No one can deny the pop­u­lar­ity of the Farmer John pork-laden Dodger Dog, or its all-beef, but still non-kosher, alter­na­tive. A report from the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council, a project of the American Meat Institute, which pro­vides data, research and recipes to food man­u­fac­tur­ers and reporters, states that the Dodger Dog was the No. 1 best-sell­ing Major League Baseball ball­park hot dog in 2011, and it is expected to be the fourth-high­est-sell­ing this year.

Now, if it is true that indi­vid­u­als develop a sense of con­nec­tion to and con­cern for a larger col­lec­tiv­ity in the ways that I’ve described – through the prac­tices of story, lan­guage, and love – then we should notice that peo­ple­hood edu­ca­tion does not con­flict with other sub­stan­tive, con­tent-rich Jewish edu­ca­tional efforts but rather com­fort­ably co-exists with them.