Would you mind sharing which sect(s) of Judaism you read don't eat chicken today? I'm curious to know more about that; I know many centuries ago there were some "chokhamim" of the Karaites who questioned the bird's kashrut. I'm fairly sure they since resolved that minority opinion within their sect (they are the smallest Jewish sect today with less than 40k members worldwide).
@IshChayil, it sounds like you are Jewish? You mentioned having a rabbi and said "we" were in Egypt nearly 4 centuries. If you are Jewish, I'm sure then that you don't need me to educate you on the matter, but to answer your questions, I don't know of a SECT of Jews that avoids eating chicken, but I do know of individuals within different Jewish sects that avoid it, regardless of whether they do or do not have a rabbi they follow that tells them what is "Kosher" or not. Like Christians, I don't know of any Jewish folks that agree 100% with what their religious leaders or religious sects deem biblically clean or not. Yes, I've heard Orthodox, Ultra Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Karaites all say they avoid chicken. Not their sects, but individuals within the various sects. So, yeah, there are still Karaites in existence today that refuse to eat it. I'm sure the Karaite leaders believe they resolved that minority opinion, but that minority opinion is still there.
Not everyone was deported from Judah. Many remained; so are we to imagine those who stayed somehow forgot their native language?
Also, the length of the Babylonian captivity was not long enough to cause even the deportees and their children to forget their native languages. As a people we were in Egypt nearly 4 centuries and didn't loose Hebrew; the Babylonian captivity was only for a generation in duration. The "bird words" which are debatable are exotic birds like "ostrich" which we can pin down from the LXX and other ancient versions.
Oh, I was not referring to the Babylonian captivity mentioned in the Bible, sorry for not being clear, though Nehemiah 13:23-24 does say they did forget the language of Judah, just being gone 70 years, during the Babylonian exile. I was referring to when the Jews went into exile after the Romans destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem, 70 years after Messiah. It's the consensus in the Jewish community that the Hebrew language was forgotten and had to be relearned, that they are still unsure of many words in the Bible. If you are Jewish and don't agree with that consensus, than you would be a Jew with a different opinion than many Hebrew scholars, and I don't fault you if that's the case. I certainly don't agree with most Hebrew scholars on most things! I learned that from them when I briefly studied Judaism. I promise I am not making that claim on my own. There may have been some Hebrew speaking Jews left behind in the area of Judea, but from what I understand, according to many accounts of history, Jewish and gentile alike, the Jews were not able to maintain their national identity, culture, language, etc...they were under foreign rule for hundreds of years, persecuted in the Crusades and other times in history, and required to assimilate wherever they were, lest they be exiled from where they scattered or killed. Due to the disobedience of those in Judah at the time of Messiah, since it was obedience to the Father and faith in His Son that creates an environment of unity, Judah lost its unity, hence the reason we have all these sects. Jewish sects (Pharisees, Saducees, Essenes, etc...) existed when the Son was walking on the Earth. They just have different names and arguments now. Only faith in Yahusha Messiah and obedience to His commandments will bring them/us into unity in Spirit and Truth in the Father. There are many arguments in the Jewish community about what is the true ancient Hebrew language/dialect. Some say Sephardic, some say Ashkenazi, or Yiddish, others say it's more like Aramaic. They all have evolved, just like the English language. Most English speakers don't know the letter J did not exist in the English language just a few hundred years ago. Oh, how the English language has changed since my grandmother was a child! Since I was a child! So no, I do not find it hard to believe that they forgot some Hebrew words over the last 2,000 years.
Reasonable, thanks for sharing. My old rabbi only eats vegetarian because he lives in an area where it's hard to get animals slaughtered according to Jewish law. This seems like a similar reasoning to your sticking with only birds you are certain are identified clearly in scripture as kosher.
Well, I certainly applaud your old rabbi for sticking with his convictions. That can be a heavy burden for others, an unnecessary one. For their sake, I hope someone explains the difference to them between kosher according to Jewish law and clean according to Torah law. According to Torah, YHUH gave everyone in Israel permission to hunt deer and the like out in the field, and to slaughter animals from their own flocks and herds, to eat, in this same manner, wherever they live. Deuteronomy 12. No mention of needing a rabbi to bless it or put a "K" on it. Personally, we only eat meat that we've slaughtered, so we know how it's slaughtered - blood poured/drained out and covered with dirt, humanely and all that. For some, it's easier to go vegetarian than raise their own animals for food. Not a sin, good on them.
