The turkey’s status as a kosher bird is one of the most fascinating enigmas in the history of kashrut. It has long and widely been ruled that birds can only be eaten if they possess a mesorah. Turkeys, as birds native only to America, did not and could not have a mesorah. Yet it immediately gained near-universal acceptance as being kosher, and the discussion about its kosher status only began around three centuries later! Even then, the discussion revolved around a post-facto explanation of why it is kosher, rather than an evaluation of whether it is kosher. In order to understand all this, let us begin by reviewing the laws regarding kosher birds.
Turkey has become a staple part of the traditional American Thanksgiving feast. But for observant Jews who keep kosher the permissibility of eating turkey is an important question. In rabbinic Judaism, only certain types of meat are considered kosher including specific domesticated mammals, fish, and fowl. The criteria for what fowl are kosher are complex and have led to some ambiguity around the status of New World birds like turkey when they were first introduced to Jewish communities. However, today, most observant Jews have accepted the kosher status of turkey based on tradition and halachic principles. Let’s take a deeper look at the kosher laws around poultry and the rabbinic rulings on turkey.
What Makes a Bird Kosher?
According to the Torah, there are 24 species of birds which are not kosher (Leviticus 11 13-19, Deuteronomy 14 11-18) Therefore, most other birds are permitted However, over time, the exact identities of the non-kosher birds listed in the Torah were lost. As a result, later halachic authorities provided guidelines for determining if a bird can be considered kosher.
The Mishnah (Chullin 3:6) states that all birds of prey are forbidden. Kosher birds must have three physical indicators:
- An extra toe in the back facing the opposite direction of the other toes
- A crop or “zefek” for storing food
- A gizzard or “kurkevan” that can be easily peeled
However, there is debate around what specifically constitutes a “bird of prey” and how to apply these indicators. So the accepted Ashkenazi practice developed not to eat any new bird unless there is a strong masoret (tradition) that it is kosher.
Is Turkey Kosher?
When European Jews first encountered turkeys in the 16th century after the discovery of the New World, there was uncertainty if it could be considered kosher. Turkeys do possess all the signs mentioned in the Mishnah, suggesting they should be permitted.
Several theories emerged about how turkeys might be included under the kosher rules:
- Jews mistakenly believed turkeys came from India and had an established tradition there.
- Since turkeys have all the signs and people were already eating it, there were no grounds to forbid it.
- It is possible to hybridize turkeys with chickens, proving a close relationship.
Over time, as turkey became widely accepted as kosher, rabbinic authorities like Rabbi Moshe Isserles (Rema) rationalized its status rather than prohibiting an existing custom
Prominent rabbis like Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik ruled unequivocally that turkey is kosher. They argued Thanksgiving is a secular holiday, not religious, so eating turkey to celebrate would be allowed.
Some Orthodox rabbis like Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner disagreed and prohibited any observance of Thanksgiving with a turkey meal as a forbidden Gentile custom. But the majority opinion was to permit turkey.
Practical Halacha
Today, turkey is almost universally accepted as kosher among Jews who keep kosher dietary laws. You can find turkey marked with kosher certification in any supermarket. Major kashrut organizations like the Orthodox Union and Star-K consider it perfectly kosher.
For those who avoid kitniyot on Passover, turkey does not fall under that category and is still permitted. Turkeys thrive on a grain-free diet so their feed raises no concerns.
Practically speaking, enjoying a Thanksgiving or holiday turkey dinner poses no kashrut concerns for most observant Jews. One should always check for a reliable hechsher to verify proper slaughtering and preparation. But the bird itself, as a species, has been established through tradition and halachic reasoning to be kosher.
So while the turkey on your table may look very different from a chicken, it is just as kosher! For kosher observers, the Thanksgiving turkey can be carved and enjoyed without worry, alongside the other traditional trimmings. The only question that remains is dark meat or white?
The permissibility of eating turkey was an important issue when it was first introduced to the Jewish community centuries ago. But following an extensive halachic analysis by major decisors of Jewish law, turkey has taken a permanent place in the kosher poultry world alongside chicken, duck, and goose. With proper slaughtering and handling, turkey can be part of a complete kosher meat meal. So for kosher-keeping Jews, there is no reason to avoid turkey on Thanksgiving or any occasion! The case of turkey demonstrates how Jewish dietary law remains flexible enough to integrate new foods into the kosher diet after applying the principles of halacha.
The Laws of Kosher Birds
Unlike the case with mammals and fish, where the Torah gives identifying characteristics by which kosher and non-kosher types can be discerned, the Torah gives no such signs for birds. Instead, the Torah lists various types of non-kosher birds. Since these are the ones specified as being non-kosher, all the ones not listed are ipso facto kosher. That sounds straightforward enough, but there are two complications.
First is that these listed types are not species in the scientific zoological sense of the term, but rather general types that include many species—yet the precise definition of “type,” and the number of species that it can include, is unclear.
The second complication is that we cannot “be certain as to the identities of the birds in this list. With some of them, we can be 99% certain—there is overwhelming evidence and/or powerful traditions that the nesher is the griffin vulture, the orev is the crow, the chasidah is the stork and the atalef is the bat. With some of them, we can offer a likely candidate—such as that the bat ha-yaanah is the ostrich, and the duchifat is the hoopoe. But many others are nothing more than an educated guess, based on factors such as the etymology of the word or cognate languages.
The difficulty of identifying the non-kosher birds in the Torah’s list (and the resultant difficulty of knowing which birds may be eaten) led the Sages of the Mishnah to give signs by which kosher and non-kosher birds can be distinguished:
According to Rashi, in order for a bird to be kosher, it must possess all three positive signs (an extra toe, a crop, and a peelable gizzard), and it must also be known to be non-predatory. That is because, in Rashis understanding of the Talmud, most of the non-kosher birds in the Torahs list possess the three positive signs; the reason why they are not kosher is that they are predatory. Since it is difficult to ever be certain that a bird is non-predatory, Rashi says, there must be a tradition that the bird is kosher. Rashis view is adopted by Rosh.
But according to Rav Moshe bar Yosef, on the other hand, none of the non-kosher birds in the Torahs list possess all three signs. If a bird possesses all three positive signs, then this ipso facto means that the bird is non-predatory.
Rav Moshe bar Yosefs view, that the presence of the three signs alone suffices, finds most support amongst the Rishonim, including Rambam, Ramban, Rashba, Ran, Ritva, and Rif. However, the stringent view of Rashi, that the presence of the three signs does not prove anything and a tradition is always required that the bird is non-predatory and kosher, is cited by Shulchan Aruch and Rema and was widely accepted. Yet, since this was not the majority view among the Rishonim, and was only accepted as a stringency, this has significant ramifications.
The Discovery of the Turkey
The very name of the turkey, called tarnegol hodu (“Indian chicken”) in Hebrew, attests to the fact that there was initially much confusion about the origins of this bird.
In the early 16th century, a mysterious new bird reached England. it had been brought by “Turkey merchants” trading in the eastern Mediterranean, which was part of the Turkish Empire, and thus received the name “Turkey bird.” Meanwhile, many people thought that the bird came from India, due to the default assumption that new and strange things came from the East. In fact; there was even a common misconception that India and the New World were one and the same. Thus, in many languages the bird received the name “India bird.”
But this bird may not have been that which we today know as a turkey! In the 16th century, there were two new birds introduced to consumers in Europe: the American wild turkey and the African guineafowl. Both were variously called “Indian hen,” “Turkish hen” and also meleagris, Greek for guineafowl. Today, the name meleagris is also shared in the scientific names of the two species – the guineafowl is Numida meleagris, while the turkey is Meleagris gallopavo.
To complicate matters even further, turkeys were often simply referred to as large chickens. And in the 19th century, there were many new large breeds of chicken being imported from Asia, such as Cochins and Brahmas. Thus, in halachic responsa literature from that period, it is often impossible to determine whether they are discussing turkeys, guineafowl, or chickens.
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