Plague Of Locusts Has Israelis Asking: Are They Kosher For Passover?

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An Israeli Orthodox Jewish man mimics putting a locust into a boy's mouth, during an event meant to highlight locusts as a kosher treat, at a restaurant in Jerusalem in 2010.

An Israeli Orthodox Jewish man mimics putting a locust into a boy's mouth, during an event meant to highlight locusts as a kosher treat, at a restaurant in Jerusalem in 2010.

A swarm of locusts that has devastated crops in Egypt made its way into neighboring Israel this week. And with Passover just around the corner, many news outlets couldn't resist noting the shades of the biblical tale of Exodus, when the insects were one of 10 plagues that descended upon Pharaoh and his people.

But while Israeli farmers now fret over what the insects might do to their fields, others in Israel have proposed a culinary approach to the infestation: Why not eat the buggers up?

It's a tidy approach, but there's just one catch: The rabbis don't agree on whether the critters are kosher.

Among the chief promoters of locust cuisine is Israeli celebrity chef Moshe Basson, who appeared on a morning news program Wednesday to offer advice on whipping up concoctions with the insects.

"They taste something between sunflower seeds and baby shrimps; they actually don't taste like much," Basson told the U.K.'s The Guardian. "I like them, but they're desired not because they are delicious but because they are rare."

Basson is known for his biblically inspired dishes. A few years ago, his restaurant The Eucalyptus served up fried locusts as dessert in a well-publicized dinner aimed at reviving ancient local kosher food traditions.

Others have also chimed in to promote the palate experimentation for Passover: "As the only kosher insect, they are perfect for the hostess who hasn't yet decided on an interesting appetizer for the Passover Seder meal," Allison Kaplan Sommer writes in Haaretz.

Recipe ideas for dishes like honey-spiced locusts soon popped up on blogs. And in an op-ed for The Times of Israel, Rabbi Natan Slifkin, who studies the intersection of Judaism and the animal world, offered an ecologically minded argument for eating the insects:

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A Palestinian farmer collects a locust in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. A swarm of locusts crossed into Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip from neighboring Egypt this week.

A Palestinian farmer collects a locust in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. A swarm of locusts crossed into Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip from neighboring Egypt this week.

"Can you imagine what an impact it would make if Jews were known not for exploiting animals in factory-farming and indulging in massive gastronomic excesses, but instead for adopting a more environmentally and animal-friendly approach?"

Still, not everyone is on board the locust culinary train. Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, son of one of Israel's most influential ultra-Orthodox religious leaders, warns that the tasty grasshoppers may not be so kosher after all.

The Old Testament is admittedly fuzzy when it comes to eating locusts. As The Jerusalem Post notes, Leviticus warns that "every swarming thing that swarms on the ground is detestable; it shall not be eaten." But the same book of the Torah, the paper notes, also lists four types of locusts "red, yellow, spotted gray, and white" that are OK to eat.

Yemeni Jews have munched on locusts for centuries, so no one in that community disputes that the grasshoppers are kosher for them.

The real question, it seems, is whether they're also kosher for Jews of European descent, known as Ashkenazi, who have no tradition of being able to identify the types of locusts with the biblical stamp of approval. Ashkenazi rabbis are divided.

The Salt

Some Jews Say Bugs Have No Place At The Seder Table

"Communities with a tradition of eating locusts allow it," Yosef said Wednesday, "but most of the people in Israel don't, and we cannot rely on the marks, even when it's called locust."

It may sound like splitting hairs, but such wrestling with interpretation is a hallmark of Jewish scholarly tradition.

Still, for those who throw their lot with "yeas" on kosher, global cuisines from The Netherlands to Mexico to Bay Area foodies offer plenty of inspiration for chowing down on insects, which are a great source of protein.

Or Israelis could simply look to Thailand, where fried grasshoppers are often served as a crunchy treat. According to urban legend, the insects first appeared on Thai dinner plates after a plague of locusts descended on local farms a few decades ago.

Bet the ancient Egyptians wish they'd thought of that first.

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Some Dining establishments In Israel Declare A Kosher Rebellion

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Israelis consume at a kosher McDonald's restaurant in Tel Aviv.

Israelis consume at a kosher McDonald's restaurant in Tel Aviv.

The Carousela cafe in West Jerusalem is 1 of a handful of dining places and cafes in Israel staging a bit of a rebellion by defying Jewish religious authorities who declare they are the only ones who can certify dining places as kosher, or in compliance with Jewish dietary laws.

Activists, rabbis and clients recently gathered in support of Carousela immediately after the authorities threatened to fine the cafe if it claimed to be kosher without having a certificate from the rabbinate. And now Carousela and four other dining places are taking the authorities to court in excess of the concern, according to The Times of Israel.

Cafe manager Jonathan Vadei says the rabbinate's kosher inspectors are not executing their job, and he and some colleagues have made the decision to kind their personal association to do it.

Now, it requires some chutzpah to phone the authorities unkosher, but some rabbis have rallied to Vadei's assistance for carrying out so. Conservative motion Rabbi Andrew Sacks says the kosher inspection method has become corrupt.

"There are quite a few dining establishments and institutions exactly where the inspector comes in the moment a month merely to gather a verify and does not appear the rest of the month," Sacks says. "But beyond that, a serious problem is that the inspectors themselves are paid immediately by the restaurateur. So there can be no objectivity."

But Rabbi Eliyahu Schlesinger of the Jerusalem Religious Council says any restaurant that calls itself kosher without a certificate is breaking the law. "To turn into a doctor you need certification to become a attorney you need certification to be kosher, you want certification," Schlesinger says by means of an interpreter. "I don't know who is behind this. Almost certainly interest groups, possibly with political interests in thoughts. The result will be anarchy."

For centuries just before the present day state of Israel was established in 1948, there was no central authority more than kosher inspections. They were carried out by personal groups of rabbis, as they are in the United States.

"It was primarily based on trust, and that is what we need to set up again : the trust between the customer and the owner of the restaurant, without the monopoly and without having all the other industrial interests of the chief rabbinate," says Conservative Rabbi Ehud Bandel.

But then the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, gave the rabbinate and ultra-Orthodox Jews a monopoly, not just over kosher inspections but over weddings and funerals also. It also granted the ultra-Orthodox particular privileges, this kind of as exemption from military services.

Now Israelis are questioning all of these monopolies and privileges.

Bandel says it is time to reclaim Judaism from the religious establishment. " It is up to us to make certain that the Knesset will adjust this legislation and enable freedom of religion and cost-free industry of religion, which will only be fantastic for religious lifestyle right here in Israel."

Some see this issue as aspect of a more substantial culture war in between Orthodox and secular Jews. But Jerusalem City Council member Rachel Azaria says that the two sides are just attempting to discover strategies to reside with each other and increase the city.

"For 15 many years, the ultra-Orthodox had been taking over, and the normal Orthodox and the liberal and the secular had been leaving the city," Azaria says. "What occurred over the past couple of a long time is we received a secular mayor, and that kind of adjusted one thing, and we received our self- confidence back and we're campaigning once more to make confident the city is the way we want it to be."

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