Latke
As our families have done since time immemorial, this holiday season we'll revive an ancient tradition. We'll gather the people we love around the dining table, break bread and... argue. Perhaps yell. Maybe even stomp out of the room.
Let's face it. Whether it's Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or even Festivus, arguments are as much a part of the holidays as is TV football and kids at the card table. And we can't blame only Packers, politics or nephews who can't put down their smartphones. It just seems to be in our holiday DNA.
There's a better, more decorous way.
Take, for example, the annual Latke-Hamantasch Debate. Which of the two Judaic holiday treats are best? Advocates for each clash in a formal, academic-style forum at Hillel, the University of Wisconsin-Madison center for Jewish students and the campus at large, at 611 Langdon St.
Latkes are potato pancakes that often include onions, eggs, matzo meal or other ingredients, usually fried in oil. They're often enjoyed with sour cream or applesauce. Latkes are associated with Hanukkah, the Jewish Feast of Lights, this year falling Dec. 16-24.
A hamantasch (plural: hamantaschen) is a light cookie crust wrapped to form a triangle around a poppy seed, nut or fruit filling. Hamantaschen are associated with Purim, the feast that commemorates deliverance of Persian Jews from a massacre plotted by the vizier Haman. In 2015, Purim falls on March 4 and 5.
Hillel has held the debate several times in the past, most recently in 2013. The first recorded Latke-Hamantasch debate was held at the University of Chicago in 1946. It's since spread to schools including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and other Ivy League colleges, as well as the University of Minnesota and Stanford University.
Though it's a humorous, mock debate, it often features a heavyweight cast. Debaters on various campuses have included a variety of notables, including two Nobel Prize winners. At the UW-Madison on Nov. 20 last year, the fight was between R. Alta Charo, professor of law and bioethics, and Jordan Rosenblum, professor of Jewish studies. Charo was in the latke's corner, Rosenblum was arguing on behalf of the hamantasch. As per custom, the debaters wore their doctoral caps and gowns.
"They were so good," says Jennifer Jennings, Hillel administrative director. "They were so funny."
"I had never even heard of the debate," admits Charo. "When I was asked to do it, I was flabbergasted that it even existed. But it turns out that there's an entire Wikipedia entry about it, and there's actually a book that collects some of the best arguments for and against the latke and the hamantasch."
She proved to be a quick study, in part because she sought counsel from a ringer. A past master, a former president of Princeton University, is a friend and former colleague. Charo's boldly innovative argument took its cue from an acclaimed masterwork of recent literature:
Latkes are associated with the holiday of Hanukkah, while hamantaschen are associated with Purim," she observes. "Now, Hanukkah as a holiday seemed to me to be a better holiday because it reminded me of the Harry Potter books; how Hanukkah is all about fighting great battles against the odds, just like they did in Harry Potter.
Rosenblum gambled with a risky triad of attack.
"Like the shape of the hamantasch, I had a three-cornered argument," he says. "One was about antiquity. The other included the food history of both, and arguing that the hamantasch had a much cooler history. And then the last one I called 'imitatio crusti,' which is Latin for 'the thing imitating the pastry.'"
into his argument.
He connected Hamantaschen first to the Jewish book of Esther and then to Ishtar, the Babylonian fertility goddess. With that in mind, it's obviously clear, he maintained, that fertility was propitiated by baking hamantaschen "in the shape of a pubic area, to look like a vagina. To consume it was to help them conceive. This sort of food symbol was a common practice in the ancient world." And therefore hamantaschen are better.
The strength of this argument is obviously self-evident. Ahem.
Win or lose, "the debate is wonderful," says Rosenblum. "It has a wonderful, rich tradition. It's something I'd wanted to do for a long time. I can cross it off my bucket list."
"This was the best thing I did all last year," says Charo. "Seriously. Seriously."
At Hillel, as at the University of Chicago, the audience adjourns to enjoy both the treats during a reception. By custom, the debate is never won -- nor lost. It merely continues until next time.
Some, of course, may disagree.
"Alta was an intimidating opponent," recalls Rosenblum. "In my mind she would have won -- except she was presenting the wrong side."
Because of the crush of semester-end exams, Hillel is not holding the debate before Hanukkah this year. Jennings expects it will be scheduled around the time of Purim.
