Despite the slang term, American footballs are made with leather, not pigskin. A very, very long time ago, a pig bladder may have been used inside a leather ball of some kind, but they’ve used rubber or plastic for that for ages.
The books were published by Sind Textbook Board and were used in ALL government schools. The school was a Catholic school actually on the grounds of the church. We used to use textbooks from Singapore and Malaysia. In 1972 it was nationalized, and everything changed over the summer. Half the teachers were dismissed and replaced by an army of incompetents. Our former Urdu teacher became the English teacher. She could hardly speak any English at all. Literally she would read the “readers” at the same speed as the six or seven year olds. The level of English (and pretty much everything else) in the curriculum dropped sharply. The new principal was a lunatic, she delayed the opening of school to enable us to watch an Ali-Frazier fight, which she turned into a proxy for a global religious struggle. The toilets became unusable because they weren’t cleaned any more. Some bullshit about the Chinese example of students being responsible for cleaning. The furniture and fixtures started disappearing.
Things went to hell faster than anyone imagined. My parents managed to get us into one of the schools that were not nationalized. The waiting list was huge, but they had connections. Pretty much the entire previously fee-paying student population was gone before half-term. Replaced by bribe paying students from the slums.
And still my family were die hard ZA Bhutto supporters.
Did you go to school in the early 1970s? Were you even born then? I have the impression that you seem to have experienced a very different Pakistan than I did from 1967-1987.
I was born in 1984, as my username suggests. I have heard quite a lot about those times from my parents (who hated Bhutto BTW). Nationalization did more damage to Pakistan then the Indian Army, or the Soviets ever could.
Edited: Wait, you were St Pats? Fuck me, that has always been excellent.
End of hijack.
I’d say this issue has been pretty well answered. I’d consider Ramira a great source on islamic beliefs (he made many of the best comments in the Ramadan thread), and we’ve got a few good explanations of the Jewish outlook.
Short of a Rabbi or Imam commenting, or somebody quoting a relevant passage, we’re not going to get any better.
There is such a thing as leather made from pig skin, so the statement ‘leather, not pigskin’ doesn’t quite make sense (although leather footballs are usually made from non-pig leather).
I vaguely remember both…“Three Little Pigs” and “Three Billy Goats Gruff”, or something like that.
ETA: Yep, found it:
I was raised Jewish (Reform), and we had piggy banks when we were kids. We also had secular Christmas trees, whose size was in inversely proportion to our ages. I think when I was about 8 or 9, it became too small to see.
And then there’s our rabbi, whose grown son owned a pig farm.
IIRC, there was a “WTF” sort of article a long time ago about the Muppets being taken off Turkish television during Ramadan. (Because of Miss Piggy of course, but possibly also Pigs in Spaaaace)
Don’t forget the Muslims also have a generic prohibition against paintings or statuary depicting people or animals, as they may be mistaken/misused for idols. This is probably as quaint as the “fish on Fridays” stuff for Catholics, since they do have TV and photography, but I assume the frivolous decorations are generally not depictions of animals?
Based on the unclean aspect, I’m kind of imagining a pig for Jews and Moslems as being as relevant as, say, a rat decoration in North America or Europe. Not forbidden, but not cute or desirable except in an unusual and weird sort of way.
And the leather is probably from non-kosher cows. Also, baseballs are made from horsehide, a non-kosher animal. It doesn’t matter.
For that matter, Jews who were diabetic in the days before synthetic insulin were allowed to use porcine insulin, because it was injected, not eaten.
Jewish kids can have Teddy bears, and in the case of one kid I knew, who was Haredi Orthodox, a stuffed platypus. Jewish kids can have zoo toys that have any number of non kosher animals. You just can’t eat them.
There is nothing especially objectionable about pigs to Jews; they are just not kosher, but they are no less objectionable than dogs, raccoons, eagles, horses, rabbits, or any other non-kosher animal. Because they are routinely eaten by gentiles, unlike horses, eagles and dogs, they stick out in gentiles’ minds as being something Jews avoid.
A Jew could have a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig (it’s a relatively common pet in Indiana-- less common than ferrets, but probably more common than large reptiles) for a pet, FWIW, although I’ve never known one.
Personally, I like pigs. I see them at petting zoos, and they are always very friendly, and seem affectionate. I understand that among farm animals, they are quite intelligent. I’m a vegetarian, so I don’t eat any of the animals at the petting zoo, but I’ve pet alligators, and touched sharks, as well as pigs, and ridden horses. No big deal.
RE: Winnie-the-Pooh. Some Haredi have strong objections to movies and cartoons that depict talking animals. I’m not really clear on all the theology of it, but it’s really highly objectionable to many.
Jews can’t eat bats. Why would that preclude them from owning any bat-motif geegaw?
Are you saying that if the porcine insulin had to be taken orally, the children would be allowed to die? I was under the impression that in a life-or-death situation, survival superseded kashrut. Is that not so?
While no expert myself, I was always taught that almost every law can be ignored to save a life.
As a teenager I was not allowed to play football because I’d have to touch a pigskin. I never found out if it was really a pig’s skin or not, but my father was sure it was.
If your memory has slipped because of age isn’t mommy older than you?
Yes, but because of a different rule. Lifesaving medicines not only can, but MUST be taken because of pekuach nefesh, the concept that saving a life over-rides all other mitzvot. Because of this, medicines prescribed by doctors do not have to be kosher, you can drive to an emergency room, or call 911 on Shabbes, purchase a medicine on Shabbes, etc.
Porcine insulin and blood transfusions are not violations of kashrut, because you don’t eat them, and rules of kashrut apply only to things that are eaten. It has nothing to do with pekuach nefesh.
RE: touching a pigskin football. I can see a very observant parent being concerned about parts of the football rubbing off on a child’s hands, and ending up in the child’s mouth. You are supposed to wash hands before eating, but parents know sometimes it doesn’t happen with children snacking, and children rub their faces, and generally just aren’t as hygienic as adults. It’s not something most parents I k now worry about, and I know some pretty observant parents, but I can see someone coming up with this.
Yes. That’s what I gathered. But I was wondering if either of the two groups had would have a problem with it. I asked a bunch of Jewish friends, some of whom were raised Orthodox, and they agree with the posters here that its a non-issue. I’m less familiar with Islam and don’t have any Muslim friends, so I appreciate your answer and those of others. I thought that their might be some problem with either pigs generally or with a depiction of a pig. If this sounds ignorant, it is. But there does seem to be some things that for some Muslims, the offense is so great as to be like Kryptonite.
Like having a dog in their cab. I’d read about it being a big problem in Minnesota, but I ran into one in Boca Raton. Ooh boy.
Those things, though, tend to be things which have been done/created/presented with the explicit intention of giving offence, and it’s that intention, as much as the thing itself, which maximises the offence.
The Jewish and the Islamic law are nearly the same, it is about eating.
There may be some persons who are ignorant who might decide to be offended, but this is not the Islamic law, it is personal ignorance.
More common is not the idea of the piggy bank but among the salafine, against the depiction of animals or people - these are the same objections to the pictures and the sculptures. So any animal bank then would be objectionable, if this view is followed.
In this it is like the Jewish orthodoxes, the haredime, they have similar ideas:
It is I think the depiction of the animal creations of god speaking with the voice of man and in a certain theological view taking away from god. Among certain of the salafine there are views that are similar.
There was a case about this once on * People’s Court–* a young blind woman suing a Muslim cabbie. He refused to allow her to bring her Seeing Eye Dog into the cab; he insisted that, as a Muslim, he was not even to touch a dog. Judge Wapner ruled for the woman.