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MILIM ONLINE
We are delight to bring you some of our planned talks online to help you through these difficult times.
If you have missed any of our online talks or want to watch them again go to our CATCH UP page.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
MiliM is non-profit making and run entirely by volunteers, we are proud to be able to offer an exciting programme of webinars during the Covid-19 crisis.
To be able to do this, we do need help to replace event revenue we have lost this year.
Every penny helps, goes directly towards events and we are very grateful for your contribution.
Milim Spring 2019
Jordan Rosenblum
Forbidden: A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig
A surprising history of how the pig has influenced Jewish identity
Jews do not eat pig. This (not always true) observation has been made by both Jews and non-Jews for more than three thousand years and is rooted in biblical law. Though the Torah prohibits eating pig meat, it is not singled out more than other food prohibitions. Horses, rabbits, squirrels, and even vultures, while also not kosher, do not inspire the same level of revulsion for Jews as the pig. The pig has become an iconic symbol for people to signal their Jewishness, non-Jewishness, or rebellion from Judaism. There is nothing in the Bible that suggests Jews are meant to embrace this level of pig-phobia.
Starting with the Hebrew Bible, Jordan D. Rosenblum historicizes the emergence of the pig as a key symbol of Jewish identity, from the Roman persecution of ancient rabbis, to the Spanish Inquisition, when so-called Marranos (“Pigs”) converted to Catholicism, to Shakespeare’s writings, to modern memoirs of those leaving Orthodox Judaism. The pig appears in debates about Jewish emancipation in eighteenth-century England and in vaccine conspiracies; in World War II rallying cries, when many American Jewish soldiers were “eating ham for Uncle Sam;” in conversations about pig sandwiches reportedly consumed by Karl Marx; and in recent deliberations about the kosher status of Impossible Pork.
All told, there is a rich and varied story about the associations of Jews and pigs over time, both emerging from within Judaism and imposed on Jews by others. Expansive yet accessible, Forbidden offers a captivating look into Jewish history and identity through the lens of the pig.
John Jay
Ninette's War: A Jewish Story of Survival in 1940s France
Ninette Dreyfus was a cosseted scion of one of France’s most prominent Jewish families – a cousin to Albert Einstein and family friend to Colette. But when the Second World War broke out and the Germans occupied Paris, the fall was dramatic. Realising that her fate would be transformed, the teenager soon found herself fleeing the capital for the South, only to then fall prey to the Vichy regime. In fear for her life at the hands of the Nazis and their French collaborators, she became somebody else. Woven together from Ninette’s own diaries and interviews with author John Jay before she died, Ninette’s War traces the frailty of national and personal unity through the eyes of a young woman, in compelling and unforgettable detail.
‘Chillingly relevant’ Daily Mail
‘Evocative, assiduously researched … one girl’s wartime escape [and] a brutal reckoning with Vichy France’s wilful complicity in wartime atrocities’ The Sunday Times
‘Meticulously researched with an inimitable richness, depth and levity’ New Statesman
‘A deeply researched and evocative true story’ Ann Sebba
John Jay is development partner of Brompton Asset Management. Having read modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford, John became a journalist. He is a former managing editor for business news at The Sunday Times having previously been head of business coverage at The Sunday Telegraph. He has written three books, The New Tycoons, 1989, (with Judi Bevan), Facing Fearful Odds: my father’s story of captivity, escape and resistance, 1940–45, 2014 and Ninette’s War: A Jewish Story of Survival in 1940s France, 2025. He lives in London with his family.
Jordan Rosenblum
Forbidden: A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig
A surprising history of how the pig has influenced Jewish identity
Jews do not eat pig. This (not always true) observation has been made by both Jews and non-Jews for more than three thousand years and is rooted in biblical law. Though the Torah prohibits eating pig meat, it is not singled out more than other food prohibitions. Horses, rabbits, squirrels, and even vultures, while also not kosher, do not inspire the same level of revulsion for Jews as the pig. The pig has become an iconic symbol for people to signal their Jewishness, non-Jewishness, or rebellion from Judaism. There is nothing in the Bible that suggests Jews are meant to embrace this level of pig-phobia.
Starting with the Hebrew Bible, Jordan D. Rosenblum historicizes the emergence of the pig as a key symbol of Jewish identity, from the Roman persecution of ancient rabbis, to the Spanish Inquisition, when so-called Marranos (“Pigs”) converted to Catholicism, to Shakespeare’s writings, to modern memoirs of those leaving Orthodox Judaism. The pig appears in debates about Jewish emancipation in eighteenth-century England and in vaccine conspiracies; in World War II rallying cries, when many American Jewish soldiers were “eating ham for Uncle Sam;” in conversations about pig sandwiches reportedly consumed by Karl Marx; and in recent deliberations about the kosher status of Impossible Pork.
All told, there is a rich and varied story about the associations of Jews and pigs over time, both emerging from within Judaism and imposed on Jews by others. Expansive yet accessible, Forbidden offers a captivating look into Jewish history and identity through the lens of the pig.
John Jay
Ninette's War: A Jewish Story of Survival in 1940s France
Ninette Dreyfus was a cosseted scion of one of France’s most prominent Jewish families – a cousin to Albert Einstein and family friend to Colette. But when the Second World War broke out and the Germans occupied Paris, the fall was dramatic. Realising that her fate would be transformed, the teenager soon found herself fleeing the capital for the South, only to then fall prey to the Vichy regime. In fear for her life at the hands of the Nazis and their French collaborators, she became somebody else. Woven together from Ninette’s own diaries and interviews with author John Jay before she died, Ninette’s War traces the frailty of national and personal unity through the eyes of a young woman, in compelling and unforgettable detail.
‘Chillingly relevant’ Daily Mail
‘Evocative, assiduously researched … one girl’s wartime escape [and] a brutal reckoning with Vichy France’s wilful complicity in wartime atrocities’ The Sunday Times
‘Meticulously researched with an inimitable richness, depth and levity’ New Statesman
‘A deeply researched and evocative true story’ Ann Sebba
John Jay is development partner of Brompton Asset Management. Having read modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford, John became a journalist. He is a former managing editor for business news at The Sunday Times having previously been head of business coverage at The Sunday Telegraph. He has written three books, The New Tycoons, 1989, (with Judi Bevan), Facing Fearful Odds: my father’s story of captivity, escape and resistance, 1940–45, 2014 and Ninette’s War: A Jewish Story of Survival in 1940s France, 2025. He lives in London with his family.
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