Nisan comments on Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Alicorn 22 February 2010 01:53AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (823)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Nisan 23 February 2010 02:09:28AM 0 points [-]

He was raised Jewish with the idea that it is unclean to have animals in the home

Where is he from, if you don't mind my asking? The Jewish cultures in the United States that I'm familiar with are okay with pets.

Comment author: LauraABJ 23 February 2010 04:00:22PM 1 point [-]

Monroe, NY (though he is not a Hassid!)

It's not that they have a strict prohibition on pets, more of a general disapproval from appeal to cleanliness. I don't know how the super-orthodox interpret the Torah on this matter.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 02 June 2010 11:16:56PM 2 points [-]

This isn't a issue from anything coming from the Torah. Rather, a dislike of dogs likely stems from anti-Semites in Eastern Europe having their dogs attack Jews, and later the use of dogs by the Nazis to keep concentration camp inmates in line.

However, there's is some connection to cleanliness issues also. Some people claim that the Jewish home should mirror the historical Temple in Jerusalem and thus should not have any non-kosher animals in it at all. See this essay which discusses this in more detail.