Latkes vs. Hamentashen vs. . . . gefilte fish?

Last night, I attended the 63rd Annual Latke-Hamantash Debate at the University of Chicago. This time, however, there were protestors! As we waited to go inside, a woman approached us, asking us to sign a petition decrying the discrimination against other traditional Jewish foods, specifically: gefilte fish.

Later, just before the start of the debate, she and her cohorts stormed the stage, aided and abetted by sign-carrying stooges in the audience.

But matters calmed down, and Daniel Libenson, Director of Hillel, again tried, and again failed, to use numerology to settle the age-old question, latkes or hamentashen? Due to the coincidence(?) that the debate fell on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, he, and other speakers, incorporated information and speculation about Darwin into his analysis. Interestingly, he showed that the 100th anniversary of the publication of that work actually fell on the bar mitzvah of the Latke-Hamentash debate! Astounding! Perhaps not. After all, the organizer of the centennial celebration at the University was also one of the founders of the debate, anthropologist Sol Tax. And one of the organizers of this year's reprise of that celebration, Morris Fishbein Professor of the History of Science and Medicine and a bunch of other academic titles, Robert Richards, was also a participant in tonight's debate. I smell a conspiracy.

Other speakers included Peggy Mason, a professor of Neurobiology, whose experiment to determine whether squirrels preferred latkes or hamentashen went sadly awry when she and her partner devoured the delicacies, rather than leave them out for the wildlife. Salikoko Mufwene, professor of Linguistics and member of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, declared that linguistics was also unable to solve this issue. But the highlight of the evening was a stealth member of the Gefilte Fish Brigade, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, professor in the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, who studies terrorism and political violence, clearly the man to ferret out a conspiracy if one exists. And ferret he did. You will, perhaps, realize from his name that he is a Sephardic Jew, and it seems that for many years he has harbored a deep resentment against the Ashkenazic domination of this annual event. He showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the latke and hamentash forces, far from being rivals, were actually members of a conspiracy to prevent traditional Sephardic pastries from participation, and presented a Venn diagram showing that participants would favor such pastries over the Ashkenazic varieties!

As usual, a good time was had by all.

Latkes vs. Hamentashen vs. . . . gefilte fish?

Last night, I attended the 63rd Annual Latke-Hamantash Debate at the University of Chicago. This time, however, there were protestors! As we waited to go inside, a woman approached us, asking us to sign a petition decrying the discrimination against other traditional Jewish foods, specifically: gefilte fish.

Later, just before the start of the debate, she and her cohorts stormed the stage, aided and abetted by sign-carrying stooges in the audience.

But matters calmed down, and Daniel Libenson, Director of Hillel, again tried, and again failed, to use numerology to settle the age-old question, latkes or hamentashen? Due to the coincidence(?) that the debate fell on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, he, and other speakers, incorporated information and speculation about Darwin into his analysis. Interestingly, he showed that the 100th anniversary of the publication of that work actually fell on the bar mitzvah of the Latke-Hamentash debate! Astounding! Perhaps not. After all, the organizer of the centennial celebration at the University was also one of the founders of the debate, anthropologist Sol Tax. And one of the organizers of this year's reprise of that celebration, Morris Fishbein Professor of the History of Science and Medicine and a bunch of other academic titles, Robert Richards, was also a participant in tonight's debate. I smell a conspiracy.

Other speakers included Peggy Mason, a professor of Neurobiology, whose experiment to determine whether squirrels preferred latkes or hamentashen went sadly awry when she and her partner devoured the delicacies, rather than leave them out for the wildlife. Salikoko Mufwene, professor of Linguistics and member of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, declared that linguistics was also unable to solve this issue. But the highlight of the evening was a stealth member of the Gefilte Fish Brigade, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, professor in the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, who studies terrorism and political violence, clearly the man to ferret out a conspiracy if one exists. And ferret he did. You will, perhaps, realize from his name that he is a Sephardic Jew, and it seems that for many years he has harbored a deep resentment against the Ashkenazic domination of this annual event. He showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the latke and hamentash forces, far from being rivals, were actually members of a conspiracy to prevent traditional Sephardic pastries from participation, and presented a Venn diagram showing that participants would favor such pastries over the Ashkenazic varieties!

As usual, a good time was had by all.