Rosh Hashanah and Vegetarianism

By Richard Schwartz

Rosh Hashanah is the time when we take stock of our lives and consider new beginnings. Perhaps the most significant and meaningful change that Jews should consider this year is a shift away from diets that have been having devastating effects on human health and the health of our increasingly imperiled planet. While many Jews seem to feel that its celebration can be enhanced by the consumption of chopped liver, gefilte fish, chicken soup, and roast chicken, there are many inconsistencies between the values of Rosh Hashanah and the realities of flesh-centered diets. Consider these points:

1. While Jews ask God on Rosh Hashanah for a healthy year, non-vegetarian diets have been linked to heart disease, strokes, several forms of cancer, and other illnesses. While we implore "our Father, our King" on Rosh Hashanah to "keep the plague from thy people", high fat, meat-based diets are causing a plague of degenerative diseases that have resulted in total U.S. medical costs soaring from $80 billion in 1970 to an estimated $1,106 billion in 1994.       

Yom Kippur and Vegetarianism

By Richard Schwartz

If This is Kosher

Hosted By Jonathan Safran Foer 

Working in Defense of Animals

by Matt Ball

Co-founder Vegan Outreach, Oct. 2003

Since the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975 and the founding of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in 1980 (to mention just two seminal events), animal rights and welfare organizations have spent hundreds of millions dollars, with volunteers working endless hours, trying to improve the treatment of animals in the United States. PETA alone has over 600,000 members and an eight-figure annual budget. From McDonald’s reforms and the Florida breeding sow initiative to a New York Times Magazine cover story and widespread media coverage of open rescues of laying hens, the treatment of animals is now a matter of wide public debate. Animal advocates and the term “animal rights” have become fixtures in American society.

What's Wrong with the Heifer Project

By Rev. Gary Kowalski 

I got a call recently from the Social Justice Chair at a nearby church asking if our congregation would join in supporting the Heifer Project. She seemed surprised when I told her I thought Heifer was a “feel good” charity that might harm the very people it’s intended to serve.

Heifer Project International provides cows, sheep, and other livestock to rural families around the world with the aim of fighting hunger. They claim to have more than 300 projects in forty countries. With endorsements that cross the ideological spectrum, from Ronald Reagan to Jimmy Carter, Heifer is virtually a sacred cow – an organization that everyone seems to love.

But there are problems with exporting animal agriculture to the Third World. Globalizing American farming methods is as big a mistake as cultivating a taste for lamb chops and barbeque among the world’s poor. Neither is the answer to starvation.

Vegan Hamantaschen

ShalomVeg.com Recipes 

• 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 4-3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup margarine, at room temperature
• 1-3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• filling (prepared poppy seeds, chocolate chips, jam, halvah)
  

1. In a large bowl, with a mixer set on medium speed, beat flour, baking powder, salt, margarine, sugar, water, and vanilla. Add a small amount of water if necessary to smooth (I added about 1/4 cup more water).
2. Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease 2 cookie sheets.
3. Roll out dough to 1/4" thickness. Cut out 3" circles with cookie cutters.
4. Place spoonfuls of desired filling into center of each circle and fold into triangular shape.
5. Bake for 10 minutes or until slightly browned. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks. Baking time may vary depending on your oven.
6. Chill overnight.

Shechitah and the Desecration

of God's Name

Part Two

Crossposted with permission from Rabbi Adam Frank's Blog:

Rabbi Frank is the rabbi of Congregation Moreshet Israel in Jerusalem

At the Conservative law committee meeting where the halakhic ruling prohibiting inverted slaughter was made we were told that a commission would be created to address implementation issues. Rabbi Joel Meyers, then executive vice president of the Conservative Movement's Rabbinical Assembly (RA) under whose rubric is the law committee, told Aaron and me that the matter would surely be addressed. Months passed and there was no movement on the matter. Our inquiries went unanswered. Finally, we learned that the RA's Kashrut committee claimed the issue was one for the Social Action committee; the Social Action committee claimed it was a matter for the Kashrut committee…

We appealed to the Conservative leadership believing that if the Movement's over 1 million constituents, 750 synagogues, 10 summer camps, 2 university accredited seminaries, and rabbinical union of over 1,400 rabbis made a coordinated effort the necessary economic pressure could force the kosher meat supervising authorities (most significantly the Orthodox Union) to take the matter seriously. The CJ leadership was unresponsive.

As 100% of the supervision of kosher meat is under Orthodox authority it became clear to us that this was an authority that Conservative leadership did not want to confront on this issue.

Shechitah and the Desecration

of God's Name

Part One

Crossposted with permission from Rabbi Adam Frank's Blog:

Rabbi Frank is the rabbi of Congregation Moreshet Israel in Jerusalem 

In 1999, my brother and I had the opportunity to meet with Rabbi Menachem Genack who is head of the Orthodox Union's (OU) kashrut division.  We were afforded visitation to his downtown Manhattan office because we were accompanying Dr. Temple Grandin to a meeting we arranged with Rabbi Genack in response to our research and discovery of terrible and unnecessary animal mistreatment in kosher slaughterhouses under the supervision of the OU and the concomitant endorsement of the Rabbinical Council of America.
 
When Rabbi Genack denied such mistreatment in kosher slaughterhouses under OU supervision, Dr. Grandin started listing names and locations of abattoirs where the violations were occurring.  Dr. Genack took a moment's sidebar discussion with the head of the OU's kosher meat division, Rabbi Yehuda Kravitz, and then replied that Dr. Grandin was correct.
 
After describing the normative abuses occurring in these abattoirs, I used the term 'Chillul Hashem' which means a profaning/desecrating of Gd's name.  The term is used to describe activity that lowers the esteem of Gd and/or Torah in people's eyes.  Rabbi Genack had an immediate reaction to my use of the term and, in his most animated moment of the hour-long conversation, rebuked me for applying Chillul Hashem to the situation because, in his words, 'the term is a technical halakhic (legal) category which does not apply to this situation.'