About
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
Keith Kahn-Harris
Everyday Jews: Why the Jewish people are not who you think they are
‘Can Jews be boring? On the value of everyday Jewishness’
Particularly at this moment, Jews are subject to extraordinary scrutiny and fascination. Our friends and our enemies are in awe of our significance. This intense interest risks ‘hollowing out’ Jewish life so that only our public existence remains. Drawing on his new book Everyday Jews: Why the Jewish people are not who you think they are , Keith Kahn-Harris will make the case for Jews embracing their mundane, parochial and ‘everyday’ side. Jews can be as boring as anyone else and, right now, non-Jews need to be confronted with this side of Jewish existence
‘Dr Keith Kahn-Harris is a sociologist and writer. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and a Senior Lecturer at Leo Baeck College. Everyday Jews is his ninth book
Dr Jon Greenberg
The Passover Bunny, Losing the Beer Goddess, and The Argentine Matzah Problem: Seder Gems from Fruits of Freedom, the Torah Flora Hagadah
Dr Jon Greenberg will introduce the Torah Flora biblical and talmudic botany program and Fruits of Freedom, a Passover Hagadah with a commentary from the perspective of the history of Jewish food and agriculture. He will be looking at the importance of beer and bread in ancient Egyptian religion, and how the Ten Plagues and the Exodus discredited this mythology, the real-life Passover bunny, the solution to a collision between science and Torah in an Argentinian matzah bakery, and the heroic determination of our Roman-era ancestors to reconcile Talmudic environmentalism with Passover observance.
Dr. Jon Greenberg, author of TorahFlora.org, received his bachelor’s degree with honors in biology from Brown University and his Master’s and Doctorate in agronomy from Cornell University. He has also studied with Rabbi Chaim Brovender at Israel’s Yeshivat Hamivtar and conducted research on corn, alfalfa, and soybeans at Cornell, the US Department of Agriculture, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Cancer Research. Since 1989, he has been a science teacher and educational consultant. Dr. Greenberg was Senior Editor of science textbooks at Prentice Hall Publishing Co. Previously on the faculty of Yeshivas Ohr Yosef, the School of Education at Indiana University, and the University of Phoenix, he taught at the Heschel School from 2008 to 2024. In 2021, he published Fruits of Freedom, a Passover Hagadah with a commentary from the perspective of the history of Jewish food and agriculture. He is a frequent speaker at synagogues, schools, and botanical gardens. Dr. Greenberg can be contacted at jon@torahflora.org.
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.
Keith Kahn-Harris
Everyday Jews: Why the Jewish people are not who you think they are
‘Can Jews be boring? On the value of everyday Jewishness’
Particularly at this moment, Jews are subject to extraordinary scrutiny and fascination. Our friends and our enemies are in awe of our significance. This intense interest risks ‘hollowing out’ Jewish life so that only our public existence remains. Drawing on his new book Everyday Jews: Why the Jewish people are not who you think they are , Keith Kahn-Harris will make the case for Jews embracing their mundane, parochial and ‘everyday’ side. Jews can be as boring as anyone else and, right now, non-Jews need to be confronted with this side of Jewish existence
‘Dr Keith Kahn-Harris is a sociologist and writer. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and a Senior Lecturer at Leo Baeck College. Everyday Jews is his ninth book
Dr Jon Greenberg
The Passover Bunny, Losing the Beer Goddess, and The Argentine Matzah Problem: Seder Gems from Fruits of Freedom, the Torah Flora Hagadah
Dr Jon Greenberg will introduce the Torah Flora biblical and talmudic botany program and Fruits of Freedom, a Passover Hagadah with a commentary from the perspective of the history of Jewish food and agriculture. He will be looking at the importance of beer and bread in ancient Egyptian religion, and how the Ten Plagues and the Exodus discredited this mythology, the real-life Passover bunny, the solution to a collision between science and Torah in an Argentinian matzah bakery, and the heroic determination of our Roman-era ancestors to reconcile Talmudic environmentalism with Passover observance.
Dr. Jon Greenberg, author of TorahFlora.org, received his bachelor’s degree with honors in biology from Brown University and his Master’s and Doctorate in agronomy from Cornell University. He has also studied with Rabbi Chaim Brovender at Israel’s Yeshivat Hamivtar and conducted research on corn, alfalfa, and soybeans at Cornell, the US Department of Agriculture, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Cancer Research. Since 1989, he has been a science teacher and educational consultant. Dr. Greenberg was Senior Editor of science textbooks at Prentice Hall Publishing Co. Previously on the faculty of Yeshivas Ohr Yosef, the School of Education at Indiana University, and the University of Phoenix, he taught at the Heschel School from 2008 to 2024. In 2021, he published Fruits of Freedom, a Passover Hagadah with a commentary from the perspective of the history of Jewish food and agriculture. He is a frequent speaker at synagogues, schools, and botanical gardens. Dr. Greenberg can be contacted at jon@torahflora.org.
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.
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