It was basically due to a misunderstanding. And by the time that was cleared up, there was an established tradition of eating it. (It doesn’t hurt that it’s very similar to other kosher birds.)
Those were/are the rules one must follow as a nezhir. While Samson’s mom pledged that he would be a nezhir for life, you could also make certain vows and become a nexhir for a period of time. To be released from the vows, you had to visit the Temple.
Well, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble were voiced by Jews…
Shame.
Better avoid making them, then. Unless a small-t temple would do?
Not really.
.
I think .the actual, practical day-to-day job of a Rabbi in most American congregations is not to be a legal expert, but to be a social worker.
This thread has been fun to read, with discussion about lots of arcane biblical regulations such as ritual purity and priestly castes. But the OP asked how to start a new temple in Rhode Island. And in modern America, when you start a new congregation of a Reform synagogue , not a single person will be asking the rabbi for details about ritual purity, or which scribe wrote the Torah scroll which you just purchased ( maybe from a site like this one )
The members of this new congregation come for a totally different reason. They want to participate in and share emotional experiences. They will accomplish this by doing things together within a community of friendly people with similar interests: observing the holidays , eating traditional foods, holding celebrations for weddings and bar mitzvahs , all while acting together as they perform a few rituals (such as lighting candles) and saying outloud and singing in unison certain phrases of liturgy–all of which add meaning to their lives.
The rabbi’s role in this is to be the community leader, the social worker, who organizes it all and holds the group together. He may also be well educated in Jewish law, and the Hebrew language. But that’s not his main role)
So–to answer the OP: to found a new temple, all you need is a group of a few dozen people who are committed to working together, a lease on a small building, and somebody (preferably a rabbi) who leads and organizes it, and raises enough money to cover expenses..
First, keep in mind, the categories aren’t “fish, mammal, bird”, etc.
They are “Beasts that walk the land”, “beasts that swarm in the sea”, etc.
The bird category does include flightless birds like the ostrich. But even if a triceratops had quills or feathers, I think most ancient Israelites would place it firmly in the “beasts that walk the land” category (which it would fail due to lacking split hooves and not chewing its cud).
On the other hand, something like a Gallimimus or Struthiomimus would easily be recognized as ostrich-like, especially if they’re as heavily feathered as modern reconstructions depict. Likewise for a velociraptor and the like.
Not sure about a big theropod like T rex.
Likewise, whales might be artiodactyls, but they fail not because they lack a split hoof but because, despite having fins, they have no scales.
So, a mosasaur, plesiosaur, or icthyosaur might actually be kosher! It lives in water, it has fins, and it has both!
Sea turtles aren’t kosher, but I think they don’t count in the fish category because they lay eggs on land. All three of the above animals were fully aquatic, so should count as beasts of the waters.
Although presumably if the bronze age Mediterranean was home to extant plesiosaurs, the category would have been more specific to exclude them.
Ok, I looked into it. Not quite.
The rule is, you can eat all birds that aren’t unclean. Here’s a list of 20 unclean birds (one of which is the bat).
Eventually, this became a list of four categories that the rabbis interpreted. Three were physical, and you could determine if they were the case or not by preparing a dead bird.
But the fourth was behavioral - does the bird exhibit a particular type of predatory behavior, known in Hebrew as “dores”.
Different communities would come to different conclusions about whether the same bird does this behavior or not. Or sometimes a bird believed to be kosher would be discovered to exhibit the behavior sometimes. (It’s not just eating other animals in and of itself - it’s a particular type of hunting strategy).
So to prevent this, the interpretation became what you describe: there must be an affirmative tradition that a bird IS kosher for it to be eaten.
The turkey was brought to Europe around the time that this tradition was becoming set; and none of the people writing about how the only birds that should be considered Kosher are birds with a history of being Kosher mention the turkey by name. So we don’t know exactly what happened. But when the dust settled and the tradition was settled on, both things were true: the turkey was considered Kosher by the vast majority of Jews, and the door was closed to new birds.
As far as dinosaurs go - if we apply the four criteria and just study each new species for years before making a determination on whether it exhibits “dores” behavior, I think we should be safe. But as noted, most dinosaurs would be “beasts of the land”, not “fowl”, so would be not kosher due to lacking a split hoof and chewing cud.
Of the more avian dinosaurs, any dromeosaurs, troodontids, etc are probably going to be off limits, as if they count as birds they’re also going to count as birds of prey.
The ostrich mimic dinos are probably off limits because the ostrich is? But I’m not sure if there’s a hard and fast rule that makes the ostrich off limits, other than being one of the 20 mentioned species.
Pterodactyls are probably out under the bat prohibition because that’s probably close enough for iron age work.
Yeah but there are other nazir rules that don’t come up as plot points. IIRC his mom literally says “he will be a Nazir, no wine will touch his lips and no blade will touch his hair” and that’s what ends up mattering to the plot.
A Nazir is also supposed to avoid contact with the dead, and it’s hard to avoid touching dead people when you are producing newly dead people at close range with a donkey’s jawbone.
Which is presumably why this happens, if Rabbis are in short supply:
Okay, so no brontosaurus burgers, but you might be down for some deep-friend plesiosaur.
And Nessie could be kosher if it has both fins and scales.
There might be a reason I am not thinking of why it wouldn’t qualify as a “beast of the waters” even if it never goes on land, but I can’t think of one.
It does depend on whether you are starting an orthodox, conservative, reconstructionist, reform, lubuvitch, etc. temple. If it’s Reform, yes, you’ll need a rabbi. And no, no one will ask that rabbi about ritual purity. But they will want the rabbi to be able to tell them when each festival begins, and what are suitable rituals to observe on that festival, and to know what the week’s Torah portion is, and to be able to say something meaningful tying that Torah portion to their lives. And they’ll expect the Rabbi to be fluent in Hebrew, and be able to read the Torah.
I see most of that as more “teacher” and “expert in Jewish stuff” than “social worker”.
I agree that you also need a few dozen people and a lot of money. 
I do wonder about ichthyosaurs. On the one hand, they live in water and have fins and scales, but on the other hand, they’re also reptiles, and all reptiles are non-kosher. I think I’ve heard the argument that the word translated as “scales” means specifically fish scales, and that the superficially-similar skin structures found in reptiles aren’t actually the same thing.
Of note, the spiritual leader of a synagogue is not necessarily the same person as the person who organizes it and handles things like finances (the aforementioned Jewish friend of mine has served a term as his temple’s president). Actually, that’s true of most Christian denominations, too, though it’s much more common in Christian churches for a single pastor to fill both roles.
I actually think it’s uncommon for the Rabbi to be in charge of that, that’s usually the role of the temple’s President and board.
But all reptiles are non kosher because they are “creatures that swarm upon the land”, ie they have either short or no legs.
A dinosaur is a reptile but the term reptile meant nothing to ancient Israelites. They’d see most Dinosaurs (that aren’t Fowl, or birds) as behemot, or beasts (a category that includes cows, deer, elephants, lions, hyenas, wolves, etc; not to be confused with THE Behemoth) rather than as swarming creatures (animals with no legs or very short legs).
All extent reptiles are “swarming”, but because of traits the ancients would recognize, like their shape and behavior. A long limbed, cursorial dinosaur is not going to be seen as fitting into that category.
Likewise, dolphins were seen as “beats of the Sea”, along with fish; not as fitting into the category of mammals and land animals.
So an icthyosaur should be seen as a scaled, finned, creature of the sea. It’s not a creature that swarms upon the land, so it wouldn’t fit into the category that other reptiles (including the sea turtle) are in.
If the scales are noticeably different, though, then it indeed might be determined that they don’t count as “kaskeset”.
What happens if you live in an isolated area and there aren’t enough Jews there to start a temple/synagogue? You just don’t go?
And what happened during COVID? I think some Christian churches held remote services, but that isn’t going to work if you can’t use electricity.
All the reform and conservative congregations i am privy to held zoom services. I prayed with my friend’s conservative minyan based a thousand miles away from me for a while. My temple held certain celebrations outdoors. Many Orthodox congregation are very small anyway, and just met in small groups. You only need ten men for an Orthodox Jewish minyan, and i don’t think anyplace forbade ten people gathering in someone’s living room. Orthodox Jews are less in need of a trained service-leader anyway, as more of them can read Hebrew.
If you live in an isolated area and there aren’t any other Jews to pray with, in general, you can’t practice several parts of the religion. There’s a reason Jews tend to cluster.
Reform Jews, at least, had it a lot easier than Catholics, during lockdowns. For Catholics, the most essential part of the Sunday services is the Eucharist, and you can’t share bread and wine over Zoom. I’m told, though, that there’s nothing essential to a Reform service that can’t be done remotely (at least for the regular weekly services; I think there was an issue with the High Holy Days).
The UK and many European countries most certainly forbade this. It was against the rules to let even one family member into your house during some of the lockdowns.
There was a famous case of the police warning a woman for having a cup of tea outdoors with some neighbours, even though they were socially distancing.
That, and the whole “no intermarriage” thing.
I don’t believe any US state forbade gatherings of 10 people, or walking around outdoors. I did read about some European countries doing that. I have no idea what Jews did in those places. But in general, “preserve life” trumps every other law, and Jews are required to obey the civil laws of the society they live in. So… I assume they did what they could, and didn’t do what they couldn’t.
Yeah, i told a gay friend that Jews tend to cluster for a lot of the same reasons that gays do, and he said, “to find people to date?” , and i replied, “absolutely!”.