Backyard Slaughter

Rutzi Ya`kobi, head veterinarian at the Kiryat Amal slaughterhouse, is called in to sign death certificates for some calves whose carcasses are on display at one of the district`s farms. There is something strange about the raw meat, and Rutzi quickly discovers clues to wide-ranging slaughter-calves have been dying under mysterious circumstance at many other farms too.

In addition, someone starts sending her poison pen letters, accusing her of corruption and involvement in the illegal killing of animals that are unfit for human consumption. These letters and her deteriorating relationship with her husband Shmulik force her superiors to have second thoughts about her professional competence. And they may be right, for Rutzi is struggling with emotions never experienced before and with her identity as a woman, while still trying to solve the mystery. On her trips from farm to farm she discovers a web of intrigue, frustration and bitterness beneath the surface of Israel`s agricultural community-mainly in kibbutzim and moshavim in the North. She also unravels the ongoing blood feud that this community has inherited from its Zionist past, when it dreamt of creating a new society that lived close to the soil.

With his turbulent, high-tension plot, Magen portrays the history and lifestyle of Israel`s closed, tighly-knit farming community and its idealistic past. But the book is also filled with clever, amusing anecdotes from local zoological history that reveal the stories of the animals, the silent suffering partners of the Zionist project.

Backyard Slaughter was short-listed for the prestigious Sapir Prize 2007.