[Avodah] Is Turkey Kosher?

[Jonathan Baker]

From: Zev Sero <zev at sero.name>
> On 18/11/2010 10:42 PM, Rich Wolberg wrote:
> > In response to:
> >> The person who pointed me to this wrote, "According to R' Hamburger
> >> [author of Sheirushei Minhag Ashkenaz], Turkey has a valid mesorah."

> > Someone wrote (with such certainty):
> >> But we know beyond doubt that that isn't true.

> > In response to "But we know beyond doubt that that isn't true", I quote
> > from the end of the excellent, informative and scholarly article Is
> > Turkey Kosher?  by Rabbi Ari Z. Zivotofsky, Ph.D., the following:
 
> A long quote that's irrelevant; having demonstrated that it's impossible
> for a genuine mesorah to exist, it certainly doesn't turn around and
> claim otherwise!

But what's a "genuine mesorah"?

I'm sure you've heard LG tell this story.  Someone asked the Bobover Rebbe
"how can we eat turkey, since it's a New World bird?" Rebbe: "We have a
mesorah from our ancestors that we eat it." Questioner: "But how can that
be, since the turkey was unknown to our ancestors before 1500?"  Rebbe:
"Well then, it's a good thing our ancestors weren't so frum!  Now we have
a mesorah from them, so we eat turkey."

Most minhagim have a terminus ante quem.  Otherwise the jokes about 
cutting off the ends of the roast, or ducking in the back of the synagogue,
wouldn't be so funny.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com