"You may, at this point, notice that you’re reading a #Jewish newspaper, that I’m a Jewish journalist, and that #oysters are not #kosher.

But what if I told you oysters were, in fact, kosher? That a #rabbi once argued they are actually vegetables, by virtue of the fact that they “root” on rocks in the ocean? And that their shells are a form of scales, thus making them part of the kosher category of scaled and finned #fish?

These are real arguments that were made around the turn of the 20th century by Rabbi #IsaacMayerWise, the founder of #HebrewUnionCollege in #Cincinnati, the first #American institution for #Reform Jewish ordination.

The impetus for this #Talmudic bit of logic was in large part a now-infamous feast that has come to be known as the “#TrefaBanquet,” due to the amount of non-kosher food that was served."

https://forward.com/culture/801135/a-kosher-oyster-trefa-banquet-jewish-food-history/