This update/Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) Online Newsletter has the following items:
1. Best wishes for a Joyous and Meaningful Purim
2. Time to Start Thinking About Passover
3. JTA Coverage of Israeli Chief Rabbi’s Decision on Fur/Suggestions on JVNA Message to the Chief Rabbi Welcome
4. Time For a New Media Strategy?
5. Interview With Israeli Animal Rights Activist and JVNA Advisor Rabbi Adam Frank
8. Events Scheduled To Show Links Between Human Violence and Animal Abuse
9. Worldwatch Institute Focuses on Two Negative Effects of “Livestock” Agriculture
13. Homes for Vegetarian Exchange Students Sought
15. Ethical-Eating Message From JVNA Advisor Syd Baumel
Some material has been deferred to a later update/newsletter to keep this one from being even longer.
[Materials in brackets like this [ ] within an article or forwarded message are my editorial notes/comments.]
Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the JVNA, unless otherwise indicated, but may be presented to increase awareness and/or to encourage respectful dialogue. Also, material re conferences, retreats, forums, trips, and other events does not necessarily imply endorsement by JVNA or endorsement of kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observance, but may be presented for informational purposes. Please use e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites to get further information about any event that you are interested in. Also, JVNA does not necessarily agree with all positions of groups whose views are included or whose events are announced in this newsletter.
As always, your comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks,
Richard
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1. Best wishes for a Joyous and Meaningful Purim
Purim is today. Enjoy! Remember that Queen Esther was a vegetarian, at least while living in the palace of King Ahashveros, so that she could remain kosher without revealing that she was Jewish. So, here is another example of vegetarianism helping to save many lives.
If interested in my article, “Purim and Vegetarianism,” please go to the holiday section of my articles at JewishVeg.com/Schwartz.
It is a little late (sorry that I slipped up this year in getting Purim material out to you soon enough), but if you are looking for last minute vegetarian Purim recipes, please go to
JewishVeg.com/recipes/#Purim
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2. Time to Start Thinking About Passover
With Purim here, Passover is only about 4 weeks away. I think it is important to use every available and proper opportunity to promote vegetarianism and to increase awareness that it is both a societal imperative and a Jewish imperative (to at least carefully consider vegetarianism, after learning about the realities of animal-based diets and agriculture). So, I plan to send my article “Passover and Vegetarianism” and related material to the Jewish media soon. Please take a look at the article in the holidays section of my articles at JewishVeg.com/Schwartz, and please let me know if you have any suggestions for improvements. Also, please see the section below re new strategies for reaching the media and let me know what suggestions you have. Thanks.
I think the article below is very timely. Please use the material in my articles and the article below for letters, calls to radio programs and talking points with family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.
Passover and Veganism - A Great Complement
by Jennye Laws-Woolf, IDA
Thanks to JVNA advisor John Diamond for forwarding the following wonderful article:
Ah, Passover- the hardest time of the year to be vegan, and yet the most appropriate. Passover is the holiday of liberation, the time of year when we recall the throwing off of the shackles of slavery, when we take the time (often hours and hours of time the 1st two nights especially) to really examine the concepts of slavery and oppression.
When, then, is it more appropriate to be a vegan? When we recall our liberation from Egypt, step back into the past to revisit the slavery of the Jewish people and remember the millennia of persecution since, it becomes even easier to truly empathize with those beings that still suffer under slavery and oppression.
I remember my first vegan Pesach. I had been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for years and had never had a problem cooking at Passover. Eggs are so ubiquitous in Passover cooking that being a lacto-ovo vegetarian didn't mean much change at all from the usual Passover diet - minus the brisket of course. But try to remove the eggs and the cooking ideas seem to hit a brick wall. Every baked good, every casserole, every kugel is replete with eggs. And, to make it worse, the usual egg substitutes aren't kosher for Passover! I could only remember truly dreading the sheer amount of potatoes I would have to eat. (It turned out to be easier than I thought, by the way.)
But, no matter the difficulty, I couldn't help but see the eggs on sale at the grocery store for $0.25 a dozen and recall the cruelty that enables them to sell those eggs so cheaply. I also couldn't help but see the irony of celebrating my freedom on the shackles of another being's slavery. Millions of other beings.
It's all about slavery and oppression, isn't it? The powerful enslaving the powerless and then going on about their "right" to do so. The Egyptians had a "right" to enslave the Hebrews, the Nazis made it their "right" to kill Jews and gypsies and homosexuals. But just because it was their "right" didn't, and doesn't, make it right. We can cram way too many hens into a way too small wire cage and then stack those cages into the sky. We can take thousands of male chicks a day and stuff them into trash bags and dumpsters because they are "waste" products. We can do all manner of evil things. The question is - should we?
And that's where Passover comes in. Passover reminds us of what it feels like to be the oppressed, to be the enslaved. We are required to laboriously retell the story and recount it to our children, to remove all leavened products from our homes and our diets every single year. And it isn't because we might forget the story or because 8 days worth of matzo is good for us. No, it is so that we never forget what it is to know slavery and to remind us to fight slavery and oppression whenever and wherever we find it.
So, while Passover may very well be the toughest time of the year to be vegan, it is also the easiest. Because when our eyes and our hearts are opened to the message of liberation, we cannot help but to want to share that freedom with all who remain oppressed.
(http://www.idausa.org/veganism_campaign.html)
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3. JTA Coverage of Israeli Chief Rabbi’s Decision on Fur/Suggestions on JVNA Message to the Chief Rabbi Welcome
Chief rabbi issues fur ban
www.jta.org
JTA Breaking News
Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi issued an edict forbidding Jews to wear fur skinned from a live animal.
Yona Metzger made the ruling last week after seeing a video of animals being skinned alive at fur farms in China. [Note the power of videos.]
PETA, which made the video, sent Metzger a letter of thanks this week.
“All Jews are obliged to prevent the horrible phenomenon of cruelty to animals and be a ‘light unto the nations’ by refusing to use products that originate from acts which cause such suffering,” Metzger said, according to Reuters.
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JVNA Message to Rabbi Metzger/Suggestions Welcome
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Please Contact Rabbi Metzger to Commend Him and Ask Him to Go Further. Thanks
Please use the material above in this section as the basis of messages to Rabbi Metzger asking him to apply this same principle to cruel treatment of animals on factory farms.
Rabbi Yona MetzgerReturn to Top
Office of The Chief Rabbi of Israel
Beit Yahav
80 Yirmiyahu Street
Jerusalem
Israel
Phone number: 02-5313-191
Fax number: 02-5377-872
Email: rabbia@rabbinate.gov.il
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4. Time For a New Media Strategy?
For many years I have been arguing that while those who gain from the dietary status quo have vast financial and organizational assets and gain from the general apathy and ignorance of a public that generally accepts the conventional wisdom, we have truth, morality and justice on our side, and thus we will eventually prevail. However, to speed up that process, we must be better at getting our message to the media.
For some time, I have sent my articles relating vegetarianism to the Jewish holidays to the media a month or so before the holiday. I let the publications know that I do not expect a fee and that they may edit the articles to meet their needs, as long as the basic points are not changed.
By now, the Jewish weeklies are familiar with my articles and, while a few publish them from time to time, I think we need to change that strategy. Please consider reviewing my over 130 articles and other items at JewishVeg.com/Schwartz, and consider writing new articles based on the material in my articles.
Another way that I have tried to get media coverage is through press releases and articles tied to breaking news, such as the video expose at the Postville, Iowa glatt kosher slaughterhouse, reports about mad cow disease, reports on the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming, etc.
Please let me know what ideas you have for trying to get better press coverage and for getting our message out to more people. Also, if you have personal media contacts who might be helpful, also please let me know. Thanks.
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5. Interview With Israeli Animal Rights Activist and JVNA Advisor Rabbi Adam Frank
Rabbi Adam Frank – The Interview.
By Claudette Vaughan
Rabbi Adam Frank lives and works in Jerusalem with his family. He wrote an excellent article titled “What’s Jewish about a Vegan Diet?” posted at jewishveg.com
We wanted to catch up with the Rabbi and ask him a few of our own questions. Here’s that interview.
Abolitionist: Is God a militant in an age where so many religious people refuse to speak favorably in terms of animal rights? Would God create his own Creation to then turn around and allow them to be eaten?
Rabbi Adam Frank: We start with the premise that God created the world, God created both humans and the non-human animal kingdom, God created lions and God created lambs. Lions eat lambs so yes, God is capable of creating that which God knows will consume something else that is living. Is God a militant? Certainly not in any negative sense. I think it’s important to say why God is so critical, at least in my perspective of the world. I believe how we define what is good and bad, what is moral and immoral, what is ethical or unethical must originate from something outside of human opinion. Different communities of people may come up with different definitions of what is moral and what is immoral and for this reason it is critical for me to turn to a source which is external of humans to be the foundation of what is good and what is bad. Judaism turns to God and believes that God gifted to humanity the Five Books of Moses as the foundation of defining what it means to live an appropriate life. In Judaism there are numerous verses and sources that guard against the unnecessary and cruel treatment of animals. These sources speak of human potential in its ideal form. Unfortunately, human influence – the human touch -- corrupts. While Judaism certainly has many teachings instructing that humans be sensitive and sensitized to other parts of God’s creation, I believe there has been a corruption, and sometimes even a willful ignoring, of certain percepts which allow us, all humans, to live more comfortable personal lives at the expense of others.
Abolitionist: Why are you vegan, Rabbi?
Rabbi Adam Frank: I am vegan because both Jewish law and my own use of logic and reasoning tell me that there is something terribly wrong with the animal food industry which places the animals in the conditions that is modern factory farming. I want to be clear, too, as this gets to your question of how do we lead a revolution of thinking to get people to stop eating meat and to make them more sensitive to their consumptions. I think the message has to be non-radical for human ears. The concept that people have no right to eat animals or that people have no right to infringe on the individual autonomy of an animal is so foreign to human thinking that it will be ignored. Judaism teaches that animals can be seen to exist in order to serve human needs but in the same breath Judaism obligates us to act as proper stewards and to act compassionately toward all that God created. Part of Judaism is to imitate/imbue the compassion of God. As God is compassionate towards humankind, so too must humankind be compassionate towards animals. I am vegan because farming methods are abusive and cruel to animals. I don’t want my food choices to condone the suffering that occurs in the animal food industry.
Judaism takes seriously the idea of personal responsibility. Communal change for the better and improved societal ethical behavior starts with the individual -- I cannot expect or hope for others to be concerned about animal suffering if my own actions reflect disregard for the wellbeing of animals.
Abolitionist: None of the holy books declare anywhere that humans have to eat meat. Do you think that factory farming itself is an abomination against God?
Rabbi Adam Frank: You’re right. I can’t speak for other holy books. I can only speak for Jewish sources. At the biblical level, Jewish sources do not require us to eat meat, though animal sacrifice was required in the times of the ancients. Built into the Jewish religion is the concept that we would use and even kill animals for some purpose. In Hebrew, the word for sacrifice – korvan – literally means to draw closer or to “draw near”. Whether pagans or Jews, why would people sacrifice animals? Sacrifices were a vehicle to give up something of great value as a way of service to something greater.
Abolitionist: Couldn’t sacrifice also mean to sacrifice the human condition as now stands to submit to God?
Rabbi Adam Frank: The ideal in certain Christian beliefs is abstinence. Judaism embraces moderation, not abstinence. In Judaism, the ideal is to have a sexual relationship that occurs in the realm of the holy partnership of monogamous commitment. No action should go unchecked. The idea that we humans make sacrifices in our own personal lives for the greater good is certainly part of Jewish practice. In fact, that which distinguishes humans from other animals is our ability to make choices based on our reason, knowledge, sensitivities, and beliefs.
Abolitionist: In ‘Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals and the Call to Mercy” Matthew Scully is troubled about, “Kosher meats require the anaesthetized killing and blood-draining, with the kill pace exceeding hundreds of animals per hour, in plants mostly unsupervised by non-Jews”. We asked Australian Jewish groups also about ‘kosher’ and they said it wasn’t happening. That they had done their own inspections and it just wasn’t happening due to stress and other things on the kill floor and they reported it was a dreadful way to be killed. By your education you have been impacted by the thought that the treatment of animals to fulfill human food desires is an appalling violation of Jewish law prohibiting the unnecessary infliction of pain on an animal. Can you further outline your thoughts here please?
Rabbi Adam Frank: Are you talking about AgriProcessors at the plant in Iowa? In late 2004, there was a video expose filming the operations in a kosher slaughterhouse in North America. In Australia, secular law requires that the animal remains upright during the killing process. The abuse that occurs in kosher slaughter has to do with the animal handling systems but not the actual killing method. E.g., how do you position the animal prior to the kill and how soon after the cut is the animal moved. As I said earlier, anything that humans touch is going to be corrupt, and for various reasons the system of shackling and hoisting an animal – of raising it upside down off the killing floor while still conscious – became a practice in kosher and non-kosher slaughter in the early 1900’s in America as a result of secular federal sanitary laws. In order to process the amount of kosher meat that is currently in demand there are animal handling systems similar to those described above in use that fulfill the letter of Jewish slaughter laws but transgress the Jewish laws of animal welfare. Also, like any industry the bottom line is profits and this influences the systems by which meat is produced. So the idea is to produce the product as inexpensively as possible and that means an individual animal’s welfare is surrendered. This mentality occurs in kosher slaughter as it occurs in secular slaughter as it occurs in any industry where humans have contact with animals. I think it’s upon Jewish leadership to make a change.
Abolitionist: The late Henry Spira was an effective and gracious animal activist who was also Jewish. He said the animals live in “a universe of pain and suffering”. As we wake up every morning, day in and day out, how should we as vegans relieve some of that pain and suffering for animals day in and day out?
Rabbi Adam Frank: We need to get people to the stage where they recognize that there is terrible cruelty occurring and it’s unnecessary and that the industry norm is one which provides for that cruelty. I find the following example helpful: While children, we believed the police were all good but as adults we realize that police can be corrupt and that the citizens best interests are not always at hand. We also have to realize with regard to the food industry that just because governments have anti-animal-cruelty laws, the laws and their lack of enforcement allow for an industry norm that is nothing short of torturous for animals. Every time we sit down to eat we have a choice. Judaism teaches that the one who gives charity is transformed more than the person who receives that charity – similarly, the decision I make to eat a non-dairy sherbet instead of ice cream is as much as about me as it is any animal that I’m trying to not cause pain to.
Abolitionist: As a Jewish Rabbi I would value your views on comparing the Holocaust to factory farming? Is this a shameful comparison to you and/or should this comparison best be left to the Jewish people to discuss?
Rabbi Adam Frank: I, as much as any other Jewish leader I know, have a sensitivity and a commitment to the well-being of animals. I am very offended by the comparison and there are several reasons why. I think humans should make a distinction between human life and animal life. The offensive part of the comparison is not that it elevates the value of an animal life but that it reduces the horror of what happened during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the attempted genocide of a people, a way of life, of a value system whose massacre had no benefit other than the extinction of the Jewish ‘other.’ The comparison discounts the psychological torture of daughters raped in front of parents, of newborns beheaded while in the hands of their mothers, of parents murdered in the presence of their children; it discounts the torment of losing all worldly possessions, security of being and the loss of faith in humankind.
The truth is I don’t think it helps the cause. It draws a picture that animal rights people and animal welfare people are equating human life and animal life – a message so radical and foreign to normative human thinking that it allows the audience to dismiss the message which is the non-radical message of compassion to animals.
Abolitionist: There’s also a movement happening in the world that denies the Holocaust, that wants to make the Holocaust an entertainment and what’s, through time and memory loss, to water down it’s significance in the 20th century up until now – so there’s that danger as well.
Rabbi Adam Frank: I think the term “genocide” should be applied to humans and not animals. Of the people who kill animals in the billions, the goal is not to extinguish the animals – to wipe them off the face of the earth – it’s not to deanimalise an animal as was the goal during the Holocaust to dehumanize the Jewish people. The goal is to provide meat and “comfort” to humans. The goal in genocide, specifically during the Holocaust during WWII was the elimination of Judaism and anybody connected to Judaism. The goal was to seek to get humanity to see Jews as animals, as vermin. Once the Nazis convinced people to think it was okay to treat Jews like animals then there was no reason not to put them into the conditions which the pictures from out of the Holocaust show. I don’t think the word ‘genocide’ is an appropriate word regarding animals unless it’s the genocide of trying to exterminate or extinguish one of the species.
Abolitionist: Three and a half years ago you attended your first animal rights conference and you have said this event was a wake-up call to you. What happened?
Rabbi Adam Frank: I learned the reality of the animal food industry of which I was previously unaware, and I interacted with people who were sensitive, caring, thoughtful humans who weren’t anti-establishment folks but who, like me, had simply seen the evidence and thought to themselves “we have got to try and stop this”. I could hear the message better at this animal rights conference because it wasn’t coming to me from out of anger or militism but from a sense of there are atrocities occurring here and let’s do something to repair it. I identified with the messenger which allowed me to hear the message which I might add was a non-radical message.
Abolitionist: How will the movement turn this thing around?
Rabbi Adam Frank: This is how we will do it. We’ll appeal to people’s reasoning. When I teach here in Jerusalem I start by saying “There are 6 million people here in Israel. Let’s say everyone here in Israel eats half a chicken a week. That’s 3 million chickens a week. That’s 150-160 million chickens a year. I ask is it possible to raise, to give veterinary care, to transport, to slaughter this sheer number of animals in any way we can ensure that we are being compassionate and appropriate?” This appeals to peoples’ reasoning. In America, 25 million animals are being killed each day – is logical to believe that the well-being of the animals are being cared for in an honest way? I teach: “If you take a knife and stick it in the side of a cow, the cow is going to move away from the knife. The cow is going to yell, to bleed and to run away. If you cut into a cow’s leg or if you cut a tendon she’ll do the very same thing as what a human would do. Empirical evidence shows us that a cow can suffer. So we keep building the argument based on logic.
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8. Events Scheduled To Show Links Between Human Violence and Animal Abuse
Dear Richard,
The Animals and Society Institute is pleased to announce several new programs and events aimed at emphasizing the link between human violence and animal abuse. Our representatives are fully engaged across the country at workshops and speaking engagements that advance the cause of animal protection on many levels.
We hope that you will help us implement these programs by passing this information along to friends and colleagues in related professional fields, and support our work financially so that we can reach even more people as the year progresses.
Project Second Chance
The ASI is proud to announce a fifth addition to our professional training series, "Workshops for Counseling Professions: Intervening in the Cycle of Violence."
This new workshop, Project Second Chance, offers criminal justice professionals, social workers and case managers in group homes an opportunity to learn about an effective program that improves empathy, reduces anger, and assists youth in gaining self-respect and respect for other living beings.
Using basic elements of our existing AniCare treatment approach, Project Second Chance helps troubled youths become more responsible and compassionate through training shelter dogs with behavioral problems: a win-win situation.
For information about Project Second Chance and our other workshops, please contact Ken Shapiro at ken.shapiro@animalsandsociety.org.
ASI trainers will be conducting AniCare Child workshops in several cities this spring. These one-day workshops incorporate lectures, role-playing and the use of our specialized AniCare Child Manual to help professionals on the front lines of domestic violence and animal abuse assess and treat juvenile offenders so that the violence link can be broken.
Please pass this information along to social service agencies in your area, and to practitioners in the workshop areas to encourage their attendance. For more information about each workshop, please e-mail the contact person listed for each event.
March 30, 2007: University of New Hampshire (Manchester, NH); contact Lynn Kegley at LKegley@bu.edu
April 26, 2007: Penn State University (State College, PA); contact Ken Shapiro at ken.shapiro@animalsandsociety.org
June 23, 2007: Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ); contact Christina Risley-Curtiss at risley.curtiss@azu.edu
To learn how to schedule a workshop in your area, please contact Ken Shapiro at ken.shapiro@animalsandsociety.org
ASI Leaders Attend Legal Conference
Both of the ASI's co-executive directors will attend the Animal Legal Defense Fund's "The Future of Animal Law" conference at Harvard Law School in Massachusetts on March 30-April 1.
Ken Shapiro will be on a panel discussing the psychological aspects of animal hoarding. Kim W. Stallwood will be a conference participant. Information pertaining to related ASI programs will be covered in a future newsletter; stay tuned!
Please Support Our Efforts to Stop the Cycle of Violence
The ASI's AniCare workshop program is an important part of our efforts to stop the cycle of violence involving both human and animal abuse. This program and our related materials are on the forefront of a national movement that involves social service, medical and legal professionals united for positive change.
We greatly value and appreciate your assistance, and thank you on behalf of everyone you will be helping.
For the animals,
Ken Shapiro and Kim W. Stallwood
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9. Worldwatch Institute Focuses on Two Negative Effects of “Livestock” Agriculture
New Meat Byproducts: Avian Flu and Global Climate Change
Worldwatch Institute – February 19, 2007 – 9:15am
San Francisco—The growth of factory farms, their proximity to congested cities in the developing world, and the globalized poultry trade are all culprits behind the spread of avian flu, while livestock wastes damage the climate at a rate that surpasses emissions from cars and SUVs. These preliminary findings on avian flu and meat production, from the upcoming Worldwatch Institute report Vital Signs 2007–2008, were released today by research associate Danielle Nierenberg at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Francisco.
At least 15 nations have restricted or banned free-range and backyard production of birds in an attempt to deal with avian flu on the ground, a move that may ultimately do more harm than good, according to Nierenberg. “Many of the world’s estimated 800 million urban farmers, who raise crops and animals for food, transportation, and income in back yards and on rooftops, have been targeted unfairly by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization,” she told participants at the AAAS event. “The socioeconomic importance of livestock to the world’s poor cannot be overstated.”
In 2006, global meat production increased 2.5 percent to an estimated 276 million tons. Sixty percent of this production occurred in the developing world, where half of all meat is now consumed thanks to rising incomes and exploding urbanization.
Rising demand for meat has helped drive livestock production away from rural, mixed-farming systems, where farmers raise a few different species on a grass diet, toward intensive periurban and urban production of pigs and chickens. Because of unregulated zoning and subsidies that encourage livestock production, chicken and pig “confined animal feedlot operations” (CAFOs), or factory farms, are moving closer to major urban areas in China, Bangladesh, India, and many countries in Africa.
Locating large chicken farms near cities might make economic sense, but the close concentration of the birds to densely populated areas can help foster and spread disease, Nierenberg says. In Laos, 42 of the 45 outbreaks of avian flu in the spring of 2004 occurred on factory farms, and 38 were in the capital, Vientiane (the few small farms in the city where outbreaks occurred were located close to commercial operations). In Nigeria, the first cases of avian flu were found in an industrial broiler operation; it spread from that 46,000-bird farm to 30 other factory farms, then quickly to neighboring backyard flocks, forcing already-poor farmers to kill their chickens.
Due mainly to the spread of avian flu and the culling of birds, global poultry output rose only slightly in 2006 to approximately 83 million tons, roughly a 1-percent decrease from the preceding year. Pig meat production, however, grew by 3 percent to 108 million tons, an increase likely due to shifting consumption in Asia from chicken to pork due to concerns about avian flu.
Avian flu has existed among backyard flocks for centuries, but has never been found to evolve there into highly pathogenic forms such as the deadly H5N1 virus. In CAFOs, in contrast, where animals are concentrated by the thousands, diseases erupt and spread quickly. Trade in poultry from these operations is a culprit in spreading the disease to smallholder farmers.
Experts suggest that rather than culling smaller, backyard flocks, the FAO, WHO, and other international agencies should focus the bulk of their avian flu prevention efforts on large poultry producers and on stopping disease outbreaks before they occur. The industrial food system not only threatens the livelihoods of small farmers, it potentially puts the world at risk for a potential flu pandemic. “While H5N1…may have been a product of the world’s factory farms, it’s small producers who have the most to lose,” says Nierenberg.
Intensive animal farming is not only deleterious to human health and economies; it is also responsible for a great deal of ecological destruction. The growing numbers of livestock are responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent). They account for 37 percent of emissions of methane, which has more than 20 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and 65 percent of emissions of nitrous oxide, another powerful greenhouse gas, most of which comes from manure.
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13. Homes for Vegetarian Exchange Students Sought
Dear Friend,
SHARE! is a global international exchange student program looking for caring vegetarian families and we need your help. Our program will be welcoming 9 vegetarian students this coming August. We are in need of vegetarian host families who can provide a caring environment for them during their stay. We would appreciate it if you could print the following paragraph in your next newsletter or post it to your website.
Thank you in advance for your help. If you have any questions or would like more information, please feel free to contact me at 1-800-941-3738 or ycoffman@sharesouthwest.org.
Best Regards,
Yvette Coffman
SHARE! Southwest Regional Director
SHARE! Your Vegetarian Lifestyle With a Vegetarian Foreign Exchange Student
VEGETARIAN HOST FAMILIES-with or without children-are needed to host 9 international high school exchange students who are VEGETARIAN. The students are coming from many different countries and hope to be here for the 2007/2008 academic year or fall semester and hope to arrive in early August. They are in need of caring families to provide a home, an extra meal at the table, and share with them their vegetarian lifestyle. The students are between the ages of 15 and 18. They speak English, are covered by medical insurance and have spending money for their personal expenses.
The SHARE! High School Exchange Program is sponsored by Educational Resource Development Trust (ERDT). Families are able to review student applications and select the student they feel will best match their own interests. For more information, call Yvette Coffman at1-800-941-3738 or visit SHARE! at www.sharesouthwest.org.
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15. Ethical-Eating Message From JVNA Advisor Syd Baumel
[While our ultimate goal is to promote veganism as the idea, since some people may not be ready to adopt that diet right away, the following message from Syd Baumel is worth considering. I must point out that Syd’s editorial skills have been very valuable to me as he has often contributed very valuable suggestions.]
This is an ethical eating message I recommend for any individual or institution - including vegans, who aren't necessarily eating as sustainably (local, organic...) and fairly (fair trade certified) as they/we could.
I suggest a common ground position that should broadly advocate the ethical importance of making socially responsible dietary choices (humane, sustainable, fairly traded...) and that a "three Rs" approach, as advocated by the HSUS, is a very practical device to help people go as far along this route as they're willing and able:
Reduce: e.g. minimize one's intake of socially irresponsibly produced/traded foods, such as factory farmed animal foods and animal foods in general (because commercial humane farming always involves the violent killing of healthy animals)
Replace: e.g. eat more beans, grains, nuts and seeds instead of meat
Refine: e.g. eat free-range eggs instead of battery-cage eggs; drink fair-trade coffee instead of ordinary coffee; buy more local/organic food instead of the nonorganic/long-distance alternatives
Syd
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