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March 14, 2003
Holocaust on our plates?
Editorial
A plan by the activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA) has met with anger from Jewish critics. PETA, always
known for their controversial campaigns, which include naked protests
against fur, have taken public discourse to a new low by comparing
the meat industry with the Holocaust.
The group initiated a vegetarianism campaign and travelling exhibition
called Holocaust on your Plate, which is aimed at boycotting meat
from factory farms. The mechanized breeding, feeding and killing
of farm animals is compared, in graphic campaign photos, to the
way Hitler's regime treated Jews and others during the Holocaust.
PETA and some other animal rights groups have taken the position
that the life of an animal is equal to or nearly equal to the life
of a human being. This campaign is an illogical extension of that
idea that we should be appalled by the way food animals are
treated, just as we were appalled by the way humans were treated
under the Nazis.
Well, we should be concerned with the manner in which food animals
are treated. There is an enormous amount of suffering inflicted
on animals for the sole purpose of reducing expenses and increasing
profits. Factory farm animals are raised in small spaces to save
money. They are often fed by machines that dispense pre-apportioned
food. Worse, the manner in which the animals meet their death is
often cruel and not always effective. There is great reason for
concern over the treatment of animals that are "produced"
for human consumption.
In fact, the Jewish community has been at the fore in pressuring
for proper treatment of food animals. The very essence of kashrut
the laws governing the slaughter and preparation of animals
for food is explicit in minimizing trauma and pain. Kashrut
is founded on the moral position that animals are creatures of God
and that the human desire for meat must be balanced with the ethical
treatment of animals.
For many Jews, this "balance" is morally incongruous and
some have concluded that the only way to be "moral" on
this issue is to abstain from eating meat altogether. If the letter
of the law of kashrut is to be kind to animals, say Jewish vegetarians,
the spirit of the law is vegetarianism.
On the other hand, some non-Jews seek out kosher meat, not because
of any matter of taste and certainly not because of price advantage,
but because of the promise inherent in a hechsher that the meat
was prepared with the least suffering to the animal.
In short, Judaism has always emphasized the ethical treatment of
animals. So why do animal activists betray this tradition by singling
out the historical experience of the Jewish people as a comparison
with the treatment of animals?
Adding insult to injury is the decision by a noted Jewish vegetarian
to take on the responsibility of "negotiating" with PETA
on behalf of a Jewish community that has been deeply offended by
the campaign.
Richard H. Schwartz, the author of Judaism and Vegetarianism
and Judaism and Global Survival, has urged the Jewish community
to condemn the PETA campaign, while at the same time agreeing with
its message as some sort of quid pro quo for shutting
down the campaign "in exchange for the Jewish community putting
Jewish values on proper treatment of animals on the Jewish agenda."
In a bizarre news release, Schwartz urges "the Jewish community
to take advantage of PETA's conditional offer to close down its
Holocaust exhibit, by setting up talks and programs about Jewish
teachings on abuse of farm animals." He asks Jewish groups
who get involved in these issues to contact him so he can "pass
the information on to PETA," adding that "this should
not be considered as a favor to PETA or a concession to their insensitive
project...."
What Schwartz's intervention does is take the offensive comparison
of Jews to farm animals and adds to it the assumption that Jews
don't already care about animals.
Here's news to the self-appointed negotiator: the "Jewish agenda"
has always had the "proper treatment of animals" at or
near the top. Rabbis were struggling over the treatment of animals
centuries before the new vegetarian activists were born.
Jews, who have a thoughtful tradition of respecting the dignity
of animals, are natural allies for people who seek just treatment
for farm animals. It is true that Jewish law, under most interpretations,
permits the killing of animals for food, but it does so with strict
caveats on how that slaughter is to be done.
The proper treatment of animals is on the "Jewish agenda."
So is the ethical treatment of human beings. The Holocaust on your
Plate exhibition should be condemned for its cruelty to humans.
And PETA should try not to alienate its natural allies.
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