Latke–Hamantash Debate

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The Latke-Hamantash Debate is a humorous academic debate about the relative merits and meanings of these two items of Jewish cuisine. The debate originated at the University of Chicago in 1946^[1] and has since been held annually. Subsequent debates have taken place at George Washington University,Amherst College, Swarthmore College, Williams College, Wesleyan University, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Brandeis University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, the University of Minnesota, Mt. Holyoke, Bowdoin College, UCSD, and Johns Hopkins University.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Participants in the debate, held within the format of a symposium, have included past University of Chicago president Hanna Holborn Gray, philosopher Martha Nussbaum, Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman and Leon M. Lederman, and essayist Allan Bloom. A compendium of the debate, which has never been won, was published in 2005.^[7].

Contents 1 Background and history 2 Arguments 3 Footnotes 4 External links

[edit] Background and history

A latke is a kind of potato pancake. Latkes are traditionally eaten during the Jewish holiday of Hannukah; fried in oil, they serve to commemorate the holiday miracle in which one day’s worth of oil illuminated the temple for eight days. Hamentashen are triangular wheat-flour pastries with a sweet filling which are traditionally eaten on the holiday of Purim.

A debate on their relative merits was first held in the winter of 1946 at the University of Chicago chapter house of the Hillel Foundation, sponsored by Rabbi Maurice Pekarsky. At the time, according to Ruth Fredman Cernea, editor of The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate, "...scholarly life discouraged an open display of Jewish ethnicity. The event provided a rare opportunity for faculty to reveal their hidden Jewish souls and poke fun at the high seriousness of everyday academic life."^[8] It has been held annually since then, usually on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, with the exception of one year. Both foodstuffs are usually served at a reception afterwards, offering debaters and listeners an opportunity to evaluate primary sources.^[8] Several long-standing customs are observed at the University of Chicago; the debaters must have gained a Ph.D. or an equivalent advanced degree, make a formal entry in academic clothing to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance, and their number must include at least one non-Jewish participant to add gentility to the proceedings.^[9]

The debate is said to have arisen from a tradition of spoofing Talmudic study during Purim. It is also felt to offer a humorous relief valve from the university’s rigorous academic program.

Harvard University's 2007 debate featured Professors Steven Pinker and Alan Dershowitz.^[10]

[edit] Arguments

The debaters represent a range of academic disciplines. Some of the entries are described below:

• Hanna Gray discusses the silence of Machiavelli on the subject; noting that "The silence of a wise man is always meaningful"^[11], she comes to the conclusion that Machiavelli was Jewish, and like all wise people, for the latke.
• Isaac Abella, professor of physics, asserts that "Which is Better: the Latke or the Hamantash?" is an invalid question, since it does not exhibit the necessary property of universality, is culturally biased, implies gender specificity, exhibits geographical chauvinism and appeals to special interests.
• Michael Silverstein, professor in anthropology, linguistics, and psychology, argues that it is not mere coincidence that the English translation of the letters on the dreidl spells out T-U-M-S. He cites this as evidence that "God may play dice with the universe, but not with Mrs. Schmalowitz’s lukshn kugl, nor especially with her latkes and homntashen."
• Professor Wendy Doniger of the divinity school, in a carefully footnoted paper entitled "The Archetypal Hamentasch: A Feminist Mythology", asserts that hamentaschen are a womb equivalent, and were worshipped in early matriarchal societies.
• In the debate at MIT, Robert J. Silbey, dean of its School of Science, has cited Google, which returns 380,000 hits on a search for "latke" and only 62,000 for "hamantaschen". Silbey has also claimed that latkes, not hamentashen, are the dark matter thought to make up over 21 percent of the mass of the universe.
• Allan Bloom posited a conspiracy theory involving Sigmund Freud and the Manischewitz company.
• Developmental psychologist Kenneth Kaye cited Freud's most important works, Constipation and its Discontents and The Goy and the Yid in proving that a latkedikh or a hamentashenlikh personality is determined by an infant's mother's breastfeeding behavior in the first two weeks of life.^[12]
• According to literature professor Diana Henderson, "The latke is appropriate for lyric, tragic, and epic forms", but "There is very little poetry in the prune," a common hamentashen filling.
• The physicist Leon Lederman's contribution is entitled "Paired Matter, Edible and Inedible".
• An entry by the economist Milton Friedman discusses "The Latke and the Hamantash at the Fifty-Yard Line".
• Criminal lawyer Professor Alan Dershowitz, during a debate at Harvard University, accused the latke of increasing the United States' dependence on oil.^[2]
• When he was President of Princeton University, Harold Tafler Shapiro argued the hamentaschen's superiority by pointing out the epicurean significance of the "edible triangle" in light of the literary "Oedipal triangle."

Hanna Gray has stated for the record that "both the latke and hamentasch are simply wonderful. We welcome them to our diverse, pluralistic and tolerant community of scholars." She has, however, taken a stand with her statement that "Renaissance humanism grew out of the revival of the latke."

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ University of Chicago Magazine
2. ^ ^{a b} "Latkes vs. Hamantashen: The Promised Food". http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=517444. Retrieved 2008-05-23. 
3. ^ "Profs Face Off on Latkes Versus Hamantaschen". http://tech.mit.edu/V126/N9/9latke.html. Retrieved 2008-05-23. 
4. ^ "Prattle of the ages: Hamantasch vs. latke". https://www.mndaily.com/articles/2006/02/27/67353. Retrieved 2008-05-23. 
5. ^ "Latke-Hamantasch Debate Becomes Verbal Food Fight". http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/csj/970404/food.html. Retrieved 2008-05-23. 
6. ^ "Professors debate merits of latkes, hamantash". http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2009-02-27&section=1&id=4. Retrieved 2009-02-27. 
7. ^ Ruth Fredman Cernea (2005) The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226100235
8. ^ ^{a b} "Shticking to Their Puns". University of Chicago Magazine. http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0512/features/puns.shtml. Retrieved 2009-10-08. 
9. ^ Ruth Fredman Cernea, Ted Cohen (2006). The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate. University of Chicago Press. p. xxii. http://books.google.com/books?id=VAFQpLe9hpUC&pg=PR22&dq=Great+Latke-Hamantash+Debate+lend+a+note+of+gentility#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
10. ^ Steven Pinker's lecture website
11. ^ Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 35
12. ^ "Latke-Hamentash Interaction"

[edit] External links

• History of the debate
• Eric Zorn, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, addresses the debate
• The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate, edited by Ruth Fredman Cernea, foreword by Ted Cohen, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-226-10023-4 (2005, hardcover), ISBN 978-0-226-10024-1 (2006, paperback)
  • Text and audio of Ted Cohen's 1976 debate speech, "Consolations of the Latke" latkes recipe hamantashen recipe
• Kenyon College's 4th Annual Latke-Hamentashen Debate, six parts on YouTube.
• Recap of the Johns Hopkins 2006 Debate
• Clip of part of the 2007 MIT debate