The University community will come together on Nov. 22 to examine one of the great intellectual questions of the day: latke or hamantash?
The Latke-Hamantash Debate, now in its 65th year, invites distinguished UChicago scholars to use their academic training and expertise to weigh the relative merits of latkes (fried potato pancakes traditionally eaten during Hanukkah) and hamantashen (triangular-shaped cookies eaten during Purim).
The debate began at the University of Chicago’s Hillel House in 1946, and is now a mainstay of campus life. The tongue-in-cheek tradition has since spread to colleges and universities nationwide.
Previous debaters have included Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, President Emerita Hanna Holborn Gray and philosopher Allan Bloom. Their contributions to the debate, along with many others, are anthologized in The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2005.
This year’s debaters will be Tobias Moskowitz, Fama Family Professor of Finance; Richard Rosengarten, Associate Professor in the Divinity School; and Malynne Sternstein, Associate Professor in Slavic Languages and Literatures and the College. The debate will be moderated by Ted Cohen, Professor in Philosophy and the College.
This year, for the first time, the Latke-Hamantash Debate will be webcast live on the Hillel website and the UChicago Live tab of the University’s Facebook page. Viewers are encouraged to participate in the discussion either via Facebook or by using the hashtag #LHDebate on Twitter.
The Latke-Hamantash Debate is sponsored by the Neubauer Family Foundation. The debate, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Mandel Hall. A reception will follow in Hutchinson Commons; tickets are $5.
For more information, visit http://www.uchicagohillel.org.
—Prof. Kunle Odunsi
