{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.023837902264600714, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.222222222222222, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Perspectives on Food and Jewishness

Why should one eat—or avoid—Jewish food? What makes food “Jewish” in the first place? These questions feature prominently not only in rabbinic and other Jewish texts but also in the classical sources of Christianity and Islam. The authors of these influential works disagree over what food to eat and, more fundamentally, over what Jewishness is, but they all agree that the difference between Jews and non-Jews matters. This chapter traces the evolving relationship between Jewish identity and Jewish norms about the food of non-Jews from the Bible through the Middle Ages. It also examines premodern Catholic, Sunni, and Shiʿi norms about Jewish food, demonstrating that ideas about Jewishness play important roles in the construction of Christian and Islamic identity.