The Kitchen as a Substitute Sanctuary? Modern Debates Around Eating

Perspectives on Religious Food Regulations – Dialogical Lecture Series (video recording available)

Event graphic: Red and blue collage showing photo cutouts of food and silverware. Inscription in white: Kosher to go 1

Eating is not only a matter of survival, personal taste, and affordability, but is now a hobby, a lifestyle, and an expression of a personal worldview. Some scholars indicate that modern rules around eating take on quasi-religious aspects as they promise people a secular salvation. It is claimed that the right diet can heal the body and soul, usher in success, and optimize the self.

What stance does Judaism take toward such trends? Is it possible to follow Jewish dietary rules while participating in modern nutritional trends? And how can traditional ideas be preserved at the same time?

recording available

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The W. M. Blumenthal Academy is marked in green

Where

W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
Klaus Mangold Auditorium
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
(Opposite the Museum)

A discussion between science journalist Kathrin Burger and religious studies scholar Jonathan Schorsch as the final event of the Kosher to Go series.

Video recording, 25 November 2021; Jewish Museum Berlin 2021

Kathrin Burger

Kathrin Burger is a science journalist. She studied ecotrophology at the Technical University of Munich in Weihenstephan. Her specializations include nutrition, health, the environment (particularly agriculture and animal welfare) as well as psychology and sociology. She is the author of the book Foodamentalismus: Wie Essen unsere Religion wurde (Foodamentalism: How Food Became Our Religion).

Portrait Kathrin Buger

Kathrin Burger; photo: private

Jonathan Schorsch

Jonathan Schorsch is Professor of Jewish Relgious and Intellectual History at the University of Potsdam. He is the founding director of the Green Sabbath Project and Jewish Activism Summer School. His publications include The Food Movement, Culture and Religion: A Tale of Pigs, Christians, Jews and Politics and Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World.

The dialogical lecture will be chaired by Shlomit Tripp.

Portrait of Jonathan Schorsch

Jonathan Schorsch; photo: Angelina Schüler

Where, when, what?

  • When25 Nov 2021
  • Where W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
    Klaus Mangold Auditorium
    Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin (Opposite the Museum)
    See location on map

Dialogical Lecture Series: Kosher to Go – Perspectives on Religious Food Regulations (5)

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