Shalom everyone,
This update/Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) Online Newsletter has the following items:
1. Chanukah and Vegetarianism
2. Will Shortages of Kosher Meat Turn Jews Toward Vegetarianism?
3. Israeli Green Political Party Forming For Next Election
4. Forward Editorial Re the Situation at Agriprocessors' Postville, Iowa Slaughterhouse
5. Open Letter On US Agricultural Policies to the President-Elect by Michael Pollan: Farmer in Chief
6. Arctic is Melting Even in Winter
7. Al Gore on How To Reduce Global Warming
8. Jewish Vegetarian Outreach Ideas
9. Global Warming Threats to Israel
10. My Letter to Blog Re Postville Slaughterhouse Problems
11. Nation Concerned About Being Flooded Out Of Its Homeland
12. Veggie Pride Parade Chosen by VegNews as Veggie Event of the Year
13. Gentle Thanksgiving Celebrations Promoted
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 the kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observances, 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. Chanukah and Vegetarianism
With Chanukah about 5 weeks away, I am planning to send the article below to the Jewish media and to the rabbis and Jewish groups and schools on my lists. Before doing so, I would welcome any suggestions you might have for improving the article.
I have similar articles on each of the Jewish holidays and on the Sabbath (showing vegetarian connections), as part of my collection of over 130 articles and book reviews at jewishveg.com/schwartz. If you have any suggestions re using these articles and/or building on them or writing additional articles to further the vegetarian cause, please let me know.
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Chanukah and Vegetarianism
Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.
Many connections can be made between vegetarianism and the Jewish festival of Chanukah:
1. According to the Book of Maccabees, some Maccabees lived on plant foods since they were unable to get kosher meat when they hid in the mountains to avoid capture.
2. The foods associated with Channukah, latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (fried donuts) are vegetarian foods, and the oils that are used in their preparation are a reminder of the oil used in the lighting of the Menorah in the rededication of the Temple after the Maccabean victory.
3. Chanukah represents the triumph of non-conformity. The Maccabees stuck to their inner beliefs, rather than conforming to external pressure. They were willing to say: This I believe, this I stand for, this I am willing to struggle for. Today, vegetarians represent non-conformity. At a time when most people in the wealthier countries think of animal products as the main part of their meals, when the number of fast food establishments is growing rapidly, when almost all celebrations involve an abundance of animal products, vegetarians are resisting and insisting that there is a better, healthier, more humane diet.
4. Chanukah represents the victory of the few, who practiced God's teachings, over the many, who acted according to the values of the surrounding society. Today vegetarians are a very small minority in most countries, but they believe that vegetarianism is the dietary approach most consistent with Jewish values, since it is consistent with God's original diet (Genesis 1:29) and with religious mandates to preserve our health, treat animals with compassion, protect the environment, preserve natural resources, and share with hungry people.
5. Chanukah commemorates the miracle of the oil that was enough for only one day, but miraculously lasted for eight days. A switch to vegetarianism on the part of the world's people could help cause an even greater miracle: the end of the scandal of world hunger which results in the death of an estimated 20 million people annually, while over a third of the world's grain is fed to animals destined for slaughter.
6. Similar to the ratio of eight days that the oil burned compared to the one day of burning capacity that the oil had is the same ratio (8 to 1) that is often given for the pounds of grain that are necessary to produce a pound of beef in a feed lot (a ratio of 16 to 1 is sometimes given for the amount of edible beef produced). The miracle of the oil brings the use of fuel and other resources into focus, and vegetarian diets make resources go much further, since far less water, fuel, land, pesticides, fertilizer, and other agricultural resources are required for plant-based diets than for animal-centered diets.
7. Chanukah also commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after it was defiled by the Syrian-Greeks. The Hebrew root of the word Chanukah means dedication. Today, a shift to vegetarianism can be a major factor in the rededication and renewal of Judaism, because it would show that Jewish values are relevant to everyday Jewish life and to addressing current problems, such as hunger, pollution, resource scarcity, global climate change, and huge health care expenditures.
8. Candles are lit during each night of Chanukah, symbolizing a turning from darkness to light, from despair to hope. According to the prophet Isaiah, the role of Jews is to be a "light unto the nations" (Isaiah 42:6). For many Jews, vegetarianism is a way of adding light to the darkness of a world with slaughterhouses, factory farms, and vivisection laboratories, as well as other symbols of oppression.
9. Chanukah commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from the Syrian Greeks. So, today, vegetarianism can be a step toward deliverance from modern problems such as hunger, pollution, and resource scarcities.
10. On the Sabbath during Chanukah, the prophetic portion indicates that difficulties can best be overcome "not by might and not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6). Today, Jewish vegetarians are arguing that the way to a better world is not by exercising our power over animals, but by applying the spirit of God, "whose tender mercies are over all of His creatures" (Psalm 145:9).
11. The Hebrew root of the word Chanukah also means education, Jewish vegetarians believe that if all Jews were educated about the horrible realities of factory farming and the powerful Jewish mandates about taking care of our health, showing compassion to animals, protecting the environment, conserving resources, and helping hungry people, they would feel compelled to switch to vegetarian diets.
12. At the morning services during each day of Chanukah, there is a recitation of Hallel, the psalms of praise from Psalm 113 to 118. During the Sabbath of Chanukah and every other Sabbath during the year, the morning service has a prayer that begins, "The soul of all living creatures shall praise God's name". Yet, it is hard for animals to join in the praise of God when almost10 billion animals are killed annually in the U. S. for their flesh after suffering from cruel treatment.
In view of these and other connections, I hope that Jews will enhance their celebrations of the beautiful and spiritually meaningful holiday of Chanukah by making it a time to begin striving even harder to live up to Judaism's highest moral values and teachings by moving toward a vegetarian diet.
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2. Will Shortages of Kosher Meat Turn Jews Toward Vegetarianism?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/AllFlashes.aspx
Arutz Sheva - November 12, 2008
Kosher Meat Shortage in US Turning Jews into Vegetarians
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The bankruptcy of the kosher meatpacking plant Agriprocessors, the largest American kosher meat operation, has forced many Jews to go vegetarian amid kosher-food shortages and soaring prices.
The Postville, Iowa plant had supplied more than half of the kosher meat for millions of Jews as well as non-Jews who prefer buying meat processed according to Jewish law. Federal investigators raided the plant in May and charged officials with violating immigration laws and hiring 389 illegal workers.
Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy this week after the resulting labor
shortage left it unable to meet customer demand and forced a shutdown of its beef department, according to the Des Moines, Iowa Register. Charges that could result in multi-million dollar fines have been placed against the company's owners.
Nationwide shortages have forced many people to eat vegetarian meals on the Sabbath, when meat and chicken are a long-standing tradition. Many stores throughout the U.S. reported their meat cases were empty.
One rabbi told the KosherToday website, "This past Sabbath was the first in a long time that my wife made a pareve [non-meat] cholent," a stew usually consisting of meat or chicken, grains and potatoes. The rabbi added that he was hoping to haul home several boxes of meat when he goes on a trip to Brooklyn.
The large Empire Kosher Poultry company is trying to make up for the meat shortages and meet increasing demand for chicken but does not have a beef plant.
Agriprocessors, operating under bankruptcy laws, still is producing at a limited rate. This too may cease, however, because hundreds of the plant's workers are unable to pay their electricity bills and may have to leave their homes soon. The local energy company has agreed to a week's delay before cutting off power to the workers' homes but employees will not be able to stay in their houses without power as the winter approaches.
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“Raid takes bite out of kosher-meat supply”
By Grant Schulte and Tony Leys
USA Today
November 13, 2008
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-12-raidsixmonthslater_N.htm
By Grant Schulte and Tony Leys, USA TODAY
POSTVILLE, Iowa - Financial problems at the company that was the target of one of the largest immigration raids in U.S. history have triggered a shortage of kosher meat and raised prices nationwide.
Six months have passed since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided Agriprocessors kosher-meat plant here on May 12 and detained 389 illegal immigrant workers. The company's beef operation has ceased operating and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this past week.
The aftermath, observers say, has disrupted the kosher-meat supply and threatened the town's future.
"This town would be in a world of hurt if that plant closed," said Jeff Mott, owner of a local hardware store.
Agriprocessors, which revealed in its bankruptcy filing that it owes between $50 million and $100 million to creditors, provided about 60% of the nation's kosher meat, according to Joe Regenstein, a food-science professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Prices, as a result, have risen, he said.
The filing shows the largest debt to a single creditor is the $845,000 owed to Jacobson Staffing Co. of Des Moines, which initially helped provided replacement staffing, but withdrew its workers for lack of payment.
The plant's financial problems started before the raid, said Republican state Sen. Mark Zieman. "I haven't understood why they didn't" file for bankruptcy before, he said.
A spokesman for Agriprocessors, which produces the Aaron's Best line of kosher meats, did not respond to requests for comment.
"Stores like mine are struggling all over," said Rabbi Yossi Jacobson, the owner of Maccabee's Glatt Kosher Deli in Des Moines. "
Michael Choukroun, owner of Bar-B-Kosher restaurant in Los Angeles, says he has taken kosher-beef items off the menu.
Choukroun says kosher-meat prices have increased by more than 30% recently, though he says it's unclear how much of that is specifically due to Agriprocessors' problems.
CHILD LABOR: Iowa files charges against execs of raided plant
Former Agriprocessors plant executive Sholom Rubashkin faces federal charges that he conspired to hire illegal immigrants and aided in identity theft. In September, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller announced 9,311 misdemeanor child-labor violations against Rubashkin, his father Aaron Rubashkin and three plant human resources employees.
Nearly 300 of the workers were charged with federal identity-theft and false-document crimes and served five-month prison sentences, according to federal court records.
Schulte and Leys report for The Des Moines Register
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3. Israeli Green Political Party Forming For Next Election
Forwarded message:
We need your help in spreading the word about the Israel Green Movement. Join us and start now building a just and sustainable Israel.
The Green Movement, and it founders environmentalist Alon Tal and Eran Ben-Yemini will be running for the Knesset. They have filed the papers for registering the new Party. Under today's election rules, the threshold is 2.5 percent which means that either a Party has at least 3 seats or none at all!
The Party has a huge challenge - and it is now trying to register members. If you want, you can do this on-line via the web-site: www.yeruca.org.il There you can find our positions on any number of topics.
Also, donations can be done from there or via the secured web site:
https://www.litrom.com/default.asp?Artst_ID=1169&Ref=
Election laws say that 2000 shekels can be donated as a maxium donation to a political party. We don't have the millions that the big parties get via the law. But we are inspired by Barack Obama and believe that with a grassroots campaign we can indeed raise the funds we need to be this
election's surprise.
Message from Israeli environmentalist Uri Shanas:
Thank you for posting this message. We haven't been in contact for some time. I am deeply involved in this new party. We really need all possible help. I think for the first time, we bring a real good alternative for many concerned citizens. I myself do not plan to run for the parliament, but I am heading the Expert Committee. This is too a new initiative that we bring into the political arena. The party will have an Expert Committee that will provide professional support for the political body in all matters of life. We already have in our committee experts in ecology, hydrology, psychology, policy, education, economy and more. There is much enthusiasm and I hope we will be good enough to translate it into a political success.
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4. Forward Editorial Re the Situation at Agriprocessors' Postville, Iowa Slaughterhouse
Forward.com
Fri. Nov 14, 2008
The Ethics of the Rabbis
Nov 14, 2008 Forward
http://www.forward.com/articles/14561/
On the surface, the crisis besetting America's largest kosher meatpacker looks a lot like the larger infection that is crippling the nation's economy and undoing so many iconic brands, from Lehman Brothers to AIG to Circuit City. Like other firms, Agriprocessors fell victim to the arrogance of its owners and the dereliction of outside regulators. Like others, the crippling of Agriprocessors hits hard in thousands of households where daily life was dependent on the smooth operations of a trusted company.
Unlike the others, however, Agriprocessors' downfall is not simply an economic crisis, but also a spiritual and moral one. Kosher food is not meant to be a mere foodstuff, but rather a vehicle for bringing sanctity into one of the most basic activities of daily life. Those who choose to live by that discipline rely on kosher certification to guarantee that the food they eat has been produced in a manner worthy of its spiritual mission. The behavior attributed to Agriprocessors and its owners - abusing employees, illegally hiring and endangering children, befouling the environment, overlooking sanitation rules - ought to disqualify the company's products from receiving religious certification by any standard worthy of the name. That the products continue to be accepted as kosher, even as the company's owners face massive fines and jail time on suspicion of misdeeds that have shocked a nation, is a scandal nearly as great as the owners' actions themselves.
Ever since the Forward published its first reports two years ago on working conditions at the Agriprocessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, Orthodox rabbinic authorities have insisted that the violations attributed to the company are not directly related to the rules of kosher slaughter, and therefore are outside the certifying rabbis' jurisdiction. Kosher certification, they have explained, follows time-honored biblical and talmudic principles that cannot be altered by modern rabbinic fiat. Many have derided and even ridiculed the Conservative rabbinate for seeking to develop a new form of certification, Hekhsher Tzedek, that would consider a company's ethical behavior alongside its slaughtering techniques.
Besides, Orthodox rabbis told us, protecting workers and safeguarding the environment are the job of government, not the clergy. If the government with all its lawyers has not acted against the Postville plant, why should rabbis presume to?
The arguments were specious from the outset, as we have argued before. Kosher certification standards have been altered repeatedly over the years in response to behavior unrelated to the slaughter itself. A generation ago, kosher restaurants in New York were commonly open on Saturdays. Today the practice has all but disappeared, shut down by kosher certifiers. Kosher hotels in Israel used to offer New Year's Eve parties, mixed dancing and even belly dancers. Nowadays such activities lead to loss of certification.
Rabbis routinely use their certification power to regulate activities that have nothing to do with knives. It's one of the only enforcement powers they have in the modern world. Qualified rabbinic authorities could have used that power in response to growing evidence of Agriprocessors' abuses. They did not. Instead, they crossed their fingers, hoped for the best and waited for the government to act.
Why did the kosher authorities not take action? Part of the reason was fear for the integrity of the community's food supply. Agriprocessors had managed, by cutting costs and beating back the competition - in ways that deserve their own examination - to dominate the nationwide market for kosher beef. Rabbis feared that if the company were to stonewall in the face of a rabbinic threat of decertification they might be forced to ban much of the country's kosher meat supply, leaving their public without a food staple.
In part, too, rabbis were deterred by mistrust of the labor, animal rights and other liberal groups that led the protests against the company. There was a widespread suspicion in the Orthodox community that the protesters were motivated by concerns other than simple ethics. Acknowledging the abuses, many thought, would have put traditional Judaism and the Jewish community in a bad light. In the choice between siding with critics and circling the wagons of their community, most Orthodox leaders chose the latter. Only a handful of mostly young activists chose to speak out against the abuse. Their protests were mostly ignored by the kosher consuming public.
In the end, events took their own course. Government authorities acted far more harshly than anyone had anticipated, with terrible results for both the kosher marketplace and the reputation of traditional Judaism. Agriprocessors was forced to shut down production amid a circus of theatrical law enforcement and front-page media coverage. News media across the country have responded gleefully to images of a company run by devout Jews, its primary mission to enable the observance of Jewish religious rules, acting in ways that violate the ethical and moral standards of everyone else. And the bottom fell out of the kosher meat supply.
For all that, it must not be forgotten that the real victims in this saga are the Agriprocessors' employees whose mistreatment sparked the controversy in the first place. During the long months that Jewish community leaders debated the ethics of Agriprocessors and its certification, the mostly immigrant workers toiled on in largely unchanged conditions. The same long hours, short pay, dangerous conditions and on-the-job harassment that they had endured unseen for years continued in daylight while outsiders discussed whether and how to act.
And when the government finally did step in, as the rabbis had said it should, it did not act to protect workers' legal rights and public safety standards - but rather to punish the workers for being on the job. In one of the largest workplace law-enforcement raids in American history, close to 400 Agriprocessors employees were arrested for immigration violations and taken without notice from their homes and families. In a move of astonishing callousness, authorities did not simply deport the detainees to their home countries, but first jailed them on charges of stealing identity documents - papers whose illegality the workers themselves had no way of knowing about.
Now, five months later, as our Nathaniel Popper reports, dozens of them are out of prison, their sentences completed, but they are not free. In a Kafkaesque turn of events, they are being held in Iowa so that they can testify against their former employers on charges of child labor and employing illegal immigrants. They cannot leave, they cannot see their families, they cannot yet work and the government will not provide them with the wherewithal to live while they wait. They live day to day on the charity of a Catholic church as they prepare to help the government prosecute their former abusers for the suffering that they continue to endure, now at the government's hands.
The rules of kashruth are a legacy of the Jewish spiritual tradition, preserved by the courage of countless generations as a gift to the present. Dishonoring them and violating their spirit shames all Jews. Those who honor the laws must stand up to their abuse.
Thu. Nov 13, 2008
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Related Letter From JVNA advisor Rina Deych:
AgriProcessors should have been shut down four years ago, after horrific abuses of animals were uncovered by PETA. The fact that they have also taken part in unscrupulous business practices and abused their human workers should come as no surprise. Frankly, I don't understand what all the commotion is about. Oh my, the meat supply will be reduced. Maybe it will force people to eat a healthier, kinder, and eco-friendly diet.
Rina Deych, RN
Brooklyn, NY
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5. Open Letter On US Agricultural Policies to the President-Elect by Michael Pollan: Farmer in Chief
This is a very important article that advocates major changes in the entire US farm system, including a major reduction in factory farming.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15101.cfm
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6. Arctic is Melting Even in Winter
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15431.cfm
* The polar icecap is retreating and thinning at a record rate
The Times, London, October 26, 2008
Organic consumers association
The Arctic icecap is now shrinking at record rates in the winter as well as summer, adding to evidence of disastrous melting near the North Pole, according to research by British scientists.
They have found that the widely reported summer shrinkage, which this year resulted in the opening of the Northwest Passage, is continuing in the winter months with the thickness of sea ice decreasing by a record 19% last winter.
Usually the Arctic icecap recedes in summer and then grows back in winter. These findings suggest the period in which the ice renews itself has become much shorter.
Dr Katharine Giles, who led the study and is based at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London (UCL), said the thickness of Arctic sea ice had shown a slow downward trend during the previous five winters but then accelerated.
She said: "After the summer 2007 record melting, the thickness of the winter ice also nose-dived. What is concerning is that sea ice is not just receding but it is also thinning."
The cause of the thinning is, however, potentially even more alarming. Giles found that the winter air temperatures in 2007 were cold enough that they could not have been the cause.
This suggests some other, longer-term change, such as a rise in water temperature or a change in ocean circulation that has brought warmer water under the ice.
Full Story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5014744.ece
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7. Al Gore on How To Reduce Global Warming
The Climate for Change
Sunday 09 November 2008
by: Al Gore, The New York Times
[No mention of the importance of a shift toward vegetarianism.]
The inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he - and we - must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.
The electrifying redemption of America's revolutionary declaration that all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of United States leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.
The world authority on the climate crisis, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after 20 years of detailed study and four unanimous reports, now says that the evidence is "unequivocal." To those who are still tempted to dismiss the increasingly urgent alarms from scientists around the world, ignore the melting of the north polar ice cap and all of the other apocalyptic warnings from the planet itself, and who roll their eyes at the very mention of this existential threat to the future of the human species, please wake up. Our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the truth of our situation, before it is too late.
Here is the good news: the bold steps that are needed to solve the climate crisis are exactly the same steps that ought to be taken in order to solve the economic crisis and the energy security crisis.
Economists across the spectrum - including Martin Feldstein and Lawrence Summers - agree that large and rapid investments in a jobs-intensive infrastructure initiative is the best way to revive our economy in a quick and sustainable way. Many also agree that our economy will fall behind if we continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign oil every year. Moreover, national security experts in both parties agree that we face a dangerous strategic vulnerability if the world suddenly loses access to Middle Eastern oil.
As Abraham Lincoln said during America's darkest hour, "The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." In our present case, thinking anew requires discarding an outdated and fatally flawed definition of the problem we face.
Thirty-five years ago this past week, President Richard Nixon created Project Independence, which set a national goal that, within seven years, the United States would develop "the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources." His statement came three weeks after the Arab oil embargo had sent prices skyrocketing and woke America to the dangers of dependence on foreign oil. And - not coincidentally - it came only three years after United States domestic oil production had peaked.
At the time, the United States imported less than a third of its oil from foreign countries. Yet today, after all six of the presidents succeeding Nixon repeated some version of his goal, our dependence has doubled from one-third to nearly two-thirds - and many feel that global oil production is at or near its peak.
Some still see this as a problem of domestic production. If we could only increase oil and coal production at home, they argue, then we wouldn't have to rely on imports from the Middle East. Some have come up with even dirtier and more expensive new ways to extract the same old fuels, like coal liquids, oil shale, tar sands and "clean coal" technology.
But in every case, the resources in question are much too expensive or polluting, or, in the case of "clean coal," too imaginary to make a difference in protecting either our national security or the global climate. Indeed, those who spend hundreds of millions promoting "clean coal" technology consistently omit the fact that there is little investment and not a single large-scale demonstration project in the United States for capturing and safely burying all of this pollution. If the coal industry can make good on this promise, then I'm all for it. But until that day comes, we simply cannot any longer base the strategy for human survival on a cynical and self-interested illusion.
Here's what we can do - now: we can make an immediate and large strategic investment to put people to work replacing 19th-century energy technologies that depend on dangerous and expensive carbon-based fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth.
What follows is a five-part plan to repower America with a commitment to producing 100 percent of our electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years. It is a plan that would simultaneously move us toward solutions to the climate crisis and the economic crisis - and create millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced.
First, the new president and the new Congress should offer large-scale investment in incentives for the construction of concentrated solar thermal plants in the Southwestern deserts, wind farms in the corridor stretching from Texas to the Dakotas and advanced plants in geothermal hot spots that could produce large amounts of electricity.
Second, we should begin the planning and construction of a unified national smart grid for the transport of renewable electricity from the rural places where it is mostly generated to the cities where it is mostly used. New high-voltage, low-loss underground lines can be designed with "smart" features that provide consumers with sophisticated information and easy-to-use tools for conserving electricity, eliminating inefficiency and reducing their energy bills. The cost of this modern grid - $400 billion over 10 years - pales in comparison with the annual loss to American business of $120 billion due to the cascading failures that are endemic to our current balkanized and antiquated electricity lines.
Third, we should help America's automobile industry (not only the Big Three but the innovative new startup companies as well) to convert quickly to plug-in hybrids that can run on the renewable electricity that will be available as the rest of this plan matures. In combination with the unified grid, a nationwide fleet of plug-in hybrids would also help to solve the problem of electricity storage. Think about it: with this sort of grid, cars could be charged during off-peak energy-use hours; during peak hours, when fewer cars are on the road, they could contribute their electricity back into the national grid.
Fourth, we should embark on a nationwide effort to retrofit buildings with better insulation and energy-efficient windows and lighting. Approximately 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States come from buildings - and stopping that pollution saves money for homeowners and businesses. This initiative should be coupled with the proposal in Congress to help Americans who are burdened by mortgages that exceed the value of their homes.
Fifth, the United States should lead the way by putting a price on carbon here at home, and by leading the world's efforts to replace the Kyoto treaty next year in Copenhagen with a more effective treaty that caps global carbon dioxide emissions and encourages nations to invest together in efficient ways to reduce global warming pollution quickly, including by sharply reducing deforestation.
Of course, the best way - indeed the only way - to secure a global agreement to safeguard our future is by re-establishing the United States as the country with the moral and political authority to lead the world toward a solution.
Looking ahead, I have great hope that we will have the courage to embrace the changes necessary to save our economy, our planet and ultimately ourselves.
In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the challenge was 18.
This year similarly saw the rise of young Americans, whose enthusiasm electrified Barack Obama's campaign. There is little doubt that this same group of energized youth will play an essential role in this project to secure our national future, once again turning seemingly impossible goals into inspiring success.
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Al Gore, the vice president from 1993 to 2001, was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He founded the Alliance for Climate Protection and, as a businessman, invests in alternative energy companies.
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8. Jewish Vegetarian Outreach Ideas
GETTING VEGETARIANISM ONTO THE JEWISH AGENDA
Richard H. Schwartz
There is a widely accepted aspect of modern life that contradicts many Jewish teachings and harms people, communities, and the planet -- the mass production and widespread consumption of meat. Yet, this issue is generally ignored by the Jewish community. Here are some reasons why it is very important that this issue be put on the Jewish agenda, and other agendas:
1. The world is rapidly approaching an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming and other environmental threats, and a shift toward plant-based diets is an essential part of the necessary response to avoid disaster.
Several leading experts, including James Hansen of NASA and physicist Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most famous living scientist, as well as Al Gore and others, warn that global climate change may reach a 'tipping point' and spiral out of control, with disastrous consequences, if current conditions continue. A recent 700-page British government report, authored by a former chief economist for the World Bank, projects losses of up to 20% of world gross domestic product by 2050 unless 1% of current world domestic product is devoted to combating global climate change. Other economic studies have projected even worse scenarios. It therefore should not be surprising that the Pentagon states that global warming is a larger threat than even terrorism.
While the world is increasingly threatened by global warming, animal-based agriculture emits more greenhouse gases (in CO2 equivalents) than all the cars and other means of transportation worldwide combined (18 percent vs. 13.5 percent), according to a 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report. Making the situation even worse, that same report indicates that the consumption of animal products is projected to double in 50 years. If this happens, it will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to reduce greenhouse emissions enough to avoid very severe effects from global climate
Israel is especially threatened by global warming. A 2007 report by the Israel Union for Environmental Defense indicated that global warming may cause an average temperature increase of 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit, a decrease in rainfall of up to 30 percent, many severe storms and a rising Mediterranean Sea that would cause major flooding and damage ports, power plants and other infrastructure.
2. At a time when food prices are skyrocketing, food riots are occurring in many areas and an estimated 20 million people are dying annually worldwide from hunger and its effects, over 70 percent of the grain produced in the United States and over 40 percent produced worldwide are fed to farmed animals.
3. In an increasingly thirsty and energy-dependent world, animal-based diets require up to 14 times as much water and 10 times as much energy as vegan (all plants) diets.
4. There is an epidemic of heart disease, several types of cancer and other chronic, degenerative diseases afflicting Jews and others, and a shift toward vegetarian diets would sharply reduce these diseases.
5. Meat consumption and the ways in which meat is produced today conflict with Judaism in at least six important areas:
* While Judaism mandates that people should be very careful about preserving their health and their lives, numerous scientific studies have linked animal-based diets directly to the many diseases indicated above
* While Judaism forbids tsa'ar ba'alei chayim, inflicting unnecessary pain on animals, most farm animals -- including those raised for kosher consumers -- are raised on "factory farms" where they live in cramped, confined spaces, and are often drugged, mutilated, and denied fresh air, sunlight, exercise, and any enjoyment of life, before they are slaughtered and eaten.
* While Judaism teaches that "the earth is the Lord's" (Psalm 24:1) and that we are to be God's partners and co-workers in preserving the world, modern intensive livestock agriculture contributes substantially to many environmental threats in addition to global warming, including soil erosion and depletion, air and water pollution, overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the destruction of tropical rain forests and other habitats, and rapi species extinction.
* While Judaism mandates bal tashchit, that we are not to waste or unnecessarily destroy anything of value, and that we are not to use more than is needed to accomplish a purpose, animal agriculture requires the wasteful use of grain, land, water, energy, and other resources.
* While Judaism stresses that we are to assist the poor and share our bread with hungry people, animal-based agriculture, as indicated above, is very wasteful of grain and other resources that could be uded to sharply reduce hunger and malnutrition.
* While Judaism stresses that we must seek and pursue peace and that violence results from unjust conditions, animal-centered diets, by wasting valuable resources, help to perpetuate the widespread hunger and poverty that eventually lead to instability and war.
Since the production and consumption of meat and other animal products contradict these important Jewish mandates to preserve human health, attend to the welfare of animals, protect the environment, conserve resources, help feed hungry people, and pursue peace, it is certainly arguable that committed Jews (and others) should sharply reduce or eliminate their consumption of animal products.
One could say "dayenu" (it would be enough) after any of the arguments above, because each one constitutes by itself a serious conflict between Jewish values and current practice that should impel Jews to seriously consider a plant-based diet. Combined, they make an urgently compelling case for the Jewish community to address these issues.
Having a respectful dialogue/debate on “Should Jews Be Vegetarians” would be a kddush Hashem (a sanctification of God's name) in helping revitalize Judaism by showing the relevance of Jewish eternal teachings to current crises, improving the health of Jews and helping shift our imperiled plane to a sustainable path.
Further information about these issues can be found at the web site of Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA): JewishVeg.com. Because they believe the issues are extremely urgent, JVNA will provide a complimentary copy of their new documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD to people who contact them (president@JewishVeg.com) and indicate that they will consider using it as part of an effort to educate others about the issues. The entire movie can be seen and further information about it can be found at ASacredDuty.com.
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9. Global Warming Threats to Israel
ISRAEL'S MOST SERIOUS THREAT?
Richard H. Schwartz
The greatest threat to Israel's survival may not be terrorism or Iran, as serious as these threats are, but a variety of environmental problems, most of all, global warming.
Jews are properly concerned about the well-being of Israel and wish her to be secure and prosperous. But what about security, wealth, and comfort of another kind -- the quality of Israel's air, water, and ecosystems? What about the physical condition of the eternal Holy Land? While not discussed frequently enough, these and other environmental dangers and degradations have increasingly become serious issues that will greatly affect Israel's future.
The State of Israel has accomplished amazing things in its few decades - in agriculture, education, law, social integration, technology, Torah study, human services, and academics. But simultaneous (and sometimes related) neglect and ruthless exploitation of its land, water, air, and resources have left Israel ecologically impoverished and endangered.
Like other countries, Israel is increasingly threatened by climate change, arguably the greatest current threat to humanity. There are almost daily reports about present and future effects of global climate change, including severe droughts, storms and floods, wildfires, endangered polar bears, melting glaciers and polar ice caps and much more. While this has occurred due to an average temperature change of little more than one degree Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, climate scientists are projecting an increase of from three to eleven degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years. Some climatologists are warning that global warming could spin out of control, with catastrophic consequences, within a decade, if major changes do not soon occur.
Israel is especially threatened by global warming, as indicated by a 2007 report from the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (IUED; Adam Teva V'Din). According to the report, “The Forecast is in Our Hands,” unless major changes are soon made in Israel and globally, global warming could have catastrophic consequences for Israel, including:
* Temperatures will rise an average of 5 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit, and there will be an increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves. In the spring of 2008 there were several major heat waves, with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Tel Aviv on at least three days.
* The number of rainy days will drop and annual rainfall will decrease by up to 30 percent. Since Israel is already a semi-arid area with limited rainfall, this decrease will be very serious at a time of population growth and increased demands for water from industry and agriculture. Uri Shani, the director of the Israel Water Authority, said in July, 2008 that Israel's water situation is facing "the worst crisis in 80 years." The Water Authority plans to cut the allocation of fresh water to
agriculture from 450 million to 300 million cubic meters a year. Shani notes that this step will lead to the drying out of large cultivated areas, especially the Hula Valley, the Golan and the Galilee that depend on fresh-water irrigation. Prices of fruit and vegetables will
continue to rise as a result,
* There will be an increase in the number and severity of storms, causing major flooding and other disruptions.
* In the worst-case scenario, global warming could cause the Mediterranean Sea level to rise by 5 meters (about 16 feet), causing major flooding of low-lying areas. In such a case, Haifa's coastal highway could be inundated, and Tel Aviv's shore could reach as far as Ibn Gvirol Street, a main thoroughfare. Even an increase of half a meter (about 20 inches) in the Mediterranean Sea could flood residential areas and damage ports and power plants and other coastal infrastructure.
* Israel's water resources would be threatened by a decline in groundwater replenishment, an increase in groundwater salinity due to rising sea levels, pollutants penetrating drinking water reservoirs and a decrease in the quality of water in the Sea of Galillee and other water resources due to reduced rainfall and increased evaporation caused by higher temperatures.
* Israel's agriculture will suffer due to decreased rainfall, intensive heat waves and an increase in other extreme weather conditions.
* Israel's flora and fauna, already widely affected by human activities, are especially vulnerable to the effects of major climate changes. Some species may disappear, while others that are sensitive to lower temperatures may proliferate, resulting in changes in Israel's flora and fauna beyond recognition.
* Increased erosion of gravel cliffs in coastal cities, including Hadera, Netanya, Herzliya, Tel Aviv, Rishon le Zion and Ashkelon, and other coastal cities will put nearby buildings at risk of collapsing.
* The southern desert would expand significantly northward from Beersheba where it is today, potentially reducing land necessary to grow food and meet other human needs.
* The warming and rise in heat waves could cause wider distribution of disease-carrying insects such as mosquitoes and ticks.
* The economic cost to Israel due to global warming effects could be as high as $33 billion annually, a major price in a country striving to reduce poverty and improve its health, education and other societal programs while maintaining its security in the face of many threats.
According to Friends of the Earth Middle East's report, “Climate Change: A New Threat to Middle East Security, “climate change is likely to act as a “threat multiplier” in the Middle East - exacerbating water scarcity and tensions over water within and between nations linked by hydrological resources, geography, and shared political boundaries. Poor and vulnerable populations, which exist in significant numbers throughout the region, will likely face the greatest risk. Water shortages and rising sea levels could lead to mass migration in the Region. Economic unrest across the region, due to a decline in agricultural production from climate impacts on water resources, also could lead to greater political unrest, which could threaten current regimes, thereby affecting internal and cross-border relations. These factors place greater pressure on the entire region and on already-strained, cross-border relations, and potentially foster more widespread heightened tensions and/or conflicts. However, addressing the projected climate impacts provides opportunities for local, cross-border and international cooperation to ameliorate the problems that are already occurring and that are projected to intensify. Improving local demand- and supply-side water and energy management policies is essential. Israel as a developed economy must join OECD country commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Israel could play a leadership role in developing technological solutions domestically to help mitigate and adapt to projected climate impacts. Technologies, such as dry toilets, compost toilets, and household rainwater harvesting systems already are being used in other parts of the world.
The Israeli and Jordanian governments should play leadership roles in providing pricing reforms and reducing the subsidies for agriculture. More recycled wastewater should be used for agriculture throughout the region, rather than fresh water, and less water-intensive crops must be produced. The governments also should provide incentives to households for household harvesting systems that collect rainwater that can be used for flushing toilets and other purposes, or for other water-conserving technologies. In addition, far greater public awareness is needed. The governments could facilitate media campaigns on a range of possible individual water conservation efforts.
Friends of the Earth/Middle East (FoEME) is a group that operates in Jordan, Palestine and Israel to implement cross-border water-related projects in an effort to facilitate environmental problem solving and peace building. Through one of its projects, “Good Water Neighbors,” the group is implementing rainwater harvesting systems at schools in Palestine and Jordan. The collected water is used for bathrooms that particularly enable girls to attend school, because without operational bathrooms, they cannot attend school at all. FoEME also is implementing reconstructed wetlands to provide a "low-technology" method to treat sewage and return it to rivers to extend water supplies in these bodies. These cross border efforts will help address water resource impacts that could result from climate change as well as facilitate peace building efforts.
Israel also suffers from other environmental threats. According to the IUED, 1,100 people die annually from air pollution in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area alone, and about 20 percent of Israeli children suffers from asthma or other breathing difficulties due to air pollution. Most of Israel's rivers are badly polluted and the country lacks sufficient open spaces and areas for garbage disposal.
In addition to alerting Israelis to the great threats they face from global warming and other environmental problems, IUED and other Israeli environmental groups, including the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), Friends of the Earth Middle East and Green Course, a university-based group, are initiating campaigns to respond to the threats. They are calling on the government of Israel to generate a national response to global warming without further delay.
IUED believes that there are compelling moral, environmental, economic and national security justifications for Israel to join the global effort. “IUED believes that Israel has a moral duty to join the ranks of responsible nations rising to the global challenge,” notes Tzipi Izer Itzik. Executive Director of IUED. “Israel had led the field in innovations in irrigation technologies, desert agriculture, forestation in arid regions, and solar energy. We should be using this expertise to advance global solutions instead of behaving as if the global climate crisis is nothing to do with us.”
IUED is calling on the State of Israel to take steps to develop a national response to climate change that consider all aspects of Israeli life. Among their many recommendations are: steps towards energy independence, energy efficiency and reduced consumption in public and private sectors; a switch to an efficient mass transportation system and the use of cleaner fuels; an advanced waste management policy that promotes reduction, reuse and recycling of resources; sustainable agriculture and water use geared towards energy saving and re-use of water resources; and development of economic incentives for technologies to reduce emissions and aid carbon capture and storage (CCS).
“Israel needs to respond to the challenge of climate change by providing a legislative framework and economic incentives that will put Israel at the forefront of the global struggle,” says Iser Itzik. “IUED believes that a timely national Israeli response will provide new business opportunities, encourage new technologies, and provide new jobs. In parallel, a concerted program will improve local environmental conditions.”
IUED's report recommends that Israel should adopt the European Union's approach and commit to reducing carbon emissions by 20% by 2020, using 2000 as a baseline, and by 60% by 2050, taking into account the anticipated growth in population, rising standard of living and the steps required to adapt to projected warming. She also stresses that speedy responses are essential: “There are a few short years in which we can work with the global community for the benefit of all. We need to start tackling climate change right now.”
There is one important response to global warming that is generally being ignored. A 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report indicated that animal-based agriculture emits more greenhouse gases (18 percent, in CO2 equivalents) than the entire transportation sector (13.5 percent), and that the number of farmed animals is projected to double by mid-century. Therefore, what we eat is actually more important than what we drive and the most important personal change we could make for the environment, as well as for our health and the lives of animals, is to switch to vegetarianism. Such a change would also improve the health of Jews and others, and be more consistent with Jewish teachings on preserving human health, treating animals with compassion, preserving the environment, conserving natural resources and helping hungry people.
As the above factors indicate, Israel, the U.S. and, indeed, the entire world is endangered today, as perhaps never before by global warming and other environmental threats. Hence, it is essential that tikkun olam, the healing and repair of the world become a major focus in Jewish life today and that Jews play our mandated role as “a light unto the nations” in helping the world's people know about the seriousness of the threats and the need for speedy actions in response. This would help revitalize Judaism by showing the relevance of eternal Jewish teachings to current threats and help move our precious, but imperiled, planet to a sustainable path.
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Friends of the Earth/Middle East contributed material for this article.
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10. My Letter to Blog Re Postville Slaughterhouse Problems
As president of Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA), I think this provides a great opportunity for people to consider how the production and consumption of meat and other animal products violate basic Jewish mandates to treat animals with compassion, preserve human health, protect the environment, conserve natural resources, help hungry people and seek and pursue peace.
For further information, please visit the JVNA web site www.JewishVeg.com, see my over 130 related articles at JewishVeg.com/schwartz and see our movie A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD at ASacredDuty.com.
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11. Nation Concerned About Being Flooded Out Of Its Homeland
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/10/maldives-climate-change
Paradise almost lost: Maldives seek to buy a new homeland,
Randeep Ramesh in Male, guardian.co.uk,
Monday November 10 2008 00.01 GMT
The Maldives will begin to divert a portion of the country's billion-dollar annual tourist revenue into buying a new homeland - as an insurance policy against climate change that threatens to turn the 300,000 islanders into environmental refugees, the country's first democratically elected president has told the Guardian.
Mohamed Nasheed, who takes power officially tomorrow in the island's capital, Male, said the chain of 1,200 island and coral atolls dotted 500 miles from the tip of India is likely to disappear under the waves if the current pace of climate change continues to raise sea levels.
The UN forecasts that the seas are likely to rise by up to 59cm by 2100, due to global warming. Most parts of the Maldives are just 1.5m above water. The president said even a "small rise" in sea levels would inundate large parts of the archipelago.
"We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere. It's an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome. After all, the Israelis [began by buying] land in Palestine," said Nasheed, also known as Anni.
The president, a human rights activist who swept to power in elections last month after ousting Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the man who once imprisoned him, said he had already broached the idea with a number of countries and found them to be "receptive".
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12. Veggie Pride Parade Chosen by VegNews as Veggie Event of the Year
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE_
November 14, 2008__
VivaVegie Society
_One Union Sq. W._Rm. 512_
New York, NY 10003__
Contact:_ VivaVegie Society_Pamela Rice_ 212-242-0011
_pamela@vivavegie.org <>
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/__
VegNews Magazine_
Colleen Holland_
cholland@vegnews.com_http://www.vegnews.com/_415-665-NEWS (6397)__
VivaVegie Society's VEGGIE PRIDE PARADE_ Wins 2008 Veggie Award__
[New York City, November 14, 2008] -
VegNews, America's premier vegetarian lifestyle magazine, announces VivaVegie Society's VEGGIE PRIDE PARADE as the 2008 Veggie Award Winner for EVENT OF THE YEAR. With 30,000 readers voting for their favorite veg people, places, and products in nearly 50 categories, this annual survey is the largest of its kind in the world.
The awards showcase the "best of vegetarian" in categories ranging from soymilk, veggie burger, and restaurant to celebrity, website, and even most veg-friendly city. "VivaVegie Society is a leader in the vegetarian community and continues to develop high-quality publications and events. We are pleased to honor your accomplishments with a Veggie Award," said Publisher Joseph Connelly.
The Veggie Pride Parade, the first in North America that took place May 18, 2008, brought 600-800 vegans and vegetarians out into New York City streets, chanting, many carrying sign boards and wearing costumes. Plenty of media were there to cover the event, and a new sense of veg-empowerment was had by all. The procession culminated in Washington Square Park, where marchers could hear speakers (keynote: Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns), see exhibitors with tables, experience a costume contest, enjoy a rock concert (the Cheryl Hill Band), and be greatly amused by a mock wedding (conducted by Dave Warwak) between a giant human peapod (Penelo Pea Pod) and a giant human carrot (PETA's Chris P).
The VegNews Veggie Awards recognize excellence throughout the vegetarian scene. VegNews' readers submit their ballots during the month of August, and winners are announced in the holiday edition of the magazine. The annual celebration of the best that veg living has to offer has become the most popular feature in the publication. The issue is now available on newsstands everywhere (Whole Foods Market, here in New York City, has issues on stands now) and through the magazine's website, vegnews.com.
VivaVegie Society is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization that has since the early 1990s engaged in vegetarian street advocacy. It has sponsored the Vegetarian Center of New York City since 1999. And it is the home of "101 Reasons Why I'm a Vegetarian," the popular 16-page pamphlet by Pamela Rice. In general, the group has with creativity and verve been an exemplary advocate for the vegetarian lifestyle.
VegNews, America's premier vegetarian lifestyle magazine, has a readership of 195,000 and is read around the world. Each issue is filled with the latest in vegetarian news, global events, tantalizing recipes, nutrition updates, hot new veg products, must-read books, celebrity buzz, and even vegetarian weddings (people, not vegetables). For a full run-down of all the winners go directly to:
http://www.vegnews.com/web/articles/coverStory.do;jsessionid=93EAD616A61073AEAC76932B81EC8FB0
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13. Gentle Thanksgiving Celebrations Promoted
Read original here: http://www.gentlethanksgiving.org/.
What is Gentle Thanksgiving?. Gentle Thanksgiving is an opportunity to encourage friends, family and neighbors to adopt compassionate alternatives to unnecessarily cruel turkey dinners. We accomplish this by demonstrating the great taste and superior nutrition of gourmet vegan recipes and a variety of festive plant-based foods.
Millions of other caring folks across the U.S. are celebrating this Thanksgiving with a rich selection of delicious vegetables, fruits, baked goods, and mock meats replacing the carcass on their dinner table. The vegan bill of fare may include a 'Tofurky,' lentil or nut roast, stuffed squash, corn chowder or chestnut soup, candied yams, cranberry sauce, pumpkin or pecan pie, and carrot cake.
Sound good? Need some recipes? Click http://www.gentlethanksgiving.org/recipes.htm. Find out more by requesting a FREE Veg Starter Kit (http://www.vegkit.org/) and weekly e-mail recipes. No Turkey?! Why Not?. For the Animals. Abusing and killing an innocent bird betrays the life-affirming spirit of giving thanks for our life, health, and happiness. The nearly 300 million turkeys killed each year in the U.S. spend their entire lives crammed in large sheds with little room to move.
Artificially inseminated and selectively bred to gain enormous amounts of weight, they... :: Click http://www.gentlethanksgiving.org/about/why.htm to continue reading ::To learn more about atrocious factory farm practices, check out these undercover investigations:.
* Click http://www.goveg.com/feat/butterball/butterball.asp for PETA's undercover investigation of Butterball.
* Click http://www.cok.net/camp/inv/turkeys06/ to find out about Compassion Over Killing's investigation of a North Carolina Turkey Hatchery that Supplies Butterball. Find out the Top Ten Reasons to drop turkey from your holiday menu!. For Your Health. The birds get even... their flesh is replete with cholesterol and saturated fats, which have been linked with an elevated risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases that kill 1.3 million Americans annually. Turkey flesh is also contaminated with... :
Click http://www.gentlethanksgiving.org/about/why.htm#health to continue reading ::. What About Free-range Turkeys?. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the single condition for the term "free-range" is that birds have access to the outdoors. All other facets of a free-range turkey's life can be indistinguishable from the living conditions of a conventionally raised bird. Like all other turkeys raised for food... ::
Click http://www.gentlethanksgiving.org/about/why.htm#freeRange to continue reading ::
Want Help?. For help in transitioning to a compassionate plant-based diet, sign up for a Free Veg Starter Kit (http://www.vegkit.org/) and Meatout Mondays weekly e-mail recipes, product suggestions, and inspiration. Gentle Thanksgiving is a program of FARM (Farm Animal Rights Movement). http://www.farmusa.org/
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** Fair Use Notice **
The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of vegetarian, environmental, nutritional, health, economic, social justice and human rights issues etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have an interest in using the included information for educational or research purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The information on this site does not constitute legal, technical or medical advice.
November 19, 2008
November 12, 2008
11/12/2008 Special JVNA Online Newsletter
Special Newsletter
Shalom everybody,
Today is the first anniversary of the premiere of A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE PLANET. So, I thought it might be a good time to pause and assess where we stand and consider material we can use to continue our efforts to get vegetarianism, environmental awareness and activism and related issues onto the Jewish and other agendas. Please stay tuned for strategy ideas and a consideration of plans re the future of JVNA in future messages.
And please use the material in this special message to help promote vegetarianism. Thanks.
This special message/Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) Online Newsletter has the following items:
1. Update on A SACRED DUTY
2. Thanks So Much to So Many
3. Our Most Important Argument
4. Important Considerations Re Promoting Vegetarianism
5. Article about A SACRED DUTY
6. Blurbs for A SACRED DUTY
7. Letter for Challenging Rabbis
8. Valuable Supplementary Material for Promoting Vegetarianism
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 the kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observances, 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. Update on A SACRED DUTY
As indicated above, today is the first anniversary of the premiere of A SACRED at the Israel Center in Jerusalem on November 12, 2007. So many positive things have happened since then. We have distributed almost 20,000 DVDs to a wide variety of people, including rabbis, JCC directors, Hillel directors, religious studies professors, environmentalists, vegetarians , animal rights activists and many more people. There have been over 13,000 hits for the movie on You Tube. The movie has received much acclaim. (Please see the blurbs below). The complete movie, including versions with subtitles in Hebrew and other languages, can be seen at ASacredDuty.com.
We plan to continue actively promoting the movie in the next year.
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2. Thanks So Much to So Many
I am so grateful to many people who have been so helpful re A SACRED DUTY and other JVNA outreach efforts.
In particular:
Lionel Friedberg, multi-award-winning producer, director, writer and cinematographer, who spent countless hours producing A SACRED DUTY as a labor of love and dedication, accepting no professional fee. Without his splendid efforts, the documentary would never have been produced.
Lionel's wife Diana Friedberg, a professional editor, who also took no professional fee for her excellent contributions toward the production of A SACRED DUTY.
Our very dedicated secretary/treasurer John Diamond, who, along with his wife Donna, have distributed many thousands of DVDs to many people throughout the United States and many other countries, helping to fuel a grass roots effort that builds momentum daily. John is also doing a splendid job of keeping the financial and other JVNA records in order and up-to-date.
Our award winning publicist Susan Tellem, along with her dedicated staff, for treating our relationship as not just a job, but also a cause, and for working diligently to get our messages out;
NALITH for their generous grants that were invaluable in enabling us to produce and distribute so many DVDs of A SACRED DUTY.
While they deserve FAR more recognition, below are, in alphabetical order, a list of people who have been extremely helpful. I am sure I will be leaving some people out, for which I apologize in advance. If you have been inadvertently, please let me know so I can include you in a supplementary list soon.
Your efforts are GREATLY appreciated:
Zel and Reuben Allen
Itae Amit
Dan Arbel
Syd Baumel
Debra Berger
Janine Bronsom
Dan Brook
Herma Caelen
Gerry Coffey
Michael Croland
Daniela (from Romania)
Rina Deych
Boris Dolin
Ziva Eliezer
Lois Felder
Leonardo Fishman
Rabbi Adam Frank
Bruce Friedich
Maida Genser
Steve Gorad
Aaron Gross
Christine Gutleben
Kris Haley
Susan Harris
Alex Hershaft and others at the Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM)
Roberta Kalechofsky
Ivan Kessel
Mel Kiimmel
Ari Knoll
Ron Landskroner
Judy Lipman
Catherine Manna
Gidon Melmed
Noam Mohr
Israel, and Eva Mossman
Nina Natelson
Charles Patterson
Arthur Poletti
Murray Polner
Lewis Regenstein
Prof. Joe Regenstein
Pamela Rice
Stuart Rose
Rabbi David Rosen
Julie Rosenfield
Roberta Schiff
Marcia Schlesinger
Steve Schuster
Stan Schwartz
Rabbi Dovid Sears
George Shea
Rae Silora
Rabbi Barry Silver
Peter Singer (of Jerusalem)
Charles Stahler and others at the Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG)
Jeff Tucker
Michael Tucker
Rabbi Yoel Weishaus
Jampa Williams
Jonathan Wolf
Many thanks to all of these dedicated volunteers. Because of your superb efforts, our grass roots campaign is doing great and building momentum every day.
For those I have accidentally overlooked, please accept my apology and let me know, so that I can include you in a supplementary list.
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3. Our Most Important Argument
I believe our most important argument for vegetarianism is that the world is heading toward an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming and other environmental threats and that a major shift toward vegetarianism is an essential part of the response. I think it is essential that we spread this message as widely as possible. More re this in the next section.
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4. Important Considerations Re Promoting Vegetarianism
There has been an extremely positive response to A SACRED DUTY and I have been amazed at the dedication of many people who are doing great work in seeing that the documentary is widely viewed.
There is still much resistance and denial on the part of non-vegetarians, so we still have much work to do in order to get the major changes that we want and are very necessary if we are to avoid the unprecedented catastrophe that the world is rapidly approaching.
Jewish vegetarians have an extremely strong case in arguing that Jewish teachings are most consistent with vegetarianism. There is increasing evidence that animal-based diets are connected to many critical problems facing the world today. Hence, a switch toward vegetarianism is both a societal imperative and a Jewish imperative. Unfortunately, in spite of these factors, the Jewish community seems generally content with the status quo. In order to make changes, we should be aggressive (though respectful and courteous) in getting our message out to people, especially religious leaders. Our documentary A SACRED DUTY provides an excellent tool for getting our message out to many more people.
Below is a summary of our basic case for vegetarianism:
1) We have an extremely powerful case for vegetarianism based on the fact that the realities of animal-based diets and agriculture are very inconsistent with basic Jewish mandates to take care of our health, treat animals with compassion, protect the environment, conserve natural resources, help hungry people, and pursue peace and non-violence, and.
2) Most Jews, including most rabbis and other Jewish scholars and leaders, seem to be ignoring these contradictions. We must use A SACRED DUTY and other means to launch a major campaign to break through the current ignorance, apathy and denial.
3) The world is threatened as perhaps never before in terms of global warming, destruction of tropical rain forests and other habitats, soil erosion and depletion, loss of biodiversity, severe storms, flooding, droughts, water shortages, and many other "modern plagues".
4) Modern intensive livestock agriculture contributes significantly to all of these environmental threats, but this is seldom discussed.
Our diets have tremendous impacts. They can be connected to virtually all the major problems that face the world today: global warming; pollution; world hunger; consumption of water, energy, and other resources; destruction of tropical rain forests and other habitats; huge budget deficits (related to soaring health costs associated with an epidemic of degenerative diseases); the threat of widespread epidemics due to antibiotic-resistant, disease-causing organisms (related to
indiscriminate, widespread use of antibiotics in animal feed; the potential for war (wasteful use of resources such as oil leads to potential scarcities that make violence and war more likely).
The 2006 UN Food and Agricultural Organization report that animal-based agriculture emits more greenhouse gases (in CO2 equivalents) than all the world's means of transportation combined and has many other negative environmental impacts, gives us a very valuable tool for promoting vegetarianism.
5) Because of the above factors, and many more, a shift toward vegetarianism is increasingly a societal imperative, as well as a spiritual imperative.
6) JVNA involves a relatively small group of (mainly) Jews, generally without the strong support of most rabbis and Torah scholars, who are challenging the establishment on the issue of vegetarianism. We are doing so, not by criticizing Jewish teachings or by urging changes in the nature of Judaism. We are, instead, asserting that the highest Jewish values point to vegetarianism as the ideal diet today. We are advocating that Jews should put our highest teachings into practice by becoming
vegetarians. We are buttressed by the many Torah teachings that point toward vegetarianism, the writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, one of the great Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century and the first chief rabbi of pre-state Israel, and the fact that several present and past chief rabbis are or were vegetarians.
We recognize that a switch toward vegetarian diets is essential for the survival of the world and the revitalization of Judaism. Though still a relatively small minority, we take comfort from Henry Thoreau's statement: "One person in the right makes a majority of one."
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5. Article about A SACRED DUTY
[The article is preceded by sample messages that you may adapt to try to get more people to see A SACRED DUTY.]
Shalom recipients of A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD,
Recent talks by Al Gore, James Hansen of NASA, the director of the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change and others have pointed out that we have very little time to make the changes necessary to avert an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming. Their messages are reinforced by recent dramatic examples of global warming, including the major flooding in several Midwestern US states, the unprecedented number of wildfires in California, droughts in Israel, Australia and many other countries and other problems associated with global warming.
Yet, the Jewish community, like most others, has still not made responding to global warming a major priority, and there are still many people who do not realize how great a role animal-based agriculture plays in greenhouse gas emissions.
Hence, it is essential that we do as much as possible to get these messages out, and our highly acclaimed documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD can be extremely effective in helping do this.
I am hoping that many of you receiving this message will help by contacting your local rabbis and other religious leaders, yeshivas and other schools, JCCs and other community centers, educators, environmentalists, politicians and other influential people, and tell them that we are offering a complimentary DVD which they can get by contacting us (president@JewishVeg.com) or by visiting ASacredDuty.com. You can also tell them that they can view the entire movie (including versione with subtitles in Hebrew and other languages) and get further information about it at that same web site.
Your personal communication can make a major difference as many of our wonderful volunteers are finding out.
If you prefer, you can use the wonders of the internet to look up synagogues, Hillels, JCCs, rabbis, other Jewish groups, etc., nationally, and send individual messages to email addresses that you find.
The point is that we are dealing with perhaps today's greatest moral challenge, today's greatest threat to humanity, and we have a very powerful message and a wonderful, highly acclaimed documentary that we are freely trying to share as widely as possible.
So, please help out as much as you can, even if it is as little as an hour.
It is arguably the most important thing that each of us can do for future generations.
A sample message that you can adapt to various audiences is below.
Many thanks,
Richard
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Sample message that you can adapt and email:
I would like to offer you a complimentary DVD with our recently released documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD, if you have not received one yet. It has a strong, unique, universal message re global warming and other environmental threats, health issues, the treatment of animals and much more, and has the potential of moving our imperiled planet to a sustainable path. I think it would make an excellent program, in showing the relevance of eternal religious values to current environmental threats.
Please see the article below for more information about the movie.
The movie is receiving a very favorable response (please see the blurbs under the article below).
If you are interested in receiving a DVD, please email your mailing address to me. If you would like more than one free DVD, to share with others, please let me know.
The movie may also be seen on the internet at:
www.ASacredDuty.com . There is also much background material, including questions and answers about the movie at that web site.
Many thanks, and best wishes,
Richard (Schwartz)
President, Jewish Vegetarians of North America
NEW DOCUMENTARY APPLIES JEWISH VALUES TO ENVIRONMENTAL, HEALTH, HUMANE ISSUES
Richard H. Schwartz
Because the world is heading rapidly toward an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming and other environmental threats, Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) has produced a documentary, A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD, to address these threats from a positive Jewish perspective. JVNA will send a free copy to anyone who will help arrange a screening or help promote the movie in some other way.
Almost daily there are reports of severe droughts, floods, storms or wildfires, of the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps and other indicators of global warming. It is frightening that, while these effects are due to an increase in temperature of less than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group composed of hundreds of the world's climate scientists, is projecting an increase of 3 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years. Even more ominous is that some climate scientists, including James Hansen of NASA, are warning that global warming may reach a tipping point and spiral out of control within a decade, with disastrous consequences, unless major changes are soon made. Israel is especially vulnerable to global climate change, in terms of reduced rainfall, severe storms and flooding from a rising Mediterranean Sea.
A SACRED DUTY is a Jewish response to these realities. It reminds us that it is our sacred duty to become aware of current threats and our responsibility to apply Jewish teachings to how we obtain our food, use natural resources, and live among other creatures whom God created. It offers simple, practical measures for reducing our impact on the planet, including “an inconvenient truth” that even Al Gore has not yet acknowledged.
Produced by the highly acclaimed, multi-award-winning film maker, Lionel Friedberg, A SACRED DUTY reinforces the messages in Al Gore's AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and Leonardo di Caprio's, THE ELEVENTH HOUR about the dangers of global warming. However, it goes beyond these films, by showing how religious responses can make a major difference and why a shift toward plant-based diets is an essential part of efforts to reduce global climate change and other environmental threats. It also challenges people to consider the many moral issues related to our diets, including Torah teachings on how animals are treated on factory farms and the effects on human health and the environment.
Although it is primarily intended for a Jewish audience, A SACRED DUTY speaks to people everywhere about the ethics of our relationship to the natural world in which we live. The movie's universal message will appeal to anyone interested in such topics as biblical teachings, Israel, the environment, health, nutrition, vegetarianism, hunger and resource usage. The movie may be said to be like Levy's Jewish Rye bread - you do not have to be Jewish to appreciate it.
The documentary features interviews with leading Israeli and American environmental, health, vegetarian and animal rights activists as well as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and secular leaders.
Interviewees include: Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Haifa; Rabbi David Rosen, Former Chief Rabbi of Ireland and International Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee; Dr. Yeshayahu Bar-Or, Chief Scientist: Israel Environmental Ministry and many other rabbis and Jewish leaders and activists.
Biblical passages are read by the acclaimed Jewish star of Broadway and screen Theodore Bikel
A SACRED DUTY and the many activities being planned around it have the potential to help move our imperiled world toward a sustainable path. But only if the movie is widely viewed and discussed.
So, please order your FREE copy and please consider taking one or more of the following actions after viewing the movie: have viewings for family, neighbors and friends; try to schedule showings at a local school, a synagogue and/or other houses of worship, a community center or other communal site, etc.; share the DVD with local rabbis and other religious leaders, teachers, politicians and other local influential people.
You can request a free DVD to share by sending your name and mailing address to JVNA's secretary/treasurer John Diamond (jdiamond4@cox.net). If you feel that you can profitably use more than one DVD, just let John know, with a brief description of how you plan to use them. Additional information about the movie may be found at www.asacredduty.com.
JVNA plans to build a major campaign around the movie to get tikkun olam (the repair and healing of the world) to become a central focus in Jewish life today, with a shift toward plant-based diets as an essential part of the changes that can help move our imperiled planet to a sustainable path. If you would like to be involved in the campaign or have suggestions, please contact Richard Schwartz at President@JewishVeg.com.
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6. Blurbs for A SACRED DUTY
We at CLAL believe that if Judaism is going to be taken seriously by American Jews and for that matter by all Americans, Jewish wisdom needs to contribute to and to add value to the debates at the center of our culture and politics. This documentary - whether or not one agrees with every detail - is an important contribution to one of the critical public policy conversations facing this country and a serious example of taking Jewish wisdom public. Produced at a high quality, this documentary reminds us that it is our sacred duty to become aware of current threats and our responsibility to apply Jewish teachings to how we obtain our food, use natural resources, and live among other creatures whom God created. Not only does it offer simple, practical measures for reducing our impact on the planet, it shows how authentic religious responses melded with science can make a major difference in our efforts to reduce global climate change and other environmental threats. It also challenges people to consider the many moral issues related to our diets, including Torah teachings on how animals are treated on factory farms and the effects on human health and the environment.
Although it is primarily intended for a Jewish audience, A Sacred Duty speaks to people everywhere about the ethics of our relationship to the natural world in which we live. We are honored that JVNA has made this gift possible.
Rabbi Irwin Kula
President CLAL (a Jewish think tank)
CLAL sent DVDs to 2,000 rabbis and other Jewish leaders who have connections to the group
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A Sacred Duty should be mandated viewing for all people on planet Earth. Great job!
Howard F. Lyman, the Mad Cowboy
Former fourth generation cattle rancher who is now a leading vegetarian activist
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“A Sacred Duty” is a tour de force. Anyone who watches with an open heart and an open mind will leave the theater deeply moved and called to action.
--Bruce Friedrich, Vice-President, PETA.
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A Sacred Duty melds modern science with Jewish religious teachings to make a compelling case for vegetarianism that conscientious viewers will find hard to resist. A cheekier title might have been “What Would Moses Eat Today?” in the face of catastrophic global warming and environmental degradation, world hunger and needless violence to billions of helpless animals every year. I hope A Sacred Duty will help redefine kosher for the 21st century Jew, for vegetarianism - a diet infused with kindness and blessedly free of bloodshed - is our Biblical root (“behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed”) and our moral destiny (“and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb”).
Syd Baumel, writer and animal activist, publisher of eatkind.net
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I can't find the words to tell you how deeply I was moved by A Sacred Duty. I've seen similar factory farming footage for decades, but in the context of this extraordinary film, it was particularly compelling….very moving. Poignantly written, beautifully filmed and perfectly executed, it was enlightening without being admonishing. A truly monumental film not only for those of the Jewish faith, but for the animals. Another, very subtle impression was the fact that you were able to bring together representatives from all corners of the Jewish faith. While just by nature of their categories, there are things that separate them, their words around this topic had great unison, sounding as though they came from one voice. From the first scene to the final word, this film is absolutely brilliant! Thank you, Lionel, Richard, and all who were involved, for the legacy of this contribution to our planet, its people and its animals.
Kris Haley
Manager of Multifaith Outreach/Animals & Religion
Best Friends Animal Society
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A Sacred Duty makes a crystal clear argument for taking action to end factory farming. How could any person of faith and conviction remain indifferent after seeing this film? Humane Society Animals & Religion was created out of the belief that religious people can do much to end the current state of industrial animal agriculture in this country. At a time when people are searching for ways to apply their spirituality to their daily lives, what better cause than ethical, mindful, compassionate food choices?
Christine Gutleben, Director, Animals & Religion, The
Humane Society of the United States
humanesociety.org/religion
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A SACRED DUTY is a wake-up call for Jews and all others who care about the fate of our planet. A deep love for Earth, for humanity, and for our animal cousins shines through it. This documentary shows how compassionate dietary choices can unite Jews and other people of faith in taking action to rescue and heal our precious, imperiled earth.
Gracia Fay Ellwood
Editor, THE PEACEABLE TABLE
A Quaker Online Journal
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"I would love to see a film like this viewed by every religious/spiritual group in the world. Through this film, the golden rule takes on new meaning as we extend our definition of "Others" to include all life. What a powerful invitation to actually bring our lives into alignment with our values."
Rae Sikora, Anthropologist, Co-founder of the Center for Compassionate Living and the International Institute for Humane Education, and Founder/Director of Simply Enough (www.simplyenough.com)
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A SACRED DUTY is beautiful and poetic, inspiring and optimistic, good in all possible senses. The image of the tear shedding cow was so moving, that I couldn't restrain myself and burst out crying! The quotations from Tanach [the Jewish scriptures] were very wisely selected and inserted in well-suited places. Congratulations for all the team who prepared the movie. Keep on assuring a good distribution of it!
Luiza CAROL - writer, Israeli delegate of TEVA (Tutmonda Esperantista Vegetarana Asocio) (World Association of Esperantist Vegetarians)
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Even knowing the issues and arguments, being a long-term environmentalist and vegetarian, I was taken in by the beauty and power of this remarkable film. A Sacred Duty is a must see and a must do, so that we and our children may live. I have already shared the film with rabbis and others and am in the process of scheduling screenings at my synagogue, other synagogues, the Jewish Community Center, and my local vegetarian society.-
--Dan Brook, Ph.D.
(The Vegetarian Mitzvah)
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I enjoyed the video so much that I am planning to teach two courses on Tikun Olam next semester: one for a 4 part adult ed series and another for a 12 part high school program. Keep up the great work.
Rabbi Aaron Rosenberg
Temple Emanu-El
Waterford, CT
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My gut feeling is that because of the major impression this video will make on the world the battle to save the lives of billions of animals
has just turned in favor of the animals.
In my opinion this is a "A MAJOR MASTERPIECE" and officially marks the real beginning of the end of animal factory farms and slaughterhouses
throughout the world.
I cannot imagine any rational person in the world, no matter what his or her religious or spiritual beliefs may be, who will watch this video and not be extremely moved and strongly persuaded to stop eating animal flesh.
Now that I have watched the film "A Sacred Duty" for the second time my gut instincts tell me the battle to reach the goal of shutting down animal factory farms and slaughterhouses is now clearly and really within reach, within a much shorter period of time then anyone thought possible.
You only have to watch the film to understand and agree with my conclusion.
In my opinion, soon to be shared by millions of people, the film A Sacred Duty is the most brilliant, intelligent, thought provoking, and heart wrenching film ever produced for the benefit of humans, farm animals, the earth, and the earth's atmosphere.
In only "one hour" because of the quality, the content, and the magnificent presentation, the film "A Sacred Duty" will reach out and grasp you in your heart and soul.
The quality of the content and the presentation is off the charts. You will be left with a feeling of exhilaration because you will realize the solutions to solving many of the worlds most serious problems is now clearly within reach.
The one hour long documentary film -- A Sacred Duty -- (Applying Jewish Values To Help Heal The World) must be viewed by a large number of people as soon as possible.
This MAJOR MASTERPIECE will go a long way in reaching the goal of emancipating all farm animals from the jaws of animal factory farms and
slaughterhouses. (FOR REAL)
Freeing billions of Gods precious creatures from completely unnecessary torture and murder is "no longer a pipe dream."
Because A Sacred Duty is such a powerful and convincing presentation it has the potential of persuading a large number of people throughout the world to become vegetarians or vegans soon. At least 90% of the people that initially watch the DVD will probably be extremely happy to promote it any way they can. For this important reason the DVD needs to be provided to many government leaders in every country. Several copies of A Sacred Duty should be provided to every high school, college, and church in the world, as well as a large number of newspapers. The video should be viewed by every man, woman, and mature child in the world.
Arthur Poletti, Author
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A Sacred Duty is exquisitely beautiful & heartbreakingly horrific, edifying from its perspective of assuming responsibility & certainly inspires commitment to tikkun olam - I congradulate you on a profoundly holy work, Lionel. Have heard lots about your splendid talent so was expecting the film to be quite incredible but - wow!
Maryellen Kelley
Director/OMEGA Program
Santa Barbara Community College
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Response from JVNA advisor Steve Schuster:
I received my copy of the “Sacred Duty” DVD yesterday. My wife and I, along with my two youngest children (Sam and Jacob, 15 and 12) screened the movie last night. My wife has been a vegetarian since the age of 8, and the boys have never knowingly eaten meat of any kind (I gave up red meat in 1992, fowl in 2001, and seafood in 2004). My 18 year old son is a lifelong vegetarian, and my 20 year old daughter vacillates (depending on the eating habits of her boyfriend of the moment…).
All four of us were deeply moved by the film. The impact of the material is unquestionably powerful from any perspective. We agreed in our discussion afterwards that we did not want anything to do with food whose source we could not verify as cruelty free. This morning, we discarded all the eggs and cheese in our refrigerator and replaced everything with locally farmed products whose sources we could actually visit and see with our own eyes.
I surely hope the publicity efforts will result in a large viewing audience. My entire family thanks you for your personal efforts to shift the world away from meat-based diets.
Steve Schuster, CEO
Rainier Communications - "Technology's Most Credible Voice"
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Response from JVNA advisor and Israeli vegetarian activist Mark Feffer:
My review: The film gives a great Torah-spiritual rational for going vegetarian. A human and humane, Divine and appetizing vegetarian smorgasbord. For people of all spiritual and not so spiritual persuasions. A kiddush Hashem [sanctification of G-d's Name.].
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Greetings from Bombay.
I immediately saw it and am deciding to show it to an appropriate audience during my talks on vegetarianism. Off and on I am invited to give talks and will surely promote it.
Two days ago I have mailed a letter to your USA address expressing my sincere thanks.
I must congratulate the entire team for all their efforts in producing this DVD. On our side we will do our best to promote it.
Many thanks once again for your efforts and for sending the DVD.
With kind regards,
Yours for a vegetarian world,
Hiren N. Kara
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I just received my copy of Sacred Duty. This movie is an outstanding achievement and is an historic achievement for the Jewish community. I will share my review of the particulars. I believe one of the strengths of the movie are the variety of the interviews. Another is the Torah readings in both English and Hebrew. What I really like is the case we make that Kosher is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for food production and consumption because there are also mandates to be kind to animals, to care for our health, and not to waste environmental resources.
I hope that we will follow up this landmark film with efforts to help those motivated by Sacred Duty to take steps in the direction of vegetarianism once people are motivated with a Sacred Duty website. Your books, Judaism and Vegetarianism and Judaism and Global survival should be promoted for those who want to understand the case and the imperative more fully. Roberta Kalechofsky's books should also be promoted, especially her cookbooks which show how easy and delicious following a vegetarian diet can be.
Please accept my continued appreciation for the significant difference you and so many others are making.
Stewart Rose
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Last night it was quiet enough for a group of us to sit and watch the video. We thought it was worth watching twice through! I am quite impressed by the beauty of the images and the breadth of representation from a range of Jewish perspectives.
Susan Beckerman, who is very active in the Reconstructionist movement and in West End Synagogue
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I watched "A Sacred Duty" yesterday. "Watched" is too passive a word to describe the experience I had engaging with this documentary, which galvanized me to become a more outspoken and more effective environmental and animal rights activist - and, of equal importance, brought me closer to Judaism. The interviews in the film with Jewish leaders were a balm to my soul and gave me greater hope than I have felt in a very long time not only about the future of creation, but about the future of Judaism. I shall share the copies I received of the DVD as widely as I possibly can, and with the greatest of passion.
Thank you so much for producing this film. G-d bless you.
-Jampa Napthali Williams (author)
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A Sacred Duty is very moving, intelligent and inspiring.
I wish every cultural group, religious and secular, could persuade its community to live consciously and responsibly on this planet. A Sacred Duty attempts to do just that for the Jewish community - and the result is a deeply inspiring film with universal appeal.
If ever we humans needed compassion and justice as our guides, this is the time. 'Business as usual' is unsustainable. Denial makes us participants in horrific suffering and death. In an elegantly reasoned way, A Sacred Duty shows how it is within our power as individuals to turn things around and thereby save ourselves, our fellow animals, and our beautiful planet.
I wish the film great success !
Myriam Alaux,
producer/director (The Animals Film)
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7. Letter for Challenging Rabbis
Suggestions on the draft letter (below) to rabbis very welcome. Thanks.
Shalom Rabbi,
We are writing to you because, [consistent with recent RCA resolutions on the environment,] you have the potential to make a tremendous difference in efforts to move our imperiled planet to a sustainable path, to improve the health of the Jewish people and to show the relevance of Judaism's eternal teachings to today's crises.
There are three reasons why we think it is essential that you become involved in response to this message:
1) The world is rapidly approaching an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming and other environmental threats, and a shift toward plant-based diets is an essential part of the necessary response to avoid disaster.
2) There is an epidemic of heart disease, several types of cancer and other chronic, degenerative diseases afflicting Jews and others, and a shift toward vegetarian diets would sharply reduce these diseases.
3) The production and consumption of meat and other animal products sharply contradict basic Jewish mandates to take care of our health, treat animals with compassion, protect the environment, conserve natural resources, help hungry people and seek and pursue peace.
[To keep the main message relatively short, material supporting these three major points has been put as a supplement immediately after this letter.]
Because of the three major points above, points that are generally not being considered in the Jewish community, we are asking you to help get these issues onto the Jewish agenda. This would be a tremendous kiddush HaShem, by reducing the epidemic of disease in the Jewish community (and other communities), alleviating many of the critical environmental threats to the sustainability of the planet, and showing that basic Jewish values can play a role in the solution of current societal problems. To paraphrase Megilat Esther, perhaps you reached your present position for just such a purpose.
As b'nei nevi'im, with a mandate to be "a light onto the nations" and G-d's witnesses, can we remain silent when so many basic Jewish values are being violated, while so many Jews and others suffer needlessly from diseases that can be prevented and while present policies are leading the world to an unsustainable future?
Please join our respectful campaign to make Jews more aware of the many benefits of plant-based diets and the many ways that animal-based agriculture and diets deviate from basic Jewish values. It is becoming increasingly clear that vegetarianism is not only an important personal choice, but that it is a societal imperative as
well as a spiritual imperative for Jews.
Further information about these issues can be found at JewishVeg.com. We will provide a complimentary copy of our new documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD if you contact us (president@JewishVeg.com) and indicate that you consider using it as part of an effort to educate others about the issues. The entire movie can be seen and further information about it can be found at ASacredDuty.com.
Very truly yours,
Richard H. Schwartz
President, Jewish Vegetarians of North America
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8. Valuable Supplementary Material for Promoting Vegetarianism
a. World imperiled by global warming and other environmental threats and animal-based agriculture is a major factor
Global warming goes way beyond “an inconvenient truth.” We are overheating our planet to alarming levels with potentially catastrophic consequences. 2006 was the hottest year on record in the U.S. and the 12 hottest years on record have occurred since 1994. Think of an overheated car, an overcooked dinner, or someone sick with a fever. Now imagine that on a planetary scale.
Global warming is perhaps the biggest social, political economic, and environmental problem facing our planet and its inhabitants. People are becoming increasingly aware of and concerned about global warming, due to frequent reports of record heat, wildfires, an increase in the number and severity of storms, droughts, the melting of glaciers, permafrost, and polar ice caps, rising sea levels, flooding, acidification of the oceans, changes in wind direction, endangered species, spreading diseases, shrinking lakes, submerged islands, and environmental refugees. We may be standing at a precipice.
There is no doubt that humanity is threatened as perhaps never before and major changes have to occur to put our imperiled planet on a sustainable path - and soon. Even though a small number of individuals argue against global warming, there is a scientific and environmental consensus - among all major scientific and environmental organizations, journals, and magazines, and all peer-reviewed scholarly articles - that global warming is real, serious, worsening, and caused or exacerbated by human activity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Fourth Assessment Report in February 2007, which was researched and written by about 2,500 climate scientists over six years and vetted by over 130 governments. The Report carefully delineates clear trends and catastrophic consequences associated with climate change, warning of the possibility of severe and irreversible change, unless we make concerted efforts to counter global warming. The IPCC makes it plain that the current and projected climate change is not simply “natural variation”, but “very likely” (meaning at least 90%) the result of human activity. Even Time Magazine (and the Brookings Institution among many others) has declared the “case closed” on the problem of global warming, with only the solutions to still debate.
Several leading experts, including James Hansen of NASA and physicist Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most famous living scientist, as well as Al Gore and others, warn that global climate change may reach a 'tipping point' and spiral out of control, with disastrous consequences, if current conditions continue. A recent 700-page British government report, authored by a former chief economist for the World Bank, projects losses of up to 20% of world gross domestic product by 2050 unless 1% of current world domestic product is devoted to combating global climate change. Other economic studies have projected even worse scenarios. It therefore should not be surprising that the Pentagon states that global warming is a larger threat than even terrorism.
While the world is increasingly threatened by global warming, animal-based agriculture emits more greenhouse gases (in CO2 equivalents) than all the cars and other means of transportation worldwide combined (18 percent vs. 13.5 percent), according to a 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report. Making the situation even worse, that same report indicates that the consumption of animal products is projected to double in 50 years. If this happens, it will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to reduce greenhouse emissions enough to avoid very severe effects from global climate
Israel is especially threatened by global warming. A 2007 report by the Israel Union for Environmental Defense indicated that global warming may cause an average temperature increase of 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit, a decrease in rainfall of up to 30 percent, many severe storms and a rising Mediterranean Sea that would cause major flooding and damage ports, power plants and other infrastructure.
At a time when food prices are skyrocketing, food riots are occurring in many areas and an estimated 20 million people are dying annually worldwide from hunger and its effects, over 70 percent of the grain produced in the United States and over 40 percent produced worldwide are fed to farmed animals.
In an increasingly thirsty and energy-dependent world, animal-based diets require up to 14 times as much water and 10 times as much energy as vegan (all plants) diets.
When we read daily reports of the effects of global climate change, such as record heat waves, severe storms, widespread droughts, and the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps; when some climate scientists are warning that global climate change may spin out of control with disastrous consequences unless major changes are soon made; when a recent report indicated that our oceans may be virtually free of fish by 2050; when species of plants and animals are disappearing at the fastest rate in history; when it is projected that half of the world's people will live in areas chronically short of water by 2050; it is essential that we recognize that a major shift toward plant-based diets is essential to avoid the unprecedented catastrophe that the world is rapidly approaching and to move our precious, but imperiled, planet to a sustainable path.
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b. Epidemic of diseases
Animal-centered diets are contributing to an epidemic of heart disease, several types of cancer and other diseases in the Jewish and other communities;
CONNECTIONS BETWEEN DIET AND HEALTH.
Excerpt from my book “Judaism and Vegetarianism”
Comprehensive coverage of health issues and their relation to diet may be found in The Power of Your Plate by Neal D. Barnard, M. D., McDougall`s Medicine: A Challenging Second Opinion by John McDougall, M. D., and MegaHealth by Marc Sorensen, Ed. D. Graphs and charts connecting nutrition to health and illness can be found in the The Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism by William Harris, M. D. These books provide many primary sources from established medical journals. The Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM; www.pcrm.org) has documented information about the relations between diet and disease. The tremendously important message that is documented in these sources is that vegetarian diets can help prevent, and in some cases reverse, a wide variety of degenerative diseases and medical problems that have been strongly linked to the consumption of animal products, including: arthritis; asthma; breast cancer; colon cancer; constipation; diabetes; diverticulosis; gallstones; heart disease; hemorrhoids; hypertension; hypoglycemia; impotence; kidney disease; obesity; osteoporosis; peptic ulcers; prostate cancer; salmonellosis; and strokes.
Readers are urged to consult the sources mentioned above and other sources in the annotated Bibliography for more information on health issues. Additional information on nutrition and health appears later in some of the questions and answers in Chapter 8. w
Because of the abundance of documented evidence in these books and other sources, and because of space limitations, this book does not focus on dietary connections to each disease. Rather it focuses on issues not generally discussed, including:
1) The position on nutrition and health of the American Dietetic Association;
2) The Cornell/China/Oxford Study, perhaps the largest epidemiological study in history;
3) Studies led by Dean Ornish, M.D. that show that heart disease may be reversed without surgery or medical drugs;
4) A book by a veteran breast cancer surgeon that considers many scientific studies to show that t 4he risk of contracting breast cancer (and, by implication, other diseases) can be sharply reduced;
5) The negative health effects of the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and in animal feed.
Position of The American Dietetic Association:
The following information from the "Position of the American Dietetic Association: Vegetarian Diets" (Journal of the American Dietetic Association (ADA), November, 1997, Volume 97, Number 11) indicates that a well planned vegetarian diet is not only nutritionally adequate, but that it can reduce the risk of many diseases. A summary of their position follows:
Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases and conditions, including obesity, coronary artery disease, hype rtension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer. Vegetarian diets, like all diets, need to be planned appropriately to be nutritionally adequate.
Their position statement is:
It is the position of The American Dietetic Association (ADA) that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.
Among the many other positive statements the ADA makes about connections between plant-based diets and health are the following (they cite appropriate peer-reviewed scientific articles in each case):
1) Studies indicate that vegetarians often have lower morbidity and mortality rates from several chronic degenerative diseases than do non-vegetarians. Although non-dietary factors, including physical activity and abstinence from smoking and alcohol, may play a role, diet is clearly a contributing factor.
2) Vegetarian diets offer disease protection benefits because of their lower saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein content and often higher concentration of folate (which reduces serum homocysteine levels), antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, carotenoids, and phytochemicals.
3) Not only is mortality from coronary artery disease lower in vegetarians than in non-vegetarians, but vegetarian diets have also been successful as part of comprehensive health programs to reverse severe coronary artery disease.
4) Vegetarians tend to have a lower incidence of hypertension than non- vegetarians.
5) Type 2 diabetes mellitus is much less likely to be a cause of death in vegetarians than non-vegetarians.
6) Incidence of lung and colorectal cancer is lower in vegetarians than in non- vegetarians. Reduced colorectal cancer risk is associated with increased consumption of fiber, vegetables, and fruit.
7) Å Plant sources of protein alone can provide adequate amounts of essential amino acids if a variety of plant foods are consumed and energy needs are met.
SNIP
In view of all of the material in this chapter and many well-documented books, it would seem that the numerous halachic rules prohibiting dangerous activities should be extended to include a mandate reducing the ingestion of meat to a minimal level, and there should be a recommendation that those who continue to eat small amoun Tts of kosher meat, possibly as an interim step, should only use organically raised meat from animals not raised under cruel "factory farm" conditions. Such an extension by leading rabbinic authorities of our time, with proper publicity, would save many lives and improve the health and life expectancy of the Jewish people and many others.
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c. Claim that the production and consumption of animal products violate six basic Jewish teachings
Material from the chapter on vegetarianism in my book “Judaism and Global Survival”:
This chapter addresses a widely accepted aspect of modern life that contradicts many Jewish teachings and harms people, communities, and the planet -- the mass production and widespread consumption of meat. It will illustrate how high meat consumption and the ways in which meat is produced today conflict with Judaism in at least six important areas:
1) While Judaism mandates that people should be very careful about preserving their health and their lives, numerous scientific studies have linked animal-based diets directly to heart disease, stroke, many forms of cancer, and other chronic degenerative diseases.
2) While Judaism forbids tsa'ar ba'alei chayim, inflicting unnecessary pain on animals, most farm animals -- including those raised for kosher consumers -- are raised on "factory farms" where they live in cramped, confined spaces, and are often drugged, mutilated, and denied fresh air, sunlight, exercise, and any enjoyment of life, before they are slaughtered and eaten.
3) While Judaism teaches that "the earth is the Lord's" (Psalm 24:1) and that we are to be God's partners and co-workers in preserving the world, modern intensive livestock agriculture contributes substantially to soil erosion and depletion, air and water pollution, overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the destruction of tropical rain forests and other habitats, global warming, and other environmental damage.
4) While Judaism mandates bal tashchit, that we are not to waste or unnecessarily destroy anything of value, and that we are not to use more than is needed to accomplish a purpose, animal agriculture requires the wasteful use of grain, land, water, energy, and other resources.
5) While Judaism stresses that we are to assist the poor and share our bread with hungry people, over 70% of the grain grown in the United States is fed to animals destined for slaughter, while an estimated 20 million people worldwide die because of hunger and its effects each year.
6) While Judaism stresses that we must seek and pursue peace and that violence results from unjust conditions, animal-centered diets, by wasting valuable resources, help to perpetuate the widespread hunger and poverty that eventually lead to instability and war.
In view of these important Jewish mandates to preserve human health, attend to the welfare of animals, protect the environment, conserve resources, help feed hungry people, and pursue peace, and since animal-centered diets violate and contradict each of these responsibilities, committed Jews (and others) should sharply reduce or eliminate their consumption of animal products.
One could say "dayenu" (it would be enough) after any of the arguments above, because each one constitutes by itself a serious conflict between Jewish values and current practice that should impel Jews to seriously consider a plant-based diet. Combined, they make an urgently compelling case for the Jewish community to address these issues.
d. Summary
Plant-based diets are most consistent with basic Jewish mandates to preserve human health, treat animals compassionately, protect the environment, conserve natural resources and help hungry people.
Because of all of the above and much more, including that billions of animals are severely mistreated on factory farms, we respectfully urge you to help get vegetarianism and related issues onto the Jewish agenda. This would help move our imperiled world to a sustainable path and help revitalize Judaism by showing the relevance of Judaism's eternal teachings to today's crises.
It is urgent that tikkun olam-the healing and repair of the world -- be a central issue in synagogues, Jewish schools and other Jewish institutions. Judaism has splendid teachings on environmental conservation and sustainability, and it is essential that they be applied to respond to the many current environmental threats.
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Shalom everybody,
Today is the first anniversary of the premiere of A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE PLANET. So, I thought it might be a good time to pause and assess where we stand and consider material we can use to continue our efforts to get vegetarianism, environmental awareness and activism and related issues onto the Jewish and other agendas. Please stay tuned for strategy ideas and a consideration of plans re the future of JVNA in future messages.
And please use the material in this special message to help promote vegetarianism. Thanks.
This special message/Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) Online Newsletter has the following items:
1. Update on A SACRED DUTY
2. Thanks So Much to So Many
3. Our Most Important Argument
4. Important Considerations Re Promoting Vegetarianism
5. Article about A SACRED DUTY
6. Blurbs for A SACRED DUTY
7. Letter for Challenging Rabbis
8. Valuable Supplementary Material for Promoting Vegetarianism
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 the kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observances, 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. Update on A SACRED DUTY
As indicated above, today is the first anniversary of the premiere of A SACRED at the Israel Center in Jerusalem on November 12, 2007. So many positive things have happened since then. We have distributed almost 20,000 DVDs to a wide variety of people, including rabbis, JCC directors, Hillel directors, religious studies professors, environmentalists, vegetarians , animal rights activists and many more people. There have been over 13,000 hits for the movie on You Tube. The movie has received much acclaim. (Please see the blurbs below). The complete movie, including versions with subtitles in Hebrew and other languages, can be seen at ASacredDuty.com.
We plan to continue actively promoting the movie in the next year.
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2. Thanks So Much to So Many
I am so grateful to many people who have been so helpful re A SACRED DUTY and other JVNA outreach efforts.
In particular:
Lionel Friedberg, multi-award-winning producer, director, writer and cinematographer, who spent countless hours producing A SACRED DUTY as a labor of love and dedication, accepting no professional fee. Without his splendid efforts, the documentary would never have been produced.
Lionel's wife Diana Friedberg, a professional editor, who also took no professional fee for her excellent contributions toward the production of A SACRED DUTY.
Our very dedicated secretary/treasurer John Diamond, who, along with his wife Donna, have distributed many thousands of DVDs to many people throughout the United States and many other countries, helping to fuel a grass roots effort that builds momentum daily. John is also doing a splendid job of keeping the financial and other JVNA records in order and up-to-date.
Our award winning publicist Susan Tellem, along with her dedicated staff, for treating our relationship as not just a job, but also a cause, and for working diligently to get our messages out;
NALITH for their generous grants that were invaluable in enabling us to produce and distribute so many DVDs of A SACRED DUTY.
While they deserve FAR more recognition, below are, in alphabetical order, a list of people who have been extremely helpful. I am sure I will be leaving some people out, for which I apologize in advance. If you have been inadvertently, please let me know so I can include you in a supplementary list soon.
Your efforts are GREATLY appreciated:
Zel and Reuben Allen
Itae Amit
Dan Arbel
Syd Baumel
Debra Berger
Janine Bronsom
Dan Brook
Herma Caelen
Gerry Coffey
Michael Croland
Daniela (from Romania)
Rina Deych
Boris Dolin
Ziva Eliezer
Lois Felder
Leonardo Fishman
Rabbi Adam Frank
Bruce Friedich
Maida Genser
Steve Gorad
Aaron Gross
Christine Gutleben
Kris Haley
Susan Harris
Alex Hershaft and others at the Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM)
Roberta Kalechofsky
Ivan Kessel
Mel Kiimmel
Ari Knoll
Ron Landskroner
Judy Lipman
Catherine Manna
Gidon Melmed
Noam Mohr
Israel, and Eva Mossman
Nina Natelson
Charles Patterson
Arthur Poletti
Murray Polner
Lewis Regenstein
Prof. Joe Regenstein
Pamela Rice
Stuart Rose
Rabbi David Rosen
Julie Rosenfield
Roberta Schiff
Marcia Schlesinger
Steve Schuster
Stan Schwartz
Rabbi Dovid Sears
George Shea
Rae Silora
Rabbi Barry Silver
Peter Singer (of Jerusalem)
Charles Stahler and others at the Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG)
Jeff Tucker
Michael Tucker
Rabbi Yoel Weishaus
Jampa Williams
Jonathan Wolf
Many thanks to all of these dedicated volunteers. Because of your superb efforts, our grass roots campaign is doing great and building momentum every day.
For those I have accidentally overlooked, please accept my apology and let me know, so that I can include you in a supplementary list.
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3. Our Most Important Argument
I believe our most important argument for vegetarianism is that the world is heading toward an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming and other environmental threats and that a major shift toward vegetarianism is an essential part of the response. I think it is essential that we spread this message as widely as possible. More re this in the next section.
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4. Important Considerations Re Promoting Vegetarianism
There has been an extremely positive response to A SACRED DUTY and I have been amazed at the dedication of many people who are doing great work in seeing that the documentary is widely viewed.
There is still much resistance and denial on the part of non-vegetarians, so we still have much work to do in order to get the major changes that we want and are very necessary if we are to avoid the unprecedented catastrophe that the world is rapidly approaching.
Jewish vegetarians have an extremely strong case in arguing that Jewish teachings are most consistent with vegetarianism. There is increasing evidence that animal-based diets are connected to many critical problems facing the world today. Hence, a switch toward vegetarianism is both a societal imperative and a Jewish imperative. Unfortunately, in spite of these factors, the Jewish community seems generally content with the status quo. In order to make changes, we should be aggressive (though respectful and courteous) in getting our message out to people, especially religious leaders. Our documentary A SACRED DUTY provides an excellent tool for getting our message out to many more people.
Below is a summary of our basic case for vegetarianism:
1) We have an extremely powerful case for vegetarianism based on the fact that the realities of animal-based diets and agriculture are very inconsistent with basic Jewish mandates to take care of our health, treat animals with compassion, protect the environment, conserve natural resources, help hungry people, and pursue peace and non-violence, and.
2) Most Jews, including most rabbis and other Jewish scholars and leaders, seem to be ignoring these contradictions. We must use A SACRED DUTY and other means to launch a major campaign to break through the current ignorance, apathy and denial.
3) The world is threatened as perhaps never before in terms of global warming, destruction of tropical rain forests and other habitats, soil erosion and depletion, loss of biodiversity, severe storms, flooding, droughts, water shortages, and many other "modern plagues".
4) Modern intensive livestock agriculture contributes significantly to all of these environmental threats, but this is seldom discussed.
Our diets have tremendous impacts. They can be connected to virtually all the major problems that face the world today: global warming; pollution; world hunger; consumption of water, energy, and other resources; destruction of tropical rain forests and other habitats; huge budget deficits (related to soaring health costs associated with an epidemic of degenerative diseases); the threat of widespread epidemics due to antibiotic-resistant, disease-causing organisms (related to
indiscriminate, widespread use of antibiotics in animal feed; the potential for war (wasteful use of resources such as oil leads to potential scarcities that make violence and war more likely).
The 2006 UN Food and Agricultural Organization report that animal-based agriculture emits more greenhouse gases (in CO2 equivalents) than all the world's means of transportation combined and has many other negative environmental impacts, gives us a very valuable tool for promoting vegetarianism.
5) Because of the above factors, and many more, a shift toward vegetarianism is increasingly a societal imperative, as well as a spiritual imperative.
6) JVNA involves a relatively small group of (mainly) Jews, generally without the strong support of most rabbis and Torah scholars, who are challenging the establishment on the issue of vegetarianism. We are doing so, not by criticizing Jewish teachings or by urging changes in the nature of Judaism. We are, instead, asserting that the highest Jewish values point to vegetarianism as the ideal diet today. We are advocating that Jews should put our highest teachings into practice by becoming
vegetarians. We are buttressed by the many Torah teachings that point toward vegetarianism, the writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, one of the great Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century and the first chief rabbi of pre-state Israel, and the fact that several present and past chief rabbis are or were vegetarians.
We recognize that a switch toward vegetarian diets is essential for the survival of the world and the revitalization of Judaism. Though still a relatively small minority, we take comfort from Henry Thoreau's statement: "One person in the right makes a majority of one."
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5. Article about A SACRED DUTY
[The article is preceded by sample messages that you may adapt to try to get more people to see A SACRED DUTY.]
Shalom recipients of A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD,
Recent talks by Al Gore, James Hansen of NASA, the director of the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change and others have pointed out that we have very little time to make the changes necessary to avert an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming. Their messages are reinforced by recent dramatic examples of global warming, including the major flooding in several Midwestern US states, the unprecedented number of wildfires in California, droughts in Israel, Australia and many other countries and other problems associated with global warming.
Yet, the Jewish community, like most others, has still not made responding to global warming a major priority, and there are still many people who do not realize how great a role animal-based agriculture plays in greenhouse gas emissions.
Hence, it is essential that we do as much as possible to get these messages out, and our highly acclaimed documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD can be extremely effective in helping do this.
I am hoping that many of you receiving this message will help by contacting your local rabbis and other religious leaders, yeshivas and other schools, JCCs and other community centers, educators, environmentalists, politicians and other influential people, and tell them that we are offering a complimentary DVD which they can get by contacting us (president@JewishVeg.com) or by visiting ASacredDuty.com. You can also tell them that they can view the entire movie (including versione with subtitles in Hebrew and other languages) and get further information about it at that same web site.
Your personal communication can make a major difference as many of our wonderful volunteers are finding out.
If you prefer, you can use the wonders of the internet to look up synagogues, Hillels, JCCs, rabbis, other Jewish groups, etc., nationally, and send individual messages to email addresses that you find.
The point is that we are dealing with perhaps today's greatest moral challenge, today's greatest threat to humanity, and we have a very powerful message and a wonderful, highly acclaimed documentary that we are freely trying to share as widely as possible.
So, please help out as much as you can, even if it is as little as an hour.
It is arguably the most important thing that each of us can do for future generations.
A sample message that you can adapt to various audiences is below.
Many thanks,
Richard
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Sample message that you can adapt and email:
I would like to offer you a complimentary DVD with our recently released documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD, if you have not received one yet. It has a strong, unique, universal message re global warming and other environmental threats, health issues, the treatment of animals and much more, and has the potential of moving our imperiled planet to a sustainable path. I think it would make an excellent program, in showing the relevance of eternal religious values to current environmental threats.
Please see the article below for more information about the movie.
The movie is receiving a very favorable response (please see the blurbs under the article below).
If you are interested in receiving a DVD, please email your mailing address to me. If you would like more than one free DVD, to share with others, please let me know.
The movie may also be seen on the internet at:
www.ASacredDuty.com . There is also much background material, including questions and answers about the movie at that web site.
Many thanks, and best wishes,
Richard (Schwartz)
President, Jewish Vegetarians of North America
NEW DOCUMENTARY APPLIES JEWISH VALUES TO ENVIRONMENTAL, HEALTH, HUMANE ISSUES
Richard H. Schwartz
Because the world is heading rapidly toward an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming and other environmental threats, Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) has produced a documentary, A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD, to address these threats from a positive Jewish perspective. JVNA will send a free copy to anyone who will help arrange a screening or help promote the movie in some other way.
Almost daily there are reports of severe droughts, floods, storms or wildfires, of the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps and other indicators of global warming. It is frightening that, while these effects are due to an increase in temperature of less than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group composed of hundreds of the world's climate scientists, is projecting an increase of 3 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years. Even more ominous is that some climate scientists, including James Hansen of NASA, are warning that global warming may reach a tipping point and spiral out of control within a decade, with disastrous consequences, unless major changes are soon made. Israel is especially vulnerable to global climate change, in terms of reduced rainfall, severe storms and flooding from a rising Mediterranean Sea.
A SACRED DUTY is a Jewish response to these realities. It reminds us that it is our sacred duty to become aware of current threats and our responsibility to apply Jewish teachings to how we obtain our food, use natural resources, and live among other creatures whom God created. It offers simple, practical measures for reducing our impact on the planet, including “an inconvenient truth” that even Al Gore has not yet acknowledged.
Produced by the highly acclaimed, multi-award-winning film maker, Lionel Friedberg, A SACRED DUTY reinforces the messages in Al Gore's AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and Leonardo di Caprio's, THE ELEVENTH HOUR about the dangers of global warming. However, it goes beyond these films, by showing how religious responses can make a major difference and why a shift toward plant-based diets is an essential part of efforts to reduce global climate change and other environmental threats. It also challenges people to consider the many moral issues related to our diets, including Torah teachings on how animals are treated on factory farms and the effects on human health and the environment.
Although it is primarily intended for a Jewish audience, A SACRED DUTY speaks to people everywhere about the ethics of our relationship to the natural world in which we live. The movie's universal message will appeal to anyone interested in such topics as biblical teachings, Israel, the environment, health, nutrition, vegetarianism, hunger and resource usage. The movie may be said to be like Levy's Jewish Rye bread - you do not have to be Jewish to appreciate it.
The documentary features interviews with leading Israeli and American environmental, health, vegetarian and animal rights activists as well as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and secular leaders.
Interviewees include: Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Haifa; Rabbi David Rosen, Former Chief Rabbi of Ireland and International Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee; Dr. Yeshayahu Bar-Or, Chief Scientist: Israel Environmental Ministry and many other rabbis and Jewish leaders and activists.
Biblical passages are read by the acclaimed Jewish star of Broadway and screen Theodore Bikel
A SACRED DUTY and the many activities being planned around it have the potential to help move our imperiled world toward a sustainable path. But only if the movie is widely viewed and discussed.
So, please order your FREE copy and please consider taking one or more of the following actions after viewing the movie: have viewings for family, neighbors and friends; try to schedule showings at a local school, a synagogue and/or other houses of worship, a community center or other communal site, etc.; share the DVD with local rabbis and other religious leaders, teachers, politicians and other local influential people.
You can request a free DVD to share by sending your name and mailing address to JVNA's secretary/treasurer John Diamond (jdiamond4@cox.net). If you feel that you can profitably use more than one DVD, just let John know, with a brief description of how you plan to use them. Additional information about the movie may be found at www.asacredduty.com.
JVNA plans to build a major campaign around the movie to get tikkun olam (the repair and healing of the world) to become a central focus in Jewish life today, with a shift toward plant-based diets as an essential part of the changes that can help move our imperiled planet to a sustainable path. If you would like to be involved in the campaign or have suggestions, please contact Richard Schwartz at President@JewishVeg.com.
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6. Blurbs for A SACRED DUTY
We at CLAL believe that if Judaism is going to be taken seriously by American Jews and for that matter by all Americans, Jewish wisdom needs to contribute to and to add value to the debates at the center of our culture and politics. This documentary - whether or not one agrees with every detail - is an important contribution to one of the critical public policy conversations facing this country and a serious example of taking Jewish wisdom public. Produced at a high quality, this documentary reminds us that it is our sacred duty to become aware of current threats and our responsibility to apply Jewish teachings to how we obtain our food, use natural resources, and live among other creatures whom God created. Not only does it offer simple, practical measures for reducing our impact on the planet, it shows how authentic religious responses melded with science can make a major difference in our efforts to reduce global climate change and other environmental threats. It also challenges people to consider the many moral issues related to our diets, including Torah teachings on how animals are treated on factory farms and the effects on human health and the environment.
Although it is primarily intended for a Jewish audience, A Sacred Duty speaks to people everywhere about the ethics of our relationship to the natural world in which we live. We are honored that JVNA has made this gift possible.
Rabbi Irwin Kula
President CLAL (a Jewish think tank)
CLAL sent DVDs to 2,000 rabbis and other Jewish leaders who have connections to the group
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A Sacred Duty should be mandated viewing for all people on planet Earth. Great job!
Howard F. Lyman, the Mad Cowboy
Former fourth generation cattle rancher who is now a leading vegetarian activist
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“A Sacred Duty” is a tour de force. Anyone who watches with an open heart and an open mind will leave the theater deeply moved and called to action.
--Bruce Friedrich, Vice-President, PETA.
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A Sacred Duty melds modern science with Jewish religious teachings to make a compelling case for vegetarianism that conscientious viewers will find hard to resist. A cheekier title might have been “What Would Moses Eat Today?” in the face of catastrophic global warming and environmental degradation, world hunger and needless violence to billions of helpless animals every year. I hope A Sacred Duty will help redefine kosher for the 21st century Jew, for vegetarianism - a diet infused with kindness and blessedly free of bloodshed - is our Biblical root (“behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed”) and our moral destiny (“and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb”).
Syd Baumel, writer and animal activist, publisher of eatkind.net
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I can't find the words to tell you how deeply I was moved by A Sacred Duty. I've seen similar factory farming footage for decades, but in the context of this extraordinary film, it was particularly compelling….very moving. Poignantly written, beautifully filmed and perfectly executed, it was enlightening without being admonishing. A truly monumental film not only for those of the Jewish faith, but for the animals. Another, very subtle impression was the fact that you were able to bring together representatives from all corners of the Jewish faith. While just by nature of their categories, there are things that separate them, their words around this topic had great unison, sounding as though they came from one voice. From the first scene to the final word, this film is absolutely brilliant! Thank you, Lionel, Richard, and all who were involved, for the legacy of this contribution to our planet, its people and its animals.
Kris Haley
Manager of Multifaith Outreach/Animals & Religion
Best Friends Animal Society
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A Sacred Duty makes a crystal clear argument for taking action to end factory farming. How could any person of faith and conviction remain indifferent after seeing this film? Humane Society Animals & Religion was created out of the belief that religious people can do much to end the current state of industrial animal agriculture in this country. At a time when people are searching for ways to apply their spirituality to their daily lives, what better cause than ethical, mindful, compassionate food choices?
Christine Gutleben, Director, Animals & Religion, The
Humane Society of the United States
humanesociety.org/religion
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A SACRED DUTY is a wake-up call for Jews and all others who care about the fate of our planet. A deep love for Earth, for humanity, and for our animal cousins shines through it. This documentary shows how compassionate dietary choices can unite Jews and other people of faith in taking action to rescue and heal our precious, imperiled earth.
Gracia Fay Ellwood
Editor, THE PEACEABLE TABLE
A Quaker Online Journal
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"I would love to see a film like this viewed by every religious/spiritual group in the world. Through this film, the golden rule takes on new meaning as we extend our definition of "Others" to include all life. What a powerful invitation to actually bring our lives into alignment with our values."
Rae Sikora, Anthropologist, Co-founder of the Center for Compassionate Living and the International Institute for Humane Education, and Founder/Director of Simply Enough (www.simplyenough.com)
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A SACRED DUTY is beautiful and poetic, inspiring and optimistic, good in all possible senses. The image of the tear shedding cow was so moving, that I couldn't restrain myself and burst out crying! The quotations from Tanach [the Jewish scriptures] were very wisely selected and inserted in well-suited places. Congratulations for all the team who prepared the movie. Keep on assuring a good distribution of it!
Luiza CAROL - writer, Israeli delegate of TEVA (Tutmonda Esperantista Vegetarana Asocio) (World Association of Esperantist Vegetarians)
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Even knowing the issues and arguments, being a long-term environmentalist and vegetarian, I was taken in by the beauty and power of this remarkable film. A Sacred Duty is a must see and a must do, so that we and our children may live. I have already shared the film with rabbis and others and am in the process of scheduling screenings at my synagogue, other synagogues, the Jewish Community Center, and my local vegetarian society.-
--Dan Brook, Ph.D.
(The Vegetarian Mitzvah)
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I enjoyed the video so much that I am planning to teach two courses on Tikun Olam next semester: one for a 4 part adult ed series and another for a 12 part high school program. Keep up the great work.
Rabbi Aaron Rosenberg
Temple Emanu-El
Waterford, CT
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My gut feeling is that because of the major impression this video will make on the world the battle to save the lives of billions of animals
has just turned in favor of the animals.
In my opinion this is a "A MAJOR MASTERPIECE" and officially marks the real beginning of the end of animal factory farms and slaughterhouses
throughout the world.
I cannot imagine any rational person in the world, no matter what his or her religious or spiritual beliefs may be, who will watch this video and not be extremely moved and strongly persuaded to stop eating animal flesh.
Now that I have watched the film "A Sacred Duty" for the second time my gut instincts tell me the battle to reach the goal of shutting down animal factory farms and slaughterhouses is now clearly and really within reach, within a much shorter period of time then anyone thought possible.
You only have to watch the film to understand and agree with my conclusion.
In my opinion, soon to be shared by millions of people, the film A Sacred Duty is the most brilliant, intelligent, thought provoking, and heart wrenching film ever produced for the benefit of humans, farm animals, the earth, and the earth's atmosphere.
In only "one hour" because of the quality, the content, and the magnificent presentation, the film "A Sacred Duty" will reach out and grasp you in your heart and soul.
The quality of the content and the presentation is off the charts. You will be left with a feeling of exhilaration because you will realize the solutions to solving many of the worlds most serious problems is now clearly within reach.
The one hour long documentary film -- A Sacred Duty -- (Applying Jewish Values To Help Heal The World) must be viewed by a large number of people as soon as possible.
This MAJOR MASTERPIECE will go a long way in reaching the goal of emancipating all farm animals from the jaws of animal factory farms and
slaughterhouses. (FOR REAL)
Freeing billions of Gods precious creatures from completely unnecessary torture and murder is "no longer a pipe dream."
Because A Sacred Duty is such a powerful and convincing presentation it has the potential of persuading a large number of people throughout the world to become vegetarians or vegans soon. At least 90% of the people that initially watch the DVD will probably be extremely happy to promote it any way they can. For this important reason the DVD needs to be provided to many government leaders in every country. Several copies of A Sacred Duty should be provided to every high school, college, and church in the world, as well as a large number of newspapers. The video should be viewed by every man, woman, and mature child in the world.
Arthur Poletti, Author
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A Sacred Duty is exquisitely beautiful & heartbreakingly horrific, edifying from its perspective of assuming responsibility & certainly inspires commitment to tikkun olam - I congradulate you on a profoundly holy work, Lionel. Have heard lots about your splendid talent so was expecting the film to be quite incredible but - wow!
Maryellen Kelley
Director/OMEGA Program
Santa Barbara Community College
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Response from JVNA advisor Steve Schuster:
I received my copy of the “Sacred Duty” DVD yesterday. My wife and I, along with my two youngest children (Sam and Jacob, 15 and 12) screened the movie last night. My wife has been a vegetarian since the age of 8, and the boys have never knowingly eaten meat of any kind (I gave up red meat in 1992, fowl in 2001, and seafood in 2004). My 18 year old son is a lifelong vegetarian, and my 20 year old daughter vacillates (depending on the eating habits of her boyfriend of the moment…).
All four of us were deeply moved by the film. The impact of the material is unquestionably powerful from any perspective. We agreed in our discussion afterwards that we did not want anything to do with food whose source we could not verify as cruelty free. This morning, we discarded all the eggs and cheese in our refrigerator and replaced everything with locally farmed products whose sources we could actually visit and see with our own eyes.
I surely hope the publicity efforts will result in a large viewing audience. My entire family thanks you for your personal efforts to shift the world away from meat-based diets.
Steve Schuster, CEO
Rainier Communications - "Technology's Most Credible Voice"
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Response from JVNA advisor and Israeli vegetarian activist Mark Feffer:
My review: The film gives a great Torah-spiritual rational for going vegetarian. A human and humane, Divine and appetizing vegetarian smorgasbord. For people of all spiritual and not so spiritual persuasions. A kiddush Hashem [sanctification of G-d's Name.].
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Greetings from Bombay.
I immediately saw it and am deciding to show it to an appropriate audience during my talks on vegetarianism. Off and on I am invited to give talks and will surely promote it.
Two days ago I have mailed a letter to your USA address expressing my sincere thanks.
I must congratulate the entire team for all their efforts in producing this DVD. On our side we will do our best to promote it.
Many thanks once again for your efforts and for sending the DVD.
With kind regards,
Yours for a vegetarian world,
Hiren N. Kara
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I just received my copy of Sacred Duty. This movie is an outstanding achievement and is an historic achievement for the Jewish community. I will share my review of the particulars. I believe one of the strengths of the movie are the variety of the interviews. Another is the Torah readings in both English and Hebrew. What I really like is the case we make that Kosher is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for food production and consumption because there are also mandates to be kind to animals, to care for our health, and not to waste environmental resources.
I hope that we will follow up this landmark film with efforts to help those motivated by Sacred Duty to take steps in the direction of vegetarianism once people are motivated with a Sacred Duty website. Your books, Judaism and Vegetarianism and Judaism and Global survival should be promoted for those who want to understand the case and the imperative more fully. Roberta Kalechofsky's books should also be promoted, especially her cookbooks which show how easy and delicious following a vegetarian diet can be.
Please accept my continued appreciation for the significant difference you and so many others are making.
Stewart Rose
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Last night it was quiet enough for a group of us to sit and watch the video. We thought it was worth watching twice through! I am quite impressed by the beauty of the images and the breadth of representation from a range of Jewish perspectives.
Susan Beckerman, who is very active in the Reconstructionist movement and in West End Synagogue
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I watched "A Sacred Duty" yesterday. "Watched" is too passive a word to describe the experience I had engaging with this documentary, which galvanized me to become a more outspoken and more effective environmental and animal rights activist - and, of equal importance, brought me closer to Judaism. The interviews in the film with Jewish leaders were a balm to my soul and gave me greater hope than I have felt in a very long time not only about the future of creation, but about the future of Judaism. I shall share the copies I received of the DVD as widely as I possibly can, and with the greatest of passion.
Thank you so much for producing this film. G-d bless you.
-Jampa Napthali Williams (author)
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A Sacred Duty is very moving, intelligent and inspiring.
I wish every cultural group, religious and secular, could persuade its community to live consciously and responsibly on this planet. A Sacred Duty attempts to do just that for the Jewish community - and the result is a deeply inspiring film with universal appeal.
If ever we humans needed compassion and justice as our guides, this is the time. 'Business as usual' is unsustainable. Denial makes us participants in horrific suffering and death. In an elegantly reasoned way, A Sacred Duty shows how it is within our power as individuals to turn things around and thereby save ourselves, our fellow animals, and our beautiful planet.
I wish the film great success !
Myriam Alaux,
producer/director (The Animals Film)
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7. Letter for Challenging Rabbis
Suggestions on the draft letter (below) to rabbis very welcome. Thanks.
Shalom Rabbi,
We are writing to you because, [consistent with recent RCA resolutions on the environment,] you have the potential to make a tremendous difference in efforts to move our imperiled planet to a sustainable path, to improve the health of the Jewish people and to show the relevance of Judaism's eternal teachings to today's crises.
There are three reasons why we think it is essential that you become involved in response to this message:
1) The world is rapidly approaching an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming and other environmental threats, and a shift toward plant-based diets is an essential part of the necessary response to avoid disaster.
2) There is an epidemic of heart disease, several types of cancer and other chronic, degenerative diseases afflicting Jews and others, and a shift toward vegetarian diets would sharply reduce these diseases.
3) The production and consumption of meat and other animal products sharply contradict basic Jewish mandates to take care of our health, treat animals with compassion, protect the environment, conserve natural resources, help hungry people and seek and pursue peace.
[To keep the main message relatively short, material supporting these three major points has been put as a supplement immediately after this letter.]
Because of the three major points above, points that are generally not being considered in the Jewish community, we are asking you to help get these issues onto the Jewish agenda. This would be a tremendous kiddush HaShem, by reducing the epidemic of disease in the Jewish community (and other communities), alleviating many of the critical environmental threats to the sustainability of the planet, and showing that basic Jewish values can play a role in the solution of current societal problems. To paraphrase Megilat Esther, perhaps you reached your present position for just such a purpose.
As b'nei nevi'im, with a mandate to be "a light onto the nations" and G-d's witnesses, can we remain silent when so many basic Jewish values are being violated, while so many Jews and others suffer needlessly from diseases that can be prevented and while present policies are leading the world to an unsustainable future?
Please join our respectful campaign to make Jews more aware of the many benefits of plant-based diets and the many ways that animal-based agriculture and diets deviate from basic Jewish values. It is becoming increasingly clear that vegetarianism is not only an important personal choice, but that it is a societal imperative as
well as a spiritual imperative for Jews.
Further information about these issues can be found at JewishVeg.com. We will provide a complimentary copy of our new documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD if you contact us (president@JewishVeg.com) and indicate that you consider using it as part of an effort to educate others about the issues. The entire movie can be seen and further information about it can be found at ASacredDuty.com.
Very truly yours,
Richard H. Schwartz
President, Jewish Vegetarians of North America
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8. Valuable Supplementary Material for Promoting Vegetarianism
a. World imperiled by global warming and other environmental threats and animal-based agriculture is a major factor
Global warming goes way beyond “an inconvenient truth.” We are overheating our planet to alarming levels with potentially catastrophic consequences. 2006 was the hottest year on record in the U.S. and the 12 hottest years on record have occurred since 1994. Think of an overheated car, an overcooked dinner, or someone sick with a fever. Now imagine that on a planetary scale.
Global warming is perhaps the biggest social, political economic, and environmental problem facing our planet and its inhabitants. People are becoming increasingly aware of and concerned about global warming, due to frequent reports of record heat, wildfires, an increase in the number and severity of storms, droughts, the melting of glaciers, permafrost, and polar ice caps, rising sea levels, flooding, acidification of the oceans, changes in wind direction, endangered species, spreading diseases, shrinking lakes, submerged islands, and environmental refugees. We may be standing at a precipice.
There is no doubt that humanity is threatened as perhaps never before and major changes have to occur to put our imperiled planet on a sustainable path - and soon. Even though a small number of individuals argue against global warming, there is a scientific and environmental consensus - among all major scientific and environmental organizations, journals, and magazines, and all peer-reviewed scholarly articles - that global warming is real, serious, worsening, and caused or exacerbated by human activity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Fourth Assessment Report in February 2007, which was researched and written by about 2,500 climate scientists over six years and vetted by over 130 governments. The Report carefully delineates clear trends and catastrophic consequences associated with climate change, warning of the possibility of severe and irreversible change, unless we make concerted efforts to counter global warming. The IPCC makes it plain that the current and projected climate change is not simply “natural variation”, but “very likely” (meaning at least 90%) the result of human activity. Even Time Magazine (and the Brookings Institution among many others) has declared the “case closed” on the problem of global warming, with only the solutions to still debate.
Several leading experts, including James Hansen of NASA and physicist Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most famous living scientist, as well as Al Gore and others, warn that global climate change may reach a 'tipping point' and spiral out of control, with disastrous consequences, if current conditions continue. A recent 700-page British government report, authored by a former chief economist for the World Bank, projects losses of up to 20% of world gross domestic product by 2050 unless 1% of current world domestic product is devoted to combating global climate change. Other economic studies have projected even worse scenarios. It therefore should not be surprising that the Pentagon states that global warming is a larger threat than even terrorism.
While the world is increasingly threatened by global warming, animal-based agriculture emits more greenhouse gases (in CO2 equivalents) than all the cars and other means of transportation worldwide combined (18 percent vs. 13.5 percent), according to a 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report. Making the situation even worse, that same report indicates that the consumption of animal products is projected to double in 50 years. If this happens, it will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to reduce greenhouse emissions enough to avoid very severe effects from global climate
Israel is especially threatened by global warming. A 2007 report by the Israel Union for Environmental Defense indicated that global warming may cause an average temperature increase of 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit, a decrease in rainfall of up to 30 percent, many severe storms and a rising Mediterranean Sea that would cause major flooding and damage ports, power plants and other infrastructure.
At a time when food prices are skyrocketing, food riots are occurring in many areas and an estimated 20 million people are dying annually worldwide from hunger and its effects, over 70 percent of the grain produced in the United States and over 40 percent produced worldwide are fed to farmed animals.
In an increasingly thirsty and energy-dependent world, animal-based diets require up to 14 times as much water and 10 times as much energy as vegan (all plants) diets.
When we read daily reports of the effects of global climate change, such as record heat waves, severe storms, widespread droughts, and the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps; when some climate scientists are warning that global climate change may spin out of control with disastrous consequences unless major changes are soon made; when a recent report indicated that our oceans may be virtually free of fish by 2050; when species of plants and animals are disappearing at the fastest rate in history; when it is projected that half of the world's people will live in areas chronically short of water by 2050; it is essential that we recognize that a major shift toward plant-based diets is essential to avoid the unprecedented catastrophe that the world is rapidly approaching and to move our precious, but imperiled, planet to a sustainable path.
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b. Epidemic of diseases
Animal-centered diets are contributing to an epidemic of heart disease, several types of cancer and other diseases in the Jewish and other communities;
CONNECTIONS BETWEEN DIET AND HEALTH.
Excerpt from my book “Judaism and Vegetarianism”
Comprehensive coverage of health issues and their relation to diet may be found in The Power of Your Plate by Neal D. Barnard, M. D., McDougall`s Medicine: A Challenging Second Opinion by John McDougall, M. D., and MegaHealth by Marc Sorensen, Ed. D. Graphs and charts connecting nutrition to health and illness can be found in the The Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism by William Harris, M. D. These books provide many primary sources from established medical journals. The Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM; www.pcrm.org) has documented information about the relations between diet and disease. The tremendously important message that is documented in these sources is that vegetarian diets can help prevent, and in some cases reverse, a wide variety of degenerative diseases and medical problems that have been strongly linked to the consumption of animal products, including: arthritis; asthma; breast cancer; colon cancer; constipation; diabetes; diverticulosis; gallstones; heart disease; hemorrhoids; hypertension; hypoglycemia; impotence; kidney disease; obesity; osteoporosis; peptic ulcers; prostate cancer; salmonellosis; and strokes.
Readers are urged to consult the sources mentioned above and other sources in the annotated Bibliography for more information on health issues. Additional information on nutrition and health appears later in some of the questions and answers in Chapter 8. w
Because of the abundance of documented evidence in these books and other sources, and because of space limitations, this book does not focus on dietary connections to each disease. Rather it focuses on issues not generally discussed, including:
1) The position on nutrition and health of the American Dietetic Association;
2) The Cornell/China/Oxford Study, perhaps the largest epidemiological study in history;
3) Studies led by Dean Ornish, M.D. that show that heart disease may be reversed without surgery or medical drugs;
4) A book by a veteran breast cancer surgeon that considers many scientific studies to show that t 4he risk of contracting breast cancer (and, by implication, other diseases) can be sharply reduced;
5) The negative health effects of the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and in animal feed.
Position of The American Dietetic Association:
The following information from the "Position of the American Dietetic Association: Vegetarian Diets" (Journal of the American Dietetic Association (ADA), November, 1997, Volume 97, Number 11) indicates that a well planned vegetarian diet is not only nutritionally adequate, but that it can reduce the risk of many diseases. A summary of their position follows:
Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases and conditions, including obesity, coronary artery disease, hype rtension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer. Vegetarian diets, like all diets, need to be planned appropriately to be nutritionally adequate.
Their position statement is:
It is the position of The American Dietetic Association (ADA) that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.
Among the many other positive statements the ADA makes about connections between plant-based diets and health are the following (they cite appropriate peer-reviewed scientific articles in each case):
1) Studies indicate that vegetarians often have lower morbidity and mortality rates from several chronic degenerative diseases than do non-vegetarians. Although non-dietary factors, including physical activity and abstinence from smoking and alcohol, may play a role, diet is clearly a contributing factor.
2) Vegetarian diets offer disease protection benefits because of their lower saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein content and often higher concentration of folate (which reduces serum homocysteine levels), antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, carotenoids, and phytochemicals.
3) Not only is mortality from coronary artery disease lower in vegetarians than in non-vegetarians, but vegetarian diets have also been successful as part of comprehensive health programs to reverse severe coronary artery disease.
4) Vegetarians tend to have a lower incidence of hypertension than non- vegetarians.
5) Type 2 diabetes mellitus is much less likely to be a cause of death in vegetarians than non-vegetarians.
6) Incidence of lung and colorectal cancer is lower in vegetarians than in non- vegetarians. Reduced colorectal cancer risk is associated with increased consumption of fiber, vegetables, and fruit.
7) Å Plant sources of protein alone can provide adequate amounts of essential amino acids if a variety of plant foods are consumed and energy needs are met.
SNIP
In view of all of the material in this chapter and many well-documented books, it would seem that the numerous halachic rules prohibiting dangerous activities should be extended to include a mandate reducing the ingestion of meat to a minimal level, and there should be a recommendation that those who continue to eat small amoun Tts of kosher meat, possibly as an interim step, should only use organically raised meat from animals not raised under cruel "factory farm" conditions. Such an extension by leading rabbinic authorities of our time, with proper publicity, would save many lives and improve the health and life expectancy of the Jewish people and many others.
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c. Claim that the production and consumption of animal products violate six basic Jewish teachings
Material from the chapter on vegetarianism in my book “Judaism and Global Survival”:
This chapter addresses a widely accepted aspect of modern life that contradicts many Jewish teachings and harms people, communities, and the planet -- the mass production and widespread consumption of meat. It will illustrate how high meat consumption and the ways in which meat is produced today conflict with Judaism in at least six important areas:
1) While Judaism mandates that people should be very careful about preserving their health and their lives, numerous scientific studies have linked animal-based diets directly to heart disease, stroke, many forms of cancer, and other chronic degenerative diseases.
2) While Judaism forbids tsa'ar ba'alei chayim, inflicting unnecessary pain on animals, most farm animals -- including those raised for kosher consumers -- are raised on "factory farms" where they live in cramped, confined spaces, and are often drugged, mutilated, and denied fresh air, sunlight, exercise, and any enjoyment of life, before they are slaughtered and eaten.
3) While Judaism teaches that "the earth is the Lord's" (Psalm 24:1) and that we are to be God's partners and co-workers in preserving the world, modern intensive livestock agriculture contributes substantially to soil erosion and depletion, air and water pollution, overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the destruction of tropical rain forests and other habitats, global warming, and other environmental damage.
4) While Judaism mandates bal tashchit, that we are not to waste or unnecessarily destroy anything of value, and that we are not to use more than is needed to accomplish a purpose, animal agriculture requires the wasteful use of grain, land, water, energy, and other resources.
5) While Judaism stresses that we are to assist the poor and share our bread with hungry people, over 70% of the grain grown in the United States is fed to animals destined for slaughter, while an estimated 20 million people worldwide die because of hunger and its effects each year.
6) While Judaism stresses that we must seek and pursue peace and that violence results from unjust conditions, animal-centered diets, by wasting valuable resources, help to perpetuate the widespread hunger and poverty that eventually lead to instability and war.
In view of these important Jewish mandates to preserve human health, attend to the welfare of animals, protect the environment, conserve resources, help feed hungry people, and pursue peace, and since animal-centered diets violate and contradict each of these responsibilities, committed Jews (and others) should sharply reduce or eliminate their consumption of animal products.
One could say "dayenu" (it would be enough) after any of the arguments above, because each one constitutes by itself a serious conflict between Jewish values and current practice that should impel Jews to seriously consider a plant-based diet. Combined, they make an urgently compelling case for the Jewish community to address these issues.
d. Summary
Plant-based diets are most consistent with basic Jewish mandates to preserve human health, treat animals compassionately, protect the environment, conserve natural resources and help hungry people.
Because of all of the above and much more, including that billions of animals are severely mistreated on factory farms, we respectfully urge you to help get vegetarianism and related issues onto the Jewish agenda. This would help move our imperiled world to a sustainable path and help revitalize Judaism by showing the relevance of Judaism's eternal teachings to today's crises.
It is urgent that tikkun olam-the healing and repair of the world -- be a central issue in synagogues, Jewish schools and other Jewish institutions. Judaism has splendid teachings on environmental conservation and sustainability, and it is essential that they be applied to respond to the many current environmental threats.
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