A screen shot from the 75th edition of the University of Chicago’s Latke-Hamantash Debate, Dec. 2, 2021. (Screen shot)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Participants in the debate, hosted by the university\u2019s Hillel chapter, have over the years included noted intellectuals, professors and government officials such as Allan Bloom, Milton Friedman and Austan Goolsbee. But over the three quarters of a century, there have been two constants \u2014 it has always been firmly tongue-in-cheek, and there has never been a definitive winner. <\/p>\n
The 75th edition of the Latke-Hamantash Debate, which took place on Facebook Live and Zoom on Thursday night, was billed as a \u201cretrospective.\u201d Rabbi Anna Levin Rosen, executive director and rabbi at the school\u2019s Newberger Hillel Center, began the event by going through the history of the debate and naming a \u201cwinner\u201d from each past decade, arguing that the two foods had alternated victories over the course of the debate\u2019s seven decades to date. <\/p>\n
In the 1970s, for instance, infamous gas shortages made \u201coil\u201d more important, thus delivering a win to the latke. But in the \u201980s, the uniquely shaped shoulders of women\u2019s fashion granted the victory to hamentashen. <\/p>\n
The event, which lasted a little over an hour and drew nearly 2,000 viewers to the Facebook stream, went beyond the retrospective, however. As usual, the discussions formed less of a \u201cdebate\u201d than a series of presentations. The participants employed a dry, academic style of humor, citing fake sources and imaginary evidence from biblical and academic sources, as well as multiple nods to The New York Times. <\/p>\n
Arguing for the latke was Sarah Hammerschlag, a professor of religion and literature, philosophy of religions and history of Judaism in the university\u2019s Divinity School; and arguing for the hamantash was Omri Ben-Shahar, the Leo and Eileen Herzel Professor of Law. Adam Shaw, a professor in the department of computer science, took part as a \u201cswing debater.\u201d <\/p>\n
Citing the much-referenced recent New York Times magazine article about \u201cInside the Unraveling of American Zionism,\u201d Hammerschlag zeroed in on a line in the piece asking whether \u201cthe median American Jew \u2014 Ashkenazic, native-born, lightly religious \u2014 [has] become a white person who knows a potato pancake is called a latke.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hammerschlag went on to argue that \u201cthe latke is not here the cause, but the solution\u201d \u2014 it might even have a messianic role to play, she argued, humorously inserting a latke into the Talmudic story of the \u201cThe Messiah at the Gates of Rome.\u201d Referencing the \u201cubiquity of the latke,\u201d she argued that latkes could very well play a role in solving many of the seemingly intractable problems facing the Jewish people today. <\/p>\n
Omri Ben-Shahar, in arguing the pro-hamantash side, also made a plea for unity, calling the food \u201cour social glue.\u201d <\/p>\n
He detailed a completely imaginary controversy in which the latke had gained such a level of popularity that it was being served at McDonalds. He even included a bogus quote from the university\u2019s former Hyde Park neighbor, Michelle Obama, that the latke would \u201chelp solve the problem of childhood obesity.\u201d He then imagined a subsequent backlash and downfall for the cookie, which is eaten on Purim, not Chanukah. <\/p>\n
This was meant as a parody of a very real controversy. In 2015, the food magazine Bon Appetit published an online article called \u201cHow to Make Actually Good Hamantaschen,\u201d and later apologized and re-edited it. This was shoehorned into a 2021 argument about cancel culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hamantash isn\u2019t divisive at all \u2014 nothing unites Jews like complaining about hamantashan,\u201d Ben-Shahar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt nourishes our collective identity for spirited disagreement,\u201d he added, as well as of participating in one of our greatest traditions: \u201cKvetching about food.\u201d <\/p>\n
Adam Shaw didn\u2019t particularly take a side, but he did consider the question from what he called \u201ca computational perspective.\u201d He cited an \u201cacademic paper\u201d authored by \u201cC. Boy-ar-dee, et. al,\u201d which was titled \u201cToward a Theory of Noshing,\u201d and coined the phrase \u201cNoshalogical Hyperspace.\u201d And in honor of the recent passing of Jewish musical theater giant Stephen Sondheim, he shared a latke-themed original song called \u201cLiving a Sour Cream Dream.\u201d <\/p>\n
The final speaker was David Barack-Gorodetsky, who opined on \u201cThe Future of the Latke-Hamantashan Debate.\u201d He noted that in Israel, the winner is neither, but rather the sufganiyah. He also speculated that in the future, we might see hamantash sushi, or perhaps hamantash AI.<\/p>\n
While, once again, they did not resolve the debate, the debaters continued a long and proud tradition. In fact, a book-length recounting of the history of the University of Chicago debate up to that point, \u201cThe Great Latke-Hamantash Debate,\u201d was published in 2005 by the University of Chicago Press. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen 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,\u201d Ruth Fredman Cernea, editor of that book, said of the original debate in 1946, in the University of Chicago\u2019s magazine at the time of the book\u2019s publication. <\/p>\n
The idea of a Latke-Hamentash Debate, while originated at the University of Chicago, has expanded much further over the years, including to such universities as Harvard and Brandeis. At the latter university, in 2007, noted Jewish studies scholar Professor Jonathan Sarna argued for the hamantash on five counts: \u201cnumerical value, history, language, semiotics, and public policy,\u201d The Brandeis Hoot reported at the time. <\/p>\n
Rabbi Joe Black, now the rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Denver and a noted musician, included a song called \u201cLatke Hamentaschen Debate\u201d on his 1992 album \u201cEverybody\u2019s Got a Little Music.\u201d Rabbi Black, a Chicago native, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he remembered hearing about the debate in his childhood. <\/p>\n
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