Recently, Impossible Foods—a maker of plant-based meat substitutes—asked the Orthodox Union, a major kosher certifier, to put its seal of approval on its version of pork. Rabbis have long given their imprimatur to vegetarian bacon and various similar products, but in this case they deemed something called “pork” a bridge to far, even if it technically adheres to the laws of kashrut. Chaim Steinmetz explains that historical factors, going back to Hellenistic times, have made the pig a unique symbol of un-kosherness among the numerous proscribed species:

The Graeco-Roman world saw the Jewish refusal to eat pork as extremely strange; along with monotheism, circumcision, and Shabbat, it was a Jewish practice that perplexed outsiders. Pork was a staple of the Roman diet, and both Greeks and Romans used pigs for animal sacrifices. Outsiders mocked the Jewish refusal to eat pork.

Many in the ancient world saw the Jewish refusal to eat pig meat as misanthropic, part of a larger Jewish refusal to engage with the rest of the world; the desire to remain “a nation that dwells alone” irritated many in the ancient world. It is for this reason, when persecuting the Jews their tormentors forced them to eat pork. The book of Maccabees, which relates the history behind the Hanukkah story, tells of martyrs who refused to eat pork and gave up their lives instead. . . . Diodorus, a 1st-century BCE Greek historian, explains that Antiochus, the villain of the Chanukah story . . . assumed if he could break Jewish habits regarding pork, he could break Judaism.

In the Roman era, there was a change in rhetoric; the Jewish refusal to eat pig was not seen as an expression of hostility to pigs (and those who eat them), but rather an expression of affinity for pigs. . . . Popular culture in medieval Europe was far more malevolent; the Judensau, “the Jews’ pig,” which depicts Jews in close contact with a pig, became popular in the 13th century.

In rabbinic literature, one sees a mirror image of these polemics; the laws regarding the pig are read as a reference to the Roman empire.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.