Latke–Hamantash Debate

TheLatke–Hamantash Debateis a deliberately humorous academicdebateabout the relative merits and meanings of these two items ofAshkenazi Jewish cuisine. The debate originated at theUniversity of Chicagoin 1946and has since been held annually. Subsequent debates have taken place at several other universities. Participants in the debate, held within the format of asymposium, have included past University of Chicago presidentHanna Holborn Gray,philosopherMartha Nussbaum, formerCouncil of Economic AdvisersChairmanAustan Goolsbee,Nobel PrizewinnersMilton Friedman,George Stigler,Leon M. Lederman, andessayistAllan Bloom. A compendium of the debate, which has never been won, was published in 2005.
Alatkeis a kind ofpotatopancake traditionally eaten during the Jewish holiday ofHanukkah. Fried in oil, latkes commemorate the holiday miracle in which one day's worth of oil illuminated the temple for eight days.Hamantashenare triangular baked wheat-flour pastries with a sweet filling which are traditionally eaten on the holiday ofPurim. They represent the ears or the 3-cornered hat of Haman, the villain of the Purim story in the Biblicalbook of Esther.
A debate on their relative merits was first held in the winter of 1946 at the University of Chicago chapter house of theHillel Foundation, sponsored byRabbiMaurice Pekarsky.Participants in the debates have includedNobel Prizewinners andMacArthur Grant Fellows.After the debate, both foodstuffs are usually served at a reception afterwards, offering debaters and listeners an opportunity to evaluateprimary sources.
At the University of Chicago the debate had been moderated by philosophy professorTed Cohenfor over 25 years until his death in March 2014.Several long-standing customs are observed at the University of Chicago: arguments are encouraged to be made using the specific technical language of their discipline, participants must present themselves inacademic regalia, the debaters must include at least one non-Jew, and  the debaters must have gained a Ph.D. or an equivalent advanced degree .However at the 77th debate at the University of Chicago on March 24th 2024, Terry Johnson, one of the debaters argued with only a Masters in chemical engineering, becoming the first non-Ph.D. holding scholar to debate.
The events have attracted commentary from a number of individuals.Aaron David Miller, who served as a peace negotiator between Israeli and Palestinian authorities, noted that the critical feature of the debate is that it is intractable, but that the event is "simply too important to abandon."Discussing the event's original purpose at the University of Chicago, Ruth Fredman Cernea observed that scholarly life discouraged exploration of Jewish traditions and did not facilitate ethnic relationships between students and faculty: "the event provided a rare opportunity for faculty to reveal their hidden Jewish souls and poke fun at the high seriousness of everyday academic life."On a practical note, Cernea commented that examinations and term papers would cause stress in the student body and that the event served to help alleviate such tension toward the end of the fall.She also argued that the debates reflected broad ethnic changes in the United States when they were founded, and represented gradual integration.
The debaters represent a range of academic disciplines. Some of the entries are described below:
Latke–Hamantash Debates have been held at several other universities and institutions including: