Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

5 Smart Answers to Stupid Kosher Questions

If you keep kosher and have a diverse group of friends and dining partners, it seems inevitable that you will at some point have to explain yourself. Kosher can be complicated, and of course a 3,000-year-old practice will never be as fashionable as the diet du jour. Then again, Paleo came back from the Stone Age, but I digress.

Inequality being what it is, the lucky 1% either inherited or somehow acquired an aptitude for the clever comeback. That leaves the rest of us with the useless skill of ruminating over a missed comeback for days, only to come up with the perfect response just in time to beat ourselves up for the delay.

So we’ve consulted with Marty Nemko, award-winning career coach, radio personality and Psychology Today contributor, for bulletproof answers to common questions about keeping kosher.

1. What does it mean to keep kosher?

SHORT, SERIOUS ANSWER: It means following a set of dietary laws, he explains, including but not limited to the following: “We don’t eat meat with milk, and we avoid shellfish and pork. It’s a tradition with its roots in religion as well as rationality, because in ancient times, food preservation wasn’t what it is and shellfish kept poorly, for instance.”

MORE EFFECTIVE RETORT: “For the same reason Christians eat those fruit cakes with green things in them.” Nemko explains: “This answer is inclusive rather than defensive. It’s a way of saying I’m not weird, every religion has its own seemingly random or inexplicable traditions.”

CONCISE COMEBACK: “Like Hebrew National Hotdogs, we answer to a higher authority.”

2. Does this mean you’re, like totally Orthodox?

Click here for your answer options.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.