As locusts descend on Southern Israel, controversy erupts over whether or not the winged pests are kosher to eat.
Above right: A file photo of one type of locust used for illustrative purposes only
Could A Plague Of Near-Biblical Proportion Ease Poor Israelis Hunger Pangs?
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Like a Biblical plague, they’re turning the midday sky over Southern Israel into darkness.
Israel is being hit by a large swarm of locusts. Crops in neighboring Egypt have already suffered because of them and some areas reported high crop losses.
But the big controversy in Israel over these locusts isn’t crop loss – it’s whether you can eat the the flying creatures for dinner or not.
That’s right. The question is: Are these locusts kosher?
The Torah mentions locusts that are kosher and that were eaten in Biblical times.
אֶת-אֵלֶּה מֵהֶם, תֹּאכֵלוּ--אֶת-הָאַרְבֶּה לְמִינוֹ, וְאֶת-הַסָּלְעָם לְמִינֵהוּ; וְאֶת-הַחַרְגֹּל לְמִינֵהוּ, וְאֶת-הֶחָגָב לְמִינֵהוּ. וְכֹל שֶׁרֶץ הָעוֹף, אֲשֶׁר-לוֹ אַרְבַּע רַגְלָיִם--שֶׁקֶץ הוּא, לָכֶם.
“These you are allowed to eat: any kind of locust, and any kind of bald locust, any kind of cricket, and any kind of grasshopper. But all [other] winged swarming things, which have four feet, are a detestable thing unto you [and should not be eaten].” Leviticus, 11:22-23.
By the time the Talmud was codified, most Jewish communities had lost the mesorah, tradition, as to which locusts we call locusts that are actually locusts in the Torah’s definition of the term. So for most Jewish communities, because it was unclear which locusts are kosher, locusts were not eaten.
However, some North African Jewish communities retained the mesorah and continued to eat locusts, as did Yemeni Jews.
There are external signs that are necessary for a locust to be kosher: four legs, four wings, the wings must cover most of the locust’s body, and the locust must have two back legs to jump with.
But having all those signs isn’t enough to make the locust kosher. Why? Because it also must be an insect that was known from Biblical times onward as a “locust.”
So are the locusts that arrived in Israel this week kosher?
According to Ha’aretz, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, a son of Sefardi haredi leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and his chief disciple, said yesterday that the locusts should be treated as non-kosher by all Israelis.
“We are not familiar with their names and marks and have no clear tradition regarding it.…Communities with a tradition of eating locusts allow it, but most of the people in Israel don’t and we cannot rely on the marks, even when it’s called ‘locust,’” he said.
Yosef’s family originated in Iraq where many Jews had lost the locust mesorah before the Talmud was codified.
Following his father’s attempt to have all Sefardi and Mizrachi Jews follow the rulings of the Shulkhan Arukh – one law, one set of customs (minhagim), not many – the younger Yosef simply banned the locusts without looking at them or asking any Yemeni rabbis about the locusts’ kosher status.
This angered Rabbi Schneur Zalman Revach, who works at the Institute for the Study of Agricultural Torah Commandments in Israel.
“I haven’t examined them myself yet, so I’m not writing about it. Rabbi Yosef is Babylonian [Iraqi]. The Babylonians didn’t eat locusts, but other communities did, the Yemenites and Moroccans, for example. We’ve allowed the desert locust common in Israel, which arrived in 2005, for consumption, because it’s traditionally called locust. As for the current ones, I don’t know. Bring me two or three, I’ll tell you right away whether you can eat it or not,” Revach told Ha’aretz.
The fact is, at a time when income disparity in Israel is very wide, and many people don’t get healthy three meals every day, harvesting free locusts and quickly frying or sauteing them can add some much-needed protein to what otherwise would be a protein-deficient meal – or no meal at all.
Some Ashkenazi rabbis will allow Ashkenazi Jews to eat locusts if served by Yemeni Jews familiar with the mesorah; others will not.
A case can – and should – be made that in this time of real suffering for many poor Israelis, these locusts, if determined to be kosher by Yemeni rabbis, can be eaten by any Jew of any ethnic background.
There is still time to do this – if there are rabbis in Israel caring and courageous enough to risk the attacks by extremists that will certainly follow that ruling.