals, like horses, rabbits, squirrels, and even vultures don’t carry the same weight that the pig does in the Jewish imagination. Jordan Rosenblum, Jewish Studies professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, joins us to talk about why. His new book, Forbidden—A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig, traces the history of the pig as a symbol of Jewish identity, and recently won the National Jewish Book Award for Food Writing and Cookbooks.

You can listen to How to Be a Jew… Who Contemplates the Pig online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

How to Be a Jew… Who Contemplates the Pig is an episode from Unorthodox by Tablet Magazine.

This episode is 38:45 long.

This episode was published on Mar 26, 2025.

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