Misconception: For a bird to be kosher, it must be domesticated and not included in the Biblical list of forbidden birds. Because that list was given to the Jews at Sinai, and they did not know New World birds, all domesticated New World birds, such as turkey, are, by definition, kosher.
Fact: The Biblical list consists of categories, not species in the modern taxonomic sense, and thus New World birds can be—and some are—included in the list of non-kosher birds. For at least the last 500 years, the only way a bird is accepted as kosher is if there exists a mesorah (living tradition) attesting to its kosher status. This has led to interesting discussions about New World birds such as the turkey and Muscovy duck, for which there simply cannot be a tradition predating the discovery of the New World. Particular species of birds are either kosher or non-kosher, irrespective of whether they are domesticated.
Background: With the arrival of Europeans to the New World, Jewish communities were confronted with new flora and fauna. This encounter gave rise to rich and nuanced halachic discourse across a range of subjects. Among the most intriguing was the question of the kashrut of newly discovered bird species. Unlike fish and four-legged mammals, whose kosher status can be determined through relatively straightforward Biblical indicia, leaving little room for spirited debate,1 the kashrut classification of birds has historically been more complex. This has led to fascinating discussions and sometimes perplexing practices regarding New World species.
Very few birds are named as kosher in the Torah. The most significant are the two used as sacrifices, the tor (turtledove, Streptopelia turtur) and yonah (pigeon or dove, Columba livia), which are the prototypical kosher birds.
The slav (common or European quail, Coturnix coturnix), having been fed to the Jews in the desert by G-d Himself, is obviously kosher, and is the only other kosher bird mentioned in the Torah.2 In the Navi, there is a description (Melachim I 4:22–23) of the food that Shlomo Hamelech supplied, and it includes fattened “barburim.”3 Rabbi Saadiah Gaon suggests it is the goose, and that is the most widely accepted identification. Rashi suggests it refers to chickens, a less likely identification as chicken was not a popular food in the Biblical period, a situation that changed significantly by the rabbinic period, when Rabbi Yochanan is quoted (Bava Metzia 86b) as saying “the choicest of fowl is the chicken.” Either way, barburim was a delicacy of fattened fowl. This is reflected in the Friday night zemer “Mah Yedidut,” which references the enjoyment of barburim, quail and fish.
In addition to the few birds identified as kosher, the Torah provides a list of twenty-four (see Chullin 63a) categories of non-kosher birds (Vayikra 11:13–19 and Devarim 14:11–18). By implication, any bird not included in that list would be kosher. Owing to the difficulty in transmitting an accurate identification of all twenty-four categories (a prerequisite for utilizing the list), a problem exacerbated by the global dispersion of the Jews, the rabbis provided signs to distinguish kosher from non-kosher birds. The Mishnah (Chullin 3:6 [59a]) gives three signs of a kosher bird (an “extra toe,” a crop [a pouch in the throat for storing food], and a gizzard with an inner lining that can be peeled) and one of a non-kosher bird (being a dores, a “predator”). A huge debate developed regarding how to interpret and utilize these signs.
One difficulty involved the Mishnah’s “negative sign,” that a bird that is a dores (“predator”) is not kosher. The definition of dores was widely debated, and it is often difficult to determine whether this label applies to a particular species. The Talmud relates a story where an error actually occurred. A particular bird, the “tarnegolta d’agma,” was treated as kosher and subsequently was found to be a dores and declared to be non-kosher. This led Rashi (Chullin 62b) to opine that because of this incident one must always be concerned that an unfamiliar bird is a dores, and therefore birds may only be treated as kosher if there is a mesorah—a tradition that they are kosher. Rashi elaborates and explains that any bird that our forefathers told us is kosher may be eaten, and if not, it may not be eaten.
This position was accepted by both the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema (YD 82), who both require a mesorah for a bird to be kosher, and say that neither the Biblical list nor the Mishnaic signs suffice. The only minor difference between the Sephardic Shulchan Aruch and the Ashkenazic Rema is that the Shulchan Aruch seems willing to accept the “goose comparison,” a wide beak and webbed feet, as evidence that a bird is physically incapable of being a dores, and therefore that, in conjunction with the Mishnah’s three physical signs, would be sufficient to permit the bird as kosher without a mesorah.4
The Beit Yosef (Shulchan Aruch) agrees with the position of Rabbeinu Yerucham (d. 1350) that names of birds are insufficient as a mesorah. Someone testifying orally or in writing that a bird with a particular name is kosher is insufficient to permit it; one must actually see the bird. Additionally, the Beit Yosef quoting the Rosh, was concerned about relying on any mesorah from a locale without a history of strong rabbinic authorities, because perhaps some uninformed person decided that a bird was kosher.
With both the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema requiring a mesorah, and with no mesorah in the New World, how could a New World bird be accepted as kosher? Yet Israel is the world leader in per-capita turkey consumption, where it is eaten year-round, particularly in the form of shawarma, and its consumption is almost double that of the United States where turkey consumption is highly seasonal.5
Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) was introduced from America to Europe in the early sixteenth century, and its first appearance in the halachic literature seems to have been in 1646 in Damesek Eliezer, a commentary on Chullin by Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi, av beit din and rosh metivta of Apta (Opatów), Poland. In the clear absence of a mesorah, how did this New World bird become accepted as kosher? The suggestion might be made that while a mesorah is required, if it is known with certainty that a bird is not on the Torah’s non-kosher list, then it is kosher even without a mesorah. Assuming that Moshe Rabbeinu was familiar with all twenty-four listed birds, and assuming that he was not familiar with American fauna, one might be inclined to argue that the turkey cannot be on the list. The flaw in that argument is that the list is not twenty-four species in the modern taxonomic sense, but rather twenty-four broad categories into which Moshe might have been able to classify New World birds.
For example, the first bird in the Biblical list is the nesher, commonly translated as the eagle, but likely the griffon vulture.6 Even if it is not the nesher, the eagle is an opportunistic carnivore that is unquestionably included in the Biblical list of non-kosher birds, and Old World eagles, such as the Golden eagle, and New World eagles, such as the Bald eagle, are closely related. Thus, whatever category included the eagle that Moshe knew about would have included the eagle that is found on the Great Seal of the United States. Similarly, the California condor and the American crested caracara are certainly non-kosher predators, and had Moshe been presented with them, he would have included them within one of the twenty-four listed names. The same is theoretically possible regarding the turkey, and its New World origin does not prove that it is necessarily kosher.
Turkey was not the only New World bird that came face to face with this conundrum, but others were not as successful as the turkey at gaining acceptance. The Western Hemisphere Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata) has been the subject of rabbinic debate since at least 1862 when Rabbi Yissachar Dov (Bernard) Illowy, then rabbi in New Orleans, sent an erudite, eloquent query regarding its status to European rabbis. Rabbi Illowy succeeded in prohibiting it in New Orleans, resulting in its being unacceptable in the US until today,7 despite Rabbi Aharon Halevi Goldman permitting it in Moisés Ville, Argentina, in 1907 and Rabbi Chaim Leeber Cohen permitting it in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1916. In 1907, Rabbi Yosef Aharon Taran turned to the Land of Israel instead of Europe and sent a pair of Muscovy ducks by boat from Argentina to Rabbi Shmuel Salant, the venerated long-time chief rabbi of Yerushalayim (the female Muscovy duck miraculously arrived alive), who permitted it, possibly subsuming it under the mesorah of the Old World duck.8 Ever since, the New World Muscovy duck has been treated as kosher in Israel.
The infamous bird mentioned earlier that was treated as kosher and then found to be a dores was the “tarnegolta d’agma.” Rav Pappa had previously taught (Chullin 62b) that the “tarnegolta d’agma” is kosher while the “tarnegola d’agma” is non-kosher. Literally, those could be translated as swamp-hen and swamp-rooster, seemingly permitting the female and prohibiting the male of a single species. Tosafot (ibid. s.v. tarnegolta) are quick to reject that possibility as implausible and suggest that those are the names of two distinct species; in one, both male and female are permitted, and in the other, both are prohibited.9
In a similar vein, there are those who claim that within one species there can be kosher and non-kosher birds. For instance, in a comprehensive book about kashrut,10 it says: “Birds are in a category all their own. Those which are wild and birds of prey are trayfe, while those which have been domesticated are kosher. This rule produces the anomaly that one specie [sic] of bird may be both Kosher and trayfe, as, for example, the pheasant11 or turkey. Those which are raised on a farm are Kosher. Turkeys or pheasants which are wild are trayfe.”12 However, this is simply inaccurate. Birds that are predators are not kosher, and those are likely to be non-domesticated,13 but it is the species that is acceptable or not acceptable, not the individual bird, and it is irrelevant how a particular bird is raised. If the turkey or the pheasant is acceptable, then all turkeys or pheasants, whether wild or farm-raised, are kosher. Similarly, if an osprey is non-kosher, raising it on a farm will not make that particular bird kosher.
How the turkey, a uniquely New World bird, initially made its way into the kosher kitchen is a mystery.14 As for why it has remained acceptable, there are many explanations, some better than others.15 The Arugot Habosem (Rabbi Aryeh Lebush Bolchuver, late nineteenth century, Kuntres Ha’teshuvot, siman 16 [170a]) posits that when the Rema requires a tradition, it is only when there is uncertainty about the bird’s dores status, but regarding the turkey, which has been raised in large numbers for many years, there is no doubt that it is non-dores and therefore does not require a mesorah and that it would suffice with the three physical signs. It is clear that this was a post-facto justification and was never suggested as an ab-initio means to actually permit a bird.
Similarly, one might suggest that when the Mechaber accepts the goose comparison, it is merely an example of a means to prove non-dores status, and he would be willing to accept other proofs as well. However, his providing only one particular possible exception to the mesorah requirement, a specific physical inability to be a dores, with no hint of a willingness to accept any other proof, strongly suggests his unwillingness to rely on any other exceptions to the need for a mesorah.
The requirement for tradition in defining a bird as kosher is an example of development in halachah. Halachah is an evolving, living process. Halachic rulings regarding birds evolved through three stages: first, reliance on the Torah’s list of non-kosher birds; second, the use of the rabbinic simanim (physical signs) to distinguish kosher from non-kosher species; and finally, the current standard—the requirement of a mesorah, an established tradition that a bird was accepted as kosher by a community with a strong rabbinic foundation. A living tradition that a community with a strong rabbinic past had accepted a bird as kosher is today the only method of accepting birds as kosher, both for Ashkenazim and Sephardim (except the rare instance of a goose comparison). That there were other birds accepted as kosher in the rabbinic or medieval periods is immaterial and halachically irrelevant today. It is similar to how halachah has “changed,” and, for example, for the last approximately 800 years Ashkenazim do not eat rice on Pesach despite the fact that rice was unquestionably eaten on Pesach in the Talmudic period. That is irrelevant to the current halachah. So too, knowing that a species of bird was acceptable in the past is insufficient to permit it today without a living link to a strong Jewish community that treated it as kosher.
The discovery of the area known today as the United States, and more generally the exposure of Jews to the Americas, presented a plethora of opportunities: religious freedom, escape from persecution, economic potential, and one not usually considered—novel halachic discourse. One of the most interesting topics has been that of the kashrut of New World birds, an area of inquiry that has yielded creative Torah scholarship and a variety of practical rulings.
Notes
1. Despite the seemingly straightforward rules, controversies do arise. For example, regarding the Old World zebu (Zohar Amar, “The Zebu in the Land of Israel: Cattle with a Hump” [Hebrew], Cathedra 157 [September 2015]: 7–23) and the New World bison, often imprecisely called buffalo (Ari Z. Zivotofsky, “Kashrut of Exotic Animals: The Buffalo,” The Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society 38 [Fall 1999]: 117–28). Regarding fish, see the debate about the Old World swordfish (Ari Z. Zivotofsky, “The Turning of the Tide; The Kashrut Tale of the Swordfish,” BDD 19 [January 2008]: 5–53) and the Southern Hemisphere (hence unknown to Jews until the late nineteenth century) kingklip (Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Ari Greenspan, “The Kashrut of Kingklip: Its Turbulent History and Who Decides,” Hakirah 14 [2012]: 61–77, http://www.hakirah.org/Vol14Zivotofsky.pdf ).
2. For a discussion of the need for caution when buying quail eggs and clarification about quail kashrut, see the article by Rabbi Chaim Loike, rabbinic coordinator and ornithology expert at the OU, in Daf Hakashrus 13, no. 7 (April 2005), https://oukosher.org/content/uploads/2013/02/Daf-13-71.pdf.
3. In modern Hebrew, “barburim” means swans.
4. It is not very practical, as most birds that fulfill the goose-comparison criteria will not have all three physical indicia, because water fowl generally do not have a full crop (zefek).
5. Israel’s per-capita consumption is about 28 pounds per year; US per capita is about 13. The only country between Israel and the US is Hungary at about 20 pounds. The global average is under two pounds.
6. See Tosafot, Chullin 63a, s.v. netz, that people mistake the nesher for the “eagle” (the word “eagle” is found in Tosafot). In modern Hebrew, nesher is the griffon vulture.
7. A huge controversy regarding its status flared up in late 2009 among the Satmar community. On the history, see: Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Zohar Amar, “The Halachic Tale of Three American Birds: Turkey, Prairie Chicken and Muscovy Duck,” Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society 46 (2003): 81–103; Zohar Amar and Ari Z. Zivotofsky, “Kashrut HaBerberi v’HaMulourd,” HaMa’ayan 44, no.1 (5764): 35–42; Zohar Amar and Ari Z. Zivotofsky, “L’Taher et haTahor: Od b’Inyan Kashrut HaBerber,” HaMa’ayan 51, no. 1 (Tishrei 5771): 47–55; and Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Zohar Amar, “Clarifying Why the Muscovy Duck is Kosher: A Factually Accurate Response,” Hakirah 11 (2011): 159–74.
8. How wide a net a mesorah encompasses is a difficult question that has elicited much discussion. The OU ornithology expert Rabbi Chaim Loike invested a great deal of effort with former OU posek Rabbi Yisrael Belsky, zt”l, in clarifying this question. It seems clear that the periodically recurring claim that some of the modern commercial breeds of chickens are not “chicken” enough to be under the mesorah for chicken is baseless.
9. See also Tosafot Niddah 50b (s.v. tarnegolta), where they give a possible explanation for the initial understanding (which seems to be Rashi’s understanding) and then reiterate that their explanation is the preferred one. Cf. Sichat Chullin to Chullin 62b [p. 426].
10. Seymour E. Freedman, The Book of Kashruth: A Treasury of Kosher Facts & Frauds (New York: Bloch Publishing, 1970), 104–5.
11. On pheasant in general, see: Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Ari Greenspan, “Kashruto Shel Ha’pasyon,” Mesorah (published by OU Kosher) 18 (Tishrei 5762/October 2001): 87–96.
12. “Trayfe” is being used in its colloquial, imprecise usage of “non-kosher.” For an explanation of its technical meaning, see: Ari Z. Zivotofsky, “What’s the Truth About . . . Glatt Kosher,” Jewish Action 60, no. 2 (winter 1999): 75–76.
13. The Avnei Nezer (YD 1:76:13–14) suggests that domestication and living among “friends” can make a dores species “behave” like a non-dores.
14. For a discussion of this question, see: Ari Z. Zivotofsky, “Is Turkey Kosher?” The Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society 35 (Spring 1998): 79–110, http://www.kashrut.com/articles/turkey/.
15. See Ari Z. Zivotofsky, “The Kashrut of Turkey—Top 11 Explanations,” Torah Musings, November 27, 2024, https://www.torahmusings.com/2024/11/the-kashrut-of-turkey-top-11-explanations/.
Rabbi Dr. Ari Z. Zivotofsky is a professor of neuroscience at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.