As the law expert, Eugene Kontorovich, said, "What's great about the Latke-Hamantasch Debate is that at a time when so much academic inquiry is spent on esoteric and irrelevant matters, the debate focuses on the big questions."
Big questions, indeed. Sweet or savory? Round or triangular? Baked or fried?
These and other profound ponderables have made the debate a sacred, if silly, annual tradition at the superserious University of Chicago since 1946, chronicled in a new anthology, "The Great Latke Hamantasch Debate" (University of Chicago Press). At last week's extravaganza, complete with costumes and a klezmer band, the book's editor, Ruth Fredman Cernea, welcomed a packed auditorium to "a night of exquisite absurdity."
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