Wednesday, October 17, 2012

And thus we see that you could not get kosher veal in Holland in the late 18th century

Here's the story of a Dutch Jew named Levi and his cousin, a Jewish servant girl named Katrina, who converted to Christianity in or around 1799. Katrina worked for "respectable" Sephardim.

Look at Levi's brother's problem with kashrut.

From the 1817 issue of The Jewish Expositor, and Friend of Israel.




4 comments:

  1. Perhaps a rude reference to tefillin straps?

    ReplyDelete
  2. We have no reason to suppose that this account is accurate, and two odd things indicate that it is not. 1. It suggests that veal itself is prohibited by the Talmud to those who are sick, not that there was no kosher veal available. And why would the sick Levi accept no substitute if he were mortally ill? 2. Men who are familiar with the Talmud are unfamiliar with the "Old Testament".

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm familiar with the Talmud and the Old Testament.

    If you refer to the terminology, consider that this is an English translation of a Dutch account produced by a convert to Christianity. All such accounts refer to the Old Testament.

    Actually, a thought which occurs to me is that the technology for producing kosher veal may not have existed at the time, as veal production, from what I can tell, seems to have involved bloodletting and that could cause a terefah, or Talmudically prohibited injury to the animal.

    ReplyDelete

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