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:

In the 1930s, a Republic Jewish judge, observing his coreligionists’ commitment to the Democratic party, quipped, in Yiddish, that Jews have three velt (worlds): di velt (this world), yene velt (the next world), and Roosevelt. Since then, Jewish devotion has attenuated somewhat, although Jews still overwhelmingly lean Democratic. Most American Jews, however, are unfamiliar with the terms “this world” or “the next world” in any language. Carefully examining a wealth of statistical data, Samuel J. Abrams and Jack Wertheimer argue that the sort of robust Jewish liberalism that characterized U.S. Jewry a few decades ago is in steep decline. Jews, they explain, are undergoing their own version of what political scientists call the “great sort,” whereby politics, religion, and place of residence increasingly align: