Yes, Jews do eat goat meat (kosher, of course)


By Daniel Rosehill The Times of Israel


During Rosh Hashana this year (Sept. 22-24), dinner tables around Israel and the Jewish world will be adorned with the usual staples: Apples. Honey. The simanim. And — for some — kosher goat meat.


When people think about kosher meat, the usual staples usually come to mind: chicken, beef, and lamb for the most part. Most long-term keepers of kashrut (Jewish laws) from populous Jewish communities might also have tasted a few meats they thought somewhat exotic in their time. Meats such as duck, goose and even buffalo. Yet there’s one meat that seems to curiously evade most kosher eaters’ attention. Which is a great pity because — arguably more than any meat — it is the one with the longest history in the Jewish tradition. And that is: goat meat.


Meat of the ancient Israelites Ever wonder what the figures of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) would have eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and how such a diet would differ from the diet prevalent in Modern Israel (a mish- mash of the cuisines of various cultures with decidedly Middle East- ern influences)?


If you have, then there’s a plethora of scholarly research to whet your curiosity and while there’s some overlap between the two (chickpeas were popular back then, too!) there are also marked dif- ferences — which is almost inevitable considering the long passage of time between the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora and the foun- dation of the modern State of Israel. Wikipedia, for one, has an interesting page on the diet of the Ancient Israelites — which is a good starting point for anybody in- terested in learning more. The subject is of interest to archaeologists, too, who are often able to piece together the approximate diet of the ancient denizens of these parts by finding their cookware and storage vessels on excavation sites.


And, of course, there are books. Nathan McDonald’s What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat?: Diet


in Biblical Times? does pretty much what it says on the cover — in exhaustive detail. The more recent Household Food Storage in An- cient Israel and Judah merits mention, too.


By all accounts, the most distinctive feature of the diet of the Ancient Israelites, by reference to today’s Western diets, was that it was largely a vegetarian one — dairy and legumes (mostly chickpeas, lentils, fava beans and bitter vetch) made up the main dietary proteins, while bread was a daily staple.


Meat, when it was eaten, tended to be reserved for special oc- casions like weddings and major festivals.


Kosher birds were also eaten, including those that are extremely hard to pin down today (ever seen pigeon at your friendly kosher butcher?). The kosher meats that are the most commonplace today ranked comparatively down the food chain or were not eaten at all. Spices we take for granted on our supermarket shelves — tur- meric, for instance — were exorbitantly expensive import items and most dishes were modestly flavored with things like garlic, cumin and leeks. And forget chopping up some nice Israeli tomatoes to serve it with. Tomatoes are a New World nightshade and weren’t even known to European explorers until the 16th century or so.


10 Goat Rancher | July 2025 Goat was the leading meat But what about this meat eaten on special occasions, you might


be wondering? You guessed it! Goat likely came in first place — with sheep meat relegated to a slightly distant second (veal would have also been eaten but only, in all likelihood, by the elite). There are many other fascinating tidbits one can pick up by stu- dying what archaeologists have discovered about the diet of the people of the Bible. For one, barley — rather than wheat — was the most important grain during the Biblical period and up to approx- imately the period of the First and Second Temple. Therefore, the bread referred to in the Bible likely refers to bar- ley bread. Barley flour is comparatively hard to find these days — including in Israel — and yields much flatter loaves than wheat due to its lower gluten content.


Fenugreek — which is rarely seen in Israel in its dried leaf form (the ingredient known to Indian food aficionados as kasoori methi and Persian food fans as shanbalileh) — was also consumed as was a legume called bitter vetch. If you’re sufficiently motivated, you can easily grow your own fenugreek and bake your own 100% barley flour bread.


All these Biblical asides are just really to say that slices of goat meat served on a bed of scorched ripe wheat (what we today know as freekeh is also of ancient origin!) is actually much more authenti- cally and historically Jewish than the turkey served on wheat bread that you might find at your local shawarma shop — bathed, as it typi- cally is, in a fragrant rich blend of exotic spices.


Remember that the next time somebody tells you that goat meat “isn’t something Jews eat.” n


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