Conference taveng::bagels

    Shalom Linda,

    Both are treif for the same reason, no scales.  In order to be kosher,
    a fish must have both fins and scales.  This eliminates all shellfish
    and many of the scavenger and predator fish (sharks, eels, catfish...)

    Gavriel

    Your first sentence may be faulty.  The rest is accurate.  Swordfish
    do have scales and fins during most of its life.  When this was
    pointed out to many Rabbanim who do not know this, they rule that
    the fish may be considered Kosher.  The Conservative Rabbis consider
    it Kosher.  A strict interpritation would be that it is traif.
    
    Catfish never have scales, and are traif.  

    Only scales and fins are to be considered.  If the fish is a scavenger,
    it is irrelevant.  Consider the carp, the mainstay of gefilte fish.
    It is a scavenger.    

    Shalom Eli,

    The point was that many (not all) of the commonly known scavenger fish
    do not have scales.  Sorry if my observation made my note unclear.

    Swordfish do not have scales at the point during their life at which
    they are normally caught for food.  That is why many Rabbanim still
    consider them treif.  There is also some question whether they ever
    have "true" scales but I am not too clear on that point.

    Gavriel

    There was a debate in the 19th century over whether or not swrdfish
    was kosher. Legend has it that the Rabbi who thought it was kosher
    had more of a following than the other Rabbi; however after the
    rabbi who ruled it kosher died rumors spread that he changed his
    mind. So traditionally swordfish has been considered treif but it
    really isn't very clear that thats really the case.
    
    yoseff
    

	ad .4
>>  There was a debate in the 19th century over whether or not swrdfish <<
>>  was kosher.     							<<

	19th century? 
	I know that this was hotly debated right here in Boston a mere
	20 years ago, with Rabbi Savitsky at that time holding that swordfish
	is kosher. Later he changed his mind for the reasons pointed out
	in .3, viz. that the scales are not present at the time the fish
	are taken out of the water. (I think the scales dry up or something
	when the fish leaves the water.)

	If I am not mistaken Rabbi Tendler (who is also a biologist) held
	that the swordfish have no true scales and are therefore treif.
	(Rabbi Tendler is the son-in-law of Rabbi Feinstein z"l.)

I happened to be interviewing another Bagels noter over a year ago,
(Don Feinberg, remember me Don?) and since we had been discussing this very
same question at my temple I asked Don about it. He said that the requirements
for a kosher fish is that it have "fins and scales in the water". This means
that a fish whose scales dry up and fall off in the air is still kosher.

The swordfish starts out life with scales but loses them when the fish matures.
I suppose if you caught a young swordfish that still had scales it would be
kosher, but the adult fish is not kosher. Knowing the way questions like this
seem to be decided, an observant person would not eat the young swordfish
anyway, either because an observer couldn't tell whether the fish was young
enough when caught or because it isn't "glatt" (i.e. if you had to ask whether
it's kosher, then it ain't kosher regardless of the answer 8^). I mean, as long
as there is a question whether the swordfish's scales are "true" scales, it
would not be considered "glatt" by anybody.

Dave

Note 537.6
>>> glatt ... fish                       

I don't mean to be picky, but I have to correct an oh-so-common misuse
of the word "glatt".  Glatt (which means smooth) describes a situation in 
which the lung of an animal is free of lesions (hence smooth).  An
animal which has such lesions (which may be indicative of a disease which
would render the animal unkosher) can generally be considered kosher if
there are no other signs of disease.  However, some people who want to
be extra-sure, won't eat this kind of meat (i.e., non-Glatt meat). 

Therefore "glatt" has sometimes been used to mean "super-kosher", but
this is not correct.  In any case, there is no way that fish or cheese
can be glatt kosher.  Fish do not have lungs (they have gills) and as
far as I know cheese doesn't either.

    re: .5
    
    I believe it was the Noda BeYhuda and someone else who debated it,
    with the Noda BeYehuda apparently ruling ti was kosher. 
    
    Incidentally he might have lived in the 18th not the 19th century,
    I'm really not sure about the date.
    
    yoseff
    

    A friend of mine who works at IBM called this morning. As it happens, I
    was working at home and my wife was out. Apparently, somebody in his
    office is planning a wedding, and wanted to know if swordfish is
    kosher. Ruth is the expert, and I decidedly am not, although I recalled
    some discussion that suggested the answer was "No", or at best,
    "Maybe".
    
    I said I'd get back to him if I could get an answer, then dialed into
    this conference, did a DIR/ALL/TITLE=SWORDFISH and located this note
    and 15. Blew him away when I called back a few minutes later with the
    answers ("Depends on who you ask. At a wedding, play it safe and serve
    something else.").
    
    Talk about your cultural differences ... wait'll I tell him how people
    at Digital get the answers to this kind of question!
    
    :-)
    
    - Richard