Lecture by Pierre Birnbaum

This talk explores how eating pork in Paris and other cities can be read as a sign of identity crisis in French society—a way of excluding from the public space others who are different, in this case, Jews or Muslims who follow dietary laws forbidding the consumption of pork.  

Pierre Birnbaum is an emeritus professor of political sociology at Université Paris I and currently a visiting scholar at NYU’s Tikvah Center for Law & Jewish Civilization. He is an eminent authority on the political history of Jews in France, and on relations between Jews and the State in different contemporary societies. His books include The Jews of the Republic: A History of State Jews from Gambetta to Vichy (Stanford, 1996) and Paths for Emancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship (Princeton, 1995).