To American Jews, the cheeseburger epitomizes the combination of meat and dairy prohibited by Jewish law, and new advances in technology for producing artificial meat—as Chaim Saiman discussed in Mosaic a few months ago—may put that forbidden combination in reach. Ari Elias-Bachrach looks at both historical precedents and at rabbinic approaches to emerging possibilities:

Attempts at making an imitation cheeseburger for kosher-keeping Jews are nearly as old as the cheeseburger itself. Until now, most efforts have focused on using either faux-meat or faux-dairy made from alternative food sources like soy. . . . The first evidence we have of someone using legumes deliberately to create an imitation dairy product dates to 1899. Almeda Lambert, a Seventh-day Adventist, published a cookbook entitled Guide for Nut Cookery, which includes recipes for “ice cream” made from almonds, peanut milk, and nut cream.

Indeed, while lab-grown meat has generated more headlines, lab-grown dairy is both more immediately feasible and presents fewer halakhic problems:

Recently, a company called Perfect Day has genetically modified a strain of the Trichoderma reesei fungus to produce milk whey proteins. The modified fungi are put in a tank with sugar. They consume the sugar and produce whey protein—one of the two proteins that are present in milk. The final product is identical to the protein produced by cows, but with one key difference for the kosher consumer—no animals are involved in the production. Perfect Day’s protein is currently certified kosher and pareve by the Star-K, despite being the exact same whey protein that is normally derived from milk.

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.