To clear up this myth once and for all ~ there are Jews who are Jewish by race but not Judaist by religion. My wife is one such. The Jewish race passes down through the female line (as opposed to most other races). My wife therefore inherits her race from her mother who in turn inherited it from her mother who in turn .... well you must have got the picture by now. There is nothing in being Jewish by race that stops them from eating whatever they like. The Judaist (Hebrew) religion, as with other religions from that part of the world took steps to prevent the eating of pig meat by declaring it to be unclean for two simple reasons (i) Pigs are omnivores (they eat meat and veg just like us) and (ii) as your mother would tell you, that pork does not keep well in hot weather (My mother, for example, would never buy pork in August because she swore it would go off in thundery weather). Nowadays with freezers and 'fridges we no longer have to worry about such things.
Eating pork that had "turned" because of the heat was a certain way to kill yourself so the priests banned it. Judaism, Muslim .... makes no odds ~ the pig is "unclean", Mutton on the other hand does keep better in hot weather and, until man interfered, sheep and goats, like cattle, were herbivores and thus not considered a cannibal.
My wife BTW although Jewish by race was, like her mother and Grandmother baptised (Christened) into the Church of England, is an active member of our local church and eats pig meat.
Now ~ having had the history lesson can we please drop the references to Jews as an implied insult. If you really want to make comment about the consumption of pig meat then it's the Judaist and Muslim religions that ban it. Being Jewish is an accident of birth for many and not a way of life.
