Jordan Rosenblum

Education:
Ph.D., Brown University, Religious Studies (2008)
M.A., Brown University, Religious Studies (2005)
M.A., Emory University, Jewish Studies (2003)
B.A., Columbia University, Religion (2001)
B.A., Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Ancient Judaism (2001)

Research Areas: Religious food laws, Rabbinic literature, kosher laws, theory and method of religious studies, animal studies

About: Jordan D. Rosenblum is the Belzer Professor of Classical Judaism and Professor of Religious Studies. His research focuses on the literature, law, and social history of the rabbinic movement in general and, in particular, on rabbinic food regulations. His most recent book is Forbidden: A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig (NYU Press), which appeared in multiple editions (hardcover, ebook, and audio book) in 2024. He is also the author of Rabbinic Drinking: What Beverages Teach Us About Rabbinic Literature (University of California Press, 2020); The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World (Cambridge University Press, 2016; paperback edition, 2019); and Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism (Cambridge University Press, 2010; paperback edition, 2014), as well as the co-editor of Feasting and Fasting: The History and Ethics of Jewish Food (New York University Press, 2019); Animals and the Law in Antiquity (Brown Judaic Studies, 2021); With the Loyal You Show Yourself Loyal: Essays on Relationships in the Hebrew Bible in Honor of Saul M. Olyan (SBL Press, 2021); and Religious Competition in the Third Century C.E.: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2014).

Other Publications
“The Swine Suicides: On the Appearance and Disappearance of Pork-Related Jewish Martyrdom in Antiquity,” Journal of Religious Competition in Antiquity 1 (2019):37–47.

“A Brief History of Jews and Garlic,” in Feasting and Fasting: The History and Ethics of Jewish Food, ed. Aaron Gross, Jody Myers, and Jordan D. Rosenblum, New York University Press, 2019, pp. 149–58.

“The Unwashed Masses: Handwashing as a Ritual of Social Distinction in Rabbinic Judaism,” Historia Religionum 10 (2018): 79–90.

“Thou Shalt Not Cook a Bird in its Mother’s Milk?: Theorizing the Evolution of a Rabbinic Regulation,” in Religious Studies and Rabbinics: A Conversation, ed. Elizabeth Shanks Alexander and Beth A. Berkowitz, Routledge Jewish Studies Series, Routledge, 2018, pp. 175–87.

“‘Blessings of the Breasts’: Breastfeeding in Rabbinic Literature,” Hebrew Union College Annual 87 (2016): 147–79.

“Changing the Subject: Rabbinic Legal Process in the Absence of Justification,” The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 18 (2015): 23–36.