On a cattle ranch somewhere in the Golan, a red calf has been born that may have an impact on the future of the entire Jewish people. Is it possible that this Red Angus cow, now over a year old and still unblemished, will be the tenth and final parah adumah?

W

hile the weeks leading up to Pesach don’t automatically make people think of vacations,the Golan Heights actually attracts thousands of visitors at this time of year, after the winter rains have replenished the earth and the lush green foliage and multi-colored flora take bloom. But we were in the region to look out for another burst of color — we wanted to meet the cattle rancher who’s taken on raising what he hopes might be the next red heifer.

He’s happy to host us, as long as we don’t reveal his name or the exact location of his ranch up here in Israeli cattle country. “Things are already getting complicated for me,” he says. “In this situation, discretion is more important than anything else.”

As we drive to the outskirts of the ranch on his tractor, Mr. Cattleman, as we’ll call him, fills us in on how he landed in this position. He’s been herding cattle here for close to 50 years, as one of the Golan Heights’ pioneer settlers after the region was liberated from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War. He grew up on the religious moshav of Beit Chilkiya in the center of the country, but the challenge of the northern heights pulled him. “I raise 200 head of cattle here on 5,000 dunams,” he says.

Seeing Red

Mr. Cattleman primarily raises Simmental cattle, a popular breed in Israel. But a few years ago, he was contacted by the staff of the Machon Hamikdash in Jerusalem, an institute dedicated to raising public awareness of the mitzvos related to the Beis Hamikdash. The men from the institute made him an offer that he couldn’t refuse. “They wanted me to raise an additional breed of cattle — Red Angus cows,” he says. “Their goal was to try to produce a perfect Parah Adumah which would meet all the halachic criteria.

“I said to myself, ‘What could be bad about this idea?’ After all, I’m a believing Jew, and if I have the opportunity to participate in a project like this, I should consider it a privilege. So I agreed to begin raising the cattle. It didn’t actually require any special effort. I raise cattle anyway, and the Red Angus is a very docile breed. They tend to be good-natured, obedient, and easy to control, and their meat is considered tastier and of better quality than the other breeds generally raised in these parts.”

In 2015, the Machon Hamikdash set its sights on raising a kosher Red Heifer in Israel. The rabbis of the institute had previously been in touch with cattle ranchers in the US who raise Red Angus cows, and they believe this species has the best chance of becoming an authentic Parah Adumah, with all the entailing stringencies from the time of the cow’s birth.

People might assume that red-colored cows are something otherworldly or extremely rare, but in fact there are dozens of species of red-colored cattle. The Machon originally considered importing some Red Angus cows to Israel for breeding, but Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture doesn’t permit the importation of cattle from other countries. They do permit the importation of frozen embryos though, and so the Machon teamed up with several ranchers, including Mr. Cattleman, an expert in the science of animal husbandry, who has been utilizing the technique of implanting these embryos in domestic cattle. The hope of the Machon is that if a totally red female cow is born, it will be cared for in a halachically appropriate environment that would minimize the possibility of a blemish that would render it unfit.