Hey, I just realized that in my previous post I mentioned that Poles are drawn as pigs in Maus II. According to the laws of kashrut, or keeping kosher, Jews are not supposed to eat any form of pig meat. No pulled pork sandwiches in summer, no bacon in the morning, no sliced deli ham for lunch...
Not all branches of Judaism require that its members keep kosher; as far as I've seen, it seems to be primarily Orthodox and Conservative Jews. Kashrut also says that Jews cannot eat shellfish, bottom-feeders (like catfish), and it has specifications as far as the killing of permitted animals. There is a more detailed description at this website.
Then there is the wordplay people use: That's not kosher! While it can be a joke, it can also be someone genuinely scolding someone else. Don't do that, it's not kosher! Or when playing a game, and someone breaks the rules, you can call them out with that expression.
What I'm getting at is, by portraying the Polish as pigs, is Spiegelman (the author, not the character) hinting at a personal dislike for either Polish people or Poland the country? Or, is he simply saying that Jews in the Holocaust somehow clashed with Poles in the Holocaust?
When sociologists survey Jews on whether or not they self-describe as keeping kosher, they tend to come up with 13-15% rates [out of total Am Jewish population], with the heaviest concentrations [surprise!] in Northern New Jersey and a couple of locations in New York with large quantities of Orthodox Jews. The question of the internal diversity of kashrut is also interesting.
ReplyDelete