Meat Matters: Ethnographic Refractions of the Beta Israel

by Hagar Salamon

Overview

Meat Matters offers a portrait of the lives of Ethiopian Jews as it is reflected and refracted thought the symbolism of meat. Drawing upon thirty years of fieldwork, this beautifully written and innovatively constructed ethnography tells the story of the Beta Israel, who began immigrating from Ethiopia to Israel in the 1970s. Once in Israel, their world changed in formerly unimaginable ways, such as conversion under Rabbinic restrictions, moving into multistory buildings, different attitudes toward gender and reproduction, and perhaps above all, the newly acquired distinctiveness of the color of their bodies.

In the face of such changes, the Beta Israel held on to a key idiom in their lives: meat. The community continues to be organized into kirchas, groups of friends and family who purchase and raise cows, then butcher and divide the animal's body into small and equal chunks, which are distributed among the kircha through a lottery ritual.

Flowing back and forth between Ethiopia to Israel, Meat Matters follows the many strands of significance surrounding cows and meat, ultimately forming a vibrant web of meaning at the heart of the Beta Israel community today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253065773
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	04/04/2023
Series:	Sephardi and Mizrahi Studies
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Hagar Salamon is Max and Margarethe Grunwald Chair in Folklore and Head of the Graduate Program for Folklore and Folk Culture Studies and Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of Israel in the Making.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Enduring Exposures: Everyday Bonding with Creatures
2. Zooming In: Creaturely Sentiments
3. Zooming Out: Emerging from the Pen
4. Shifting Lenses: Interreligious Negotiations
5. Transpositions and Splitting: Under New Hegemonies
6. Candid Camera: Focusing the Lens on Lost Meats
7. Upraising the Vision: God Watches over Flesh
8. Concluding Words and Continuing Questions
Glossary
References

What People are Saying About This

Kay Kaufman Shelemay

In this remarkable book, Hagar Salamon reveals unsuspected relationships and new domains of meaning communicated between species. Meat Matters is a major contribution at the vanguard of a challenging new scholarly field and should be required reading for ethnographers from across the disciplines.

Jonathan Miran

A rich, sensitive and nuanced ethnography of the interlaced practices, ideas, meanings, beliefs, and symbols of meat for the Beta Israel community. Beautifully conceptualized, written and illustrated, Hagar Salamon's evocative book offers illuminating insights into the singular Ethiopian Jewish experience and Ethiopian culture more broadly. 

Editorial Reviews

"In this remarkable book, Hagar Salamon reveals unsuspected relationships and new domains of meaning communicated between species. Meat Matters is a major contribution at the vanguard of a challenging new scholarly field and should be required reading for ethnographers from across the disciplines."—Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and African and African American Studies at Harvard University

"A rich, sensitive and nuanced ethnography of the interlaced practices, ideas, meanings, beliefs, and symbols of meat for the Beta Israel community. Beautifully conceptualized, written and illustrated, Hagar Salamon's evocative book offers illuminating insights into the singular Ethiopian Jewish experience and Ethiopian culture more broadly."—Jonathan Miran, author of Red Sea Citizens: Cosmopolitan Society and Cultural Change in Massawa

From the Publisher