[ID: Britney and dancers performing ‘Gimme More’. Right before Britney can begin, a guy screams ‘WHO IS IT?’. Britney laughs and says ‘It’s Britney, bitch’, resuming the routine.]
first of all: yes, Judaism exists in the Pokémon universe; Meowth specifically mentions Yom Kippur in the song Nobody Don’t Like Christmas, which you can find here on Bulbapedia. this brings up a lot of theological questions (arceus echad?) but i think we can for the time being set those aside and discuss the real important stuff, like, as observant Pokémon trainers, what do we eat? (can you even be an observant Pokémon trainer? after all, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef had a strong negative opinion on the Jewish-ness of bullfights, and many rabbis have spoken on the scriptural obligation to prevent an animal’s suffering, which to me definitely applies to Pokémon fights. maybe N is the most frum of us all)
(again, this post cannot possibly get into all the implications of trying to be Jewish in the world of Pokémon, so let’s move on)
as a guide for this post, i have followed (with exceptions) this guide to Poke-kashrut (please click here to embiggen) that i can unfortunately no longer find a real source for because the Facebook group therein is defunct! if you have a question as to why a particular Pokémon was not included check the guide first, I pretty much agree with it! (also Wingull and Pelipper aren’t kosher because pelicans are specifically called out as non-kosher bird)
I disagree with typing leafeon as kosher. Grass type or no, it has FOUR LEGS and no cloven hooves! None of the eevielutions should be kosher. (Also if grass types ARE plants, then isn’t it fine to eat off them directly? I thought the issue of not eating from a live animal was about avoiding the consumption of blood, which plants do not have.)
while I agree with you that eating a leafeon is creepy, the Video Game Rabbis before us (whoever made this graphic) have clearly declared pure Plant-types as kosher and who am i to argue with them? also i agree with tumblr user @hachama who says not eating from a live animal is (also or entirely) an issue of causing undue cruelty and the fact that an animal (or in this case very animal-esque plant) which has not been killed at all has, by definition, not been killed in a kosher method
You and @hachama are right in that I suppose the issue of ever min hachay, “limb from a live animal” assumes that a leaf type’s body includes limbs? (But then why can you lick certain Pokemon??)
i’ve been thinking about this all night (yes. i live like this. thank you) and here are my most plausible answers:
Vanilluxe’s ice cream is not considered to be part of its body, or not considered to be alive
just licking Vanilluxe is considered distinct from eating food, for whatever reason (similar to a lack of prohibition on non-food products taken orally for hygiene purposes, for example)
the Video Game Rabbis were attempting to allow a common practice among a Jewish community due to minhag, implying a group of pokejews who commonly lick Vanilluxes
Technically the ‘ice cream’ on the vanillite line isnt actually ice cream. Its just powdered snow that the icicle body uses to look like ice cream because of pokemon logic. Sorry to rain on everyones parade, but being needlessly semantic can be important when dealing with a massive group of peoples dietary requirements in a fictional world intended for a child audience.
GREAT NEWS EVERYONE! YOU CAN LICK VANILLUXE BECAUSE ITS “ICE CREAM” IS NEITHER A PART OF ITS BODY OR ALIVE
first of all: yes, Judaism exists in the Pokémon universe; Meowth specifically mentions Yom Kippur in the song Nobody Don’t Like Christmas, which you can find here on Bulbapedia. this brings up a lot of theological questions (arceus echad?) but i think we can for the time being set those aside and discuss the real important stuff, like, as observant Pokémon trainers, what do we eat? (can you even be an observant Pokémon trainer? after all, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef had a strong negative opinion on the Jewish-ness of bullfights, and many rabbis have spoken on the scriptural obligation to prevent an animal’s suffering, which to me definitely applies to Pokémon fights. maybe N is the most frum of us all)
(again, this post cannot possibly get into all the implications of trying to be Jewish in the world of Pokémon, so let’s move on)
as a guide for this post, i have followed (with exceptions) this guide to Poke-kashrut (please click here to embiggen) that i can unfortunately no longer find a real source for because the Facebook group therein is defunct! if you have a question as to why a particular Pokémon was not included check the guide first, I pretty much agree with it! (also Wingull and Pelipper aren’t kosher because pelicans are specifically called out as non-kosher bird)