A recent and timely acquisition I made consisted of two publications addressing the kashrut of the turkey. Native to the New World, the bird’s name, “turkey,” likely derives from the fact that it was brought to Britain by merchants trading with Turkey, thus becoming associated with that region. In Hebrew, the turkey is referred to as tarnegol hodu, which translates to “Indian fowl.” Both the Hebrew and English appellations reflect the confusion regarding the bird’s origins when it first appeared in Europe, and the status of its kashrut has remained ambiguous ever since. To further complicate the issue, turkeys were often simply categorized as large chickens. In the 19th century, a variety of exotic chicken breeds were imported to Europe, and halachic discussions frequently conflate the kashrut of these different species, or fail to specify which particular breed is being referenced.
Halachically, there is typically a requirement that a tradition of kashrut exists for a species, even if such a tradition is upheld by a community on the other side of the world. However, the Americas lacked a native Jewish community, and thus no established tradition. The earliest rabbinic authorities to address the kashrut of turkeys were mistaken in their assumptions about the bird’s origin, presuming that a kashrut tradition existed in India. By the time these debates reached their peak in the 19th century, the global Jewish population had been consuming turkey for generations, and the halachic discussions increasingly sought to find justification for the continued consumption of the bird, rather than challenging a long-standing and widely accepted practice.
The first of these two works I obtained, is titled Derech Nesher, authored by Rabbi Shmuel Heller, and printed in his community of Safed. Rabbi Shmuel Heller (Ha’aler) (Tammuz 1785 – 1884) was the rabbi and leader of the Ashkenazi community in Safed for over forty years. He succeeded in rebuilding Safed after its destruction and maintaining it as a center of chassidism in the Land of Israel during the 19th century. He was buried in the ancient cemetery of Safed, near the graves of the Safed rabbis, Rabbi Isaac Luria (the Ari) and Rabbi Moshe Cordovero. In addition to his rabbinical leadership, he was also a healer, knowledgeable in the local flora and native wildlife. His expertise led him to write this book discussing the halachic status of various local and imported bird species. The second work, Hidushei Haviva, was published in New York in 1919 and authored by Rabbi Samuel Cohon. R. Cohon served as a rabbi in Kozin (in the Kiev oblast), and later in Memphis, Tennessee, and New York. He was the founder of Yeshivat Ohel Torah in Kozin and Bet Torah in Stepenitz. In his writings in this book, he includes responsa certifying the kashrut status of fowl for which no established tradition of kashrut exists, particularly focusing on various birds and geese, categorizing them based on their size, vocalizations, and beak shapes. Notably, the responsa seems to describe the American turkey, which the author refers to as a “deformed goose.”
