Man the Hunter? Hunting, Ecology, and Gender in Judaism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v11i4.494Keywords:
judaism, hunting, environmental ethicsAbstract
This paper asks whether religious tradition can offer alternative models to ‘man the hunter,’ and what such models might imply for environmental sensibility. We examine these questions specifically in the context of Judaism. Biblical, Talmudic, and rabbinic texts are reviewed and are found to belie the common belief that Judaism forbids hunting. Hunting was permitted under some circumstances and biblical sources indicate its occurrence in patriarchal and monarchical times. However, it was strictly limited by religious law about permitted foods and treatment of animals. Judaism’s preferred food system for meat was the flock rather than the hunt. In marked distinction to the classical Greco-Roman model, in which hunting was the mark of the true man, Judaism’s ideal for manhood
became the scholar. An environmental ethic of stewardship, a middle ground between hunting as a central cultural attribute and total abstinence from using animals, is implied even if not fully put into practice.
References
Alter, J. 2005 ‘The Audacity of Hope’, Newsweek (January 3): 80.
Argyros, A.J. 1989 ‘The Aesthetics of a Blood Sport’, Diogenes 145: 46-58.
Bergman, C. 1996 Orion’s Legacy: A Cultural History of Man as Hunter (New York: Plume).
Bialik, H.N., and Y.H. Ravnitzky 1992 The Book of Legends: Sefer Ha’Aggadah (trans. W.G. Braude; New York: Schocken Books).
Blair, L. 2005 The Anglos: The Hidden Face of Quebec City. II. Since 1850 (Quebec City, QC: Commission de la Capitale Nationale du Québec/Éditions Sylvain Harvey).
Bly, R. 1990 Iron John: A Book about Men (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).
Bouchard, S. 2004 Récits de Mathieu Mestokosho, chasseur innu (Montreal: Boréal).
Brody, H. 1981 Maps and Dreams (New York: Pantheon Books).
Cartmill, M. 1993 A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature through History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Curnutt, J. 1996 ‘How to Argue for and against Sport Hunting’, Journal of Social Philosophy 27: 65-89.
Dahlberg, F. (ed.) 1981 ‘Introduction’, in F. Dahlberg (ed.), Woman the Gatherer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press): 1-33.
Ducks Unlimited 2005 ‘Most Americans Approve of Hunting: New Ducks Unlimited Study Examines American Attitudes and Participation in Hunting’, online: http.//www.ducks.org/news/du_study_hunting.asp, accessed February 2005.
Estioko-Griffin, A., and P.B. Griffin 1981 ‘Women The Hunter: The Agta’, in F. Dahlberg (ed.), Woman the Gatherer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press): 121-51.
Gerstenfeld, M. 1998 Judaism, Environmentalism and the Environment: Mapping and Analysis (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies).
Gilmore, D.D. 1990 Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).
Goodman, L.E. 2002 ‘Respect for Nature in Jewish Tradition’, in H. Tirosh-Samuelson (ed.), Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press): 227-59.
Lerner, B.D. 2005 ‘Ask Rabbi Lerner: Hunting in Judaism’, online: http.//judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_c/bl_hunting.htm, accessed May 2005.
Levine, L.I. 1998 Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity: Conflict or Confluence? (Seattle: University of Washington Press).
List, C. 2004 ‘On The Moral Distinctiveness of Sport Hunting’, Environmental Ethics 25(2): 155-69.
Makah Nation 1999 ‘Whaling: A Gift from the Sea’, online: http.//www.makah.com/whaling.htm, accessed April 2006.
Merchant, C. 2004 Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture (New York: Routledge).
Milgrom, J. 2004 Leviticus: A Book of Ritual and Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press).
Morris, B. 1998 The Power of Animals: An Ethnography (Oxford: Berg).
Ochs, V.L. 1990 Words on Fire: One Woman’s Journey into the Sacred (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich).
Perseus Project 2005 ‘Xenophon, Minor Works: On Hunting’, online: http//www. perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Xen.+Hunt.+1.1 et seq., accessed May 2005.
Rabinowicz, H. 1964 ‘Judaism and Hunting’, Harofe Haivri Hebrew Medical Journal 49: 261-64.
Rabinowitz, L.I. 1971 ‘Hunting’, in Encyclopaedia Judaica (16 vols.; Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House) 8: 1110-11.
Shepard, P. 1996 The Others: How Animals Made Us Human (Washington, DC: Island Press).
SomethingJewish.co.uk 2002 ‘Ask the Rabbi’, online: http.//www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/109_what_does_judaism_sa.htm, accessed May 2005.
Stange, M.Z. 1997 Woman the Hunter (Boston: Beacon Press).
Tilsen, J.-J. 2005 ‘Judaism and Animals: Hunting in Law and Tradition’, CHAI Online: Concern for Helping Animals in Israel, online: http.//www.chai.org.il/_chai_sites/en/compassion/judaism/heritage_judaism _hunt.htm, accessed May 2005.
Tirosh-Samuelson, H. (ed.) 2002 Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
Waskow, A. (ed.) 2000 Torah of the Earth: Exploring 4,000 Years of Ecology in Jewish Thought (2 vols.; Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing).
White, L., Jr. 1967 ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis’, Science 155: 1203-12.
