Meat lottery: a spectacle in transition from Ethiopia to Israel

ABSTRACT

Meat is a key idiom in the lives of the Ethiopian Jews, both private and collective. This paper focuses on meat lottery as a unique praxis in Ethiopia and in the move of the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) community, from Ethiopia to Israel. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the egalitarian divide of meat to be consumed by all partners and its accompanied lottery ritual is described and analyzed, directing the gaze to its socio-cultural and symbolic meanings. Beyond the mitigating aspects of the lottery from a social perspective, i.e. circumventing potential rivalries in the distribution of the meat of a single animal among several partners, it is connected at heart with the notions of sacrifice and transformation.

KEYWORDS:

• Meat consumption
• lottery
• sacrifice
• Ethiopia
• Ethiopian Jews

Acknowledgements

This article, in a slightly different format, originally appeared in Hebrew in: Iyunim Bitkumat Israel: Studies in Zionism, the Yishuv and the State of Israel, 22, 2012, pp: 204–224. I would like to thank the staff of The Harry S. Truman Research Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and especially the members of the Africa Unit for their ongoing support. My deep gratitude goes to my colleagues from the Ethiopian-Israeli community for their longstanding friendship and willingness to include me in their lives. The sharing and the strict adherence to the fair distribution described in this article demonstrate a relationship of mutual support and assistance, which despite the difficulties continue to exist in Israel. The materials presented in this article are indicative of the community’s strength and openness. I thank Diane Lyons and Amos Salamon for the images that appear in the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For descriptions regarding the slaughter and eating of meat, which define the border between the Beta Israel and their neighbors in Ethiopia, see Salamon (1993). On stories of cows and meat symbolizing boundaries between sub-groups among the Beta Israel in Ethiopia and Israel, see Salamon (2008a, 2008b, 2010). For a look at the centrality of blood in the relationship of Ethiopian Jews and the Jewish world see Seeman (2009), and on blood as a dominant symbol in ceremonies in related cultural contexts see Turner (1969).

2 In this context, I would like to note the sense of pride that filled my interlocutors, and it is clear why, when they felt the beauty and intense demonstration of social justice that lies in the egalitarian distribution of the meat. For example, when I raised the issue in an interview with an Ethiopia born social worker, it occurred to him that it would be possible to encourage this unique practice in Israel as a way to reestablish feelings associated with intra-communal charity and equality. In the interview, he mentioned that in the region of Gondar, where he was born and grew up, a supreme effort was made to allow the distribution of meat to single mothers, widows and the disabled. He said that special importance was linked to the eating of meat and thus they took care to divide piles into quarter-piles, allowing the weaker members of society to receive some of the meat.

3 In this regard, see the classic book of Hubert and Mauss ([1898] 1964) and its structural analysis as well as McClymond (2008) who compares sacrifice in Hinduism and Judaism.

4 The majority of Jews came to Israel in the early waves of immigration via Sudan, some years before Operation Moses was from Tigray and Wolkait. They thus preceded the subsequent immigration of Jews from other regions, especially from Gondar. This has significance beyond the chronological aspect, and it touches on the internal relations between groups from these two main regions now living in Israel. I will not go into the offensive process whereby the rabbinical authorities demanded Ethiopian Jews undergo conversion. Suffice it to say that not every immigrating wave experienced the same conversion process, which created regrettable intra-group separations that did not exist in Ethiopia. These separations find various expressions, one of the most prominent of which concerns the slaughter and eating of meat. Many members of both groups, the ‘Amhara’ and ‘Tigrean’, especially the elders, do not consume meat slaughtered by the other (Salamon 2008b).

5 The tradition of coming together for the slaughter and distribution of meat among Ethiopians in Israel takes place mainly among the older generation. It is impossible to predict if and to what extent it will persist among younger people, although they may be attracted by its economic benefits.

6 For example, the contrast between flesh and spirit is central to the interactions between Jewish and Christian identities in late antiquity (Boyarin 1993, 1–10). In addition, there are some interesting corollaries that can be drawn between this estrangement and that experienced by Ethiopian Pentecostals living in Israel vividly described by Seeman (2015) in relation to coffee ceremonies.

7 Ritual sacrifice of the red heifer was last recorded in 1952, performed by the high priest of Tigray, Memher (Teacher) Abba Yitzhac. The cow’s ashes were kept in a pottery jar in the village Beit Maharia Home in Tigray. I heard eyewitness testimonies of the ceremony from Qes Avraham Tezazo during an interview with him. See also Gunchel (2008).

8 Kaplan (1992) mentions historical references to sacrifices among the Beta Israel, especially from Protestant missionaries, and the weakening of these rituals due to the influence of the latter as well as the kifu-qan (the Great Famine) of 1888–1892. For a description of Jacque Faitlovitch’s discussions with the Beta Israel on religious practices including sacrifices, see Summerfield (2003, 89).

9 For example, Fiddes in his book ‘Meat: a Natural Symbol’ (1991), focuses on changes in meat eating in the UK, and enlists Douglas’s core work and terms regarding ‘natural symbols’ connecting the human body and the social body.

Additional information

Funding

The research was conducted with the support of The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.