This redditor wasn’t close to his kin, which is why he seemingly wasn’t too upset over his cousin not being able to make it to his wedding on the other side of the country. But the cousin sure was and blamed the OP for discriminating against them, which resulted in an even bigger altercation after the groom-to-be revealed what cruel prank the cousin had pulled on the OP’s girlfriend in the past. In order to learn more about the importance of food in the Jewish tradition, Bored Panda got in touch with Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Michigan State University, Kirsten Fermaglich, who was kind enough to answer a few of our questions. Scroll down to find her thoughts in the text below.
Typically a joyous occasion, a wedding often also entails family drama
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The OP’s cousin accused him of discrimination, so he revealed what prank the cousin had pulled on his girlfriend in the past
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Food is a significant part of the Jewish culture and customs
The OP’s cousin wasn’t happy about the location of the wedding and took it quite personally, which resulted in them putting their relative on blast quite publicly and eventually getting a taste of their own medicine. And that medicine was quite bitter; as the OP shared in his post, the cousin ended up losing their job over something they did four years ago, which was pranking the redditor’s Jewish significant other. While the details of how the cousin tried pranking the OP’s girlfriend into eating pork are unknown, one thing that is no secret is that Jewish people refrain from eating this type of meat. In Judaism, no part of a pig is suitable for consumption, as it is not a kosher animal. Meaning “fit” in Hebrew, the word kosher means it is okay to eat for those following the kosher laws, according to which only meat of ruminants—animals such as cows or sheep—is okay. According to Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Michigan State University, Kirsten Fermaglich, for observant (Orthodox) Jews, keeping kosher is crucial. “Keeping kosher is as important today as it was in the past,” she told Bored Panda in a recent interview, adding that nowadays it might be even more stringent for many. She suggested that for Jews who are not observant, food can still have important connections to both religious holidays (having latkes for Hanukkah or matzo ball soup for Passover, for instance) and their ethnic, cultural, or family background (eating bagels and lox or burekas).
Not all Jews conform to the dietary regulations of the kosher laws
The reason the OP decided to have the wedding in Florida was because the couple wanted the bride’s grandparents and great-grandmother to be there. According to data from 2022, the Jewish population in the state comprised more than 672,000 individuals, while the total number of Jewish adults in the US that year was reportedly roughly 5.8 million. “Rates of keeping kosher in the US plummeted in the 1920s and 1930s, but rates of Jews ‘returning’ to Orthodoxy have increased in the past 30 years,” Prof. Fermaglich told Bored Panda, pointing out that for non-observant Jews, keeping kosher rigorously is no more relevant today than it was 100 years ago, when there were also many non-observant Jews. “However, for many less observant Jews both today and in the past, there are varieties of being ‘kosher-style’—not eating pork or shellfish, eating vegetarian, refraining from milk and meat, eating kosher in the home but not outside—that have been important for Jewish life and identity,” the professor suggested. K. Fermaglich added that the extent to which it is difficult or easy to follow kosher laws depends on where one lives, as according to her, living in a community with likeminded people can make it easier; needless to say, for the OP’s girlfriend, spending time with the soon-to-be-husband’s cousin likely didn’t.
The groom-to-be provided more details about how his cousin had put him on blast for the wedding location
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The majority of redditors didn’t think the OP was the jerk
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Others believed the redditor was in the wrong, while some thought everyone were jerks in the situation
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