At first, studying meat consumption in Germany may seem like a niche topic. But for UC Berkeley History Professor John Efron, meat offers a revealing lens into Jewish-German relations throughout centuries.
In his new book, “All Consuming: Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of Meat,” published earlier this year, Efron explores how meat in Germany from the Middle Ages until modern times – used in real and symbolic terms – served to distinguish Jews from Christians, along with Jews from each other. It simultaneously brought Jews and Germans together by fostering close cultural and economic relations. His book challenges the meaning of meat as merely food, and suggests it serves as a mode of ordering the world, representing a moral, ethical and religious network of ideas, practices and attitudes.
Professor Efron joined Berkeley’s History Department in 2001 and is the Koret Professor of Jewish History. He specializes in the cultural and social history of Jewish communities in Germany.
Berkeley Social Sciences spoke with Efron about the significance of meat in Jewish-German relations and its history. This interview has been edited for clarity.
What do scholars gain from zooming in on a particular window of history of meat consumption in Germany?
John Efron: My book argues that from the Middle Ages until today, the meaning of meat in Germany as an object of totem and taboo has played a crucial role in interactions between Christians and Jews as well as among Jews. To an extent not seen elsewhere in Europe, in art, text, law, scholarship, politics, commerce and popular culture, Germans have identified, thought about, studied, decried and gladly ate the meat of the Jews. Likewise, Jews in Germany thought about, studied, sometimes decried and vigorously defended their meats, and the culture and rituals surrounding them by educating Germans and Jews alike about their meaning and relevance.
Meat links Germans and Jews in a particular way. In Judaism, meat is the main focus of the dietary laws and serves as one of the most visible markers of Jewish distinctness and social separation. By 1900, Germany had become a prodigious meat-eating country, with 65% of all meat consumed being pork. So, what we have in Germany are two heavily meat-centric culinary cultures, one also bolstered by a religious imperative at the center of which stands a rejection of Germany’s most popular meat. Meat thus became a symbol with which to define the self and the other. To quote anthropologist Mary Douglas: “Humans and nature are always confronting each other face to face, but never more so than at the division of the meat.”
What has your study of this history taught you about the differences between Jews and Christian Germans?
John Efron: Meat offers a unique lens through which to observe the history of German and Jewish relations. In 1084, Bishop Rudiger of Speyer issued a charter to Jews, welcoming them to settle in his city. One of the specific privileges in the charter described how Jews may legally sell to Christians those parts of slaughtered animals that were not considered kosher. Today, German law still permits Jews to sell those portions to non-Jews. This is no small thing given that at least 18 countries in Europe now have either total or partial bans on kosher and halal animal slaughter.
That said, in Germany today, there is an active campaign to outlaw halal slaughter, which would, of course, encompass kosher animal slaughter. This suggests that there still exist forces in Germany that remain unreconciled to the meat of religious minorities.
What was a delightful fact you stumbled across in your research for this book?
John Efron: The chapter that was the most enjoyable to research and write was that one on meat as food as opposed to symbol. Germany was the first country in which kosher cookbooks were published. They reveal much about Jewish culinary and bourgeois culture in Germany. Almost all written by women, the smallest one I found had some 200 recipes while the largest had a staggering 3,759. Hundreds of those recipes contained meat, affirming its place as central to the Jewish diet. I also uncovered odes to Jewish food by poets such as Heinrich Heine and satirical essays about beloved sabbath dishes. At the turn of the 20th century, Jewish scholars in Germany were the first to write Jewish food history and their work was a fount of fascinating and valuable information.
You also teach a class on the history of antisemitism. Can you talk a little bit about that and how it might connect to your book?
John Efron: While antisemitism is a red thread that runs through the book, it is in no way a one-sided story. For example, in the Middle Ages, an era of violent persecution of Jewish communities, I found that the laws pertaining to the slaughter and sale of kosher meat in German meat markets were, on the whole, fair and designed to allow both Jewish and Christian butchers to prosper. In the 18th century, when debates began over Jewish emancipation, there were opponents of such a measure who actually pointed to the Jewish diet and the refusal of the Jews to eat pork as a sign that Jews could never be fully German. In no other European country was meat held up as a criterion for citizenship.
In the 19th century, there was a relentless campaign by the far right to have kosher slaughter banned. However, with a single exception, the proposed measure always failed because the right to slaughter animals in accordance with the kosher dietary laws was ably defended by non-Jewish politicians. While some came from the left of the political spectrum (and there were times when the left opposed kosher slaughter), the strongest support came from the conservative Catholic Center Party in Germany. So, in this otherwise intensely hostile environment, Jews had dedicated Christian allies. Meat indeed had multiple meanings for Jews and Germans in the very long history I seek to tell in this book.
