European Vegetarian Union

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Jewish group calls animal-based diets and agriculture 'madness and sheer insanity',

urges Jewish Community to respond to the many moral issues related to our diets

PRESS RELEASE

May 25, 2009
Contact: Richard H. Schwartz,
President of the Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA)
president@JewishVeg.com
Phone: (718) 761-5876 Cell: 917-576-0344

Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) today issued the following statement:

Because the world is rapidly approaching an unprecedented catastrophe from global warming and other environmental problems, and animal-based agriculture is contributing substantially to these threats, JVNA believes that it is time to call animal-based diets and agriculture MADNESS AND SHEER INSANITY and to urge that there be a major shift to plant-based diets. Think we are exaggerating? Please consider:

* While the 2006 UN FAO report ”Livestock's Long Shadow” indicates that 'livestock' agriculture emits more greenhouse gases(in CO2 equivalents) than all the cars, ships, planes and other means of transportation worldwide combined (18% vs. 13.5%), and the indications of global warming impacts grow almost daily, the rate of consumption of animal products is projected by that same UN report to double in 50 years.

Israel is especially threatened by global warming. It is now experiencing the worst drought in its history, and the reduced rainfall the last few years has so diminished the level of the Sea of Galilee that the pumping of water from it had to be stopped. And in 2007 a report by the Israel Union for Environmental Defense projected that if current trends continue, Israel will experience major heat waves, storms and floods, a decrease in average rainfall up to 30 percent and an inundation of the coastal plain where most Israelis live by a rising Mediterranean Sea.

* While this has been called the century of drought and billions of people live in areas chronically short of water and this is projected to increase due to the melting of glaciers, reduced rainfall and other effects of global warming, the average diet of a meat-eater requires 14 times as much water than the diet of a vegan.

* While an estimated 20 million of the world's people die of hunger and its effects annually and nearly a billion people are chronically malnourished due to a lack of food, 70 percent of the grain grown in the United States and 40 percent of the grain produced worldwide are fed to animals destined for slaughter.

* While obtaining enough energy is a major issue today, animal-based agriculture requires ten times more energy than plant-based agriculture.

* While there is currently an epidemic of heart diseases, various types of cancer and other chronic, degenerative diseases, there is little effort to inform people that well-balanced, nutritious vegan diets can prevent, alleviate and sometimes reverse these diseases.

Many more examples of “madness and sheer insanity” can be given related to such issues as the destruction of tropical rain forests, the rapid extinction of species, soil erosion and depletion, animal wastes polluting our waters and swine flu.

How best to respond to this madness and sheer insanity? In a talk in December, 1978 at Riverside Church on “Theological Implications of the Arms Race,” Reverend Robert McAfee Brown stated that the arms race was “madness and sheer insanity” (JVNA is borrowing the phrase from him), because the US and then USSR could each wipe each other out with nuclear weapons many times over, and yet both continued to build additional nuclear weapons. He stated that, while one would think that one should apply sanity in response to the madness, what was really needed was a different kind of madness, what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heshel called “moral madness,” the madness of the biblical prophets, the type of madness that radically challenges the status quo, that is ready to challenge the prevailing ways of thinking, that is not afraid to take on the icons of society..

Hence, in view of the prevalent madness and sheer insanity, JVNA will undertake some radical approaches. For example:

JVNA (along with other vegetarian-related groups) will respectfully but forcefully challenge:

* the medical profession, arguing that medical practice today is malpractice, unless doctors point out that many diseases can be prevented, alleviated and sometimes reversed through well-chosen vegetarian and preferably vegan diets. There is general agreement that the American medical system is dysfunctional and is a major contributor to soaring deficits, but almost all the attention is on how to best pay for the medical care, rather than on how to keep people healthy.

* Jewish (and possibly other religious) establishments, since the production and consumption of animal products arguably violate basic Jewish mandates to preserve human health, treat animals with compassion, preserve the environment, conserve natural resources, help hungry people and seek and pursue peace.

* the media for missing the most urgent story of today: how the world is heading toward disaster and why a major societal shift to vegetarianism is an essential part of the necessary responses.

* Environmentalists for not making vegetarianism a major part of their agendas. As Howard Lyman has quipped, “An environmentalist who is not a vegetarian is like a philanthropist who does not give money.” Similar analyses can be made for people and groups concerned about hunger, energy, resource usage and other issues.

JVNA will also respectfully request that President Obama consider shifting toward vegetarianism and also help increase awareness of the many benefits of plant-based diets and the many negatives of animal-based diets. A major letter-writing campaign got Michelle Obama to give a commencement address at a California college. Perhaps a major letter-writing campaign might also influence President Obama.

JVNA is urging that tikkun olam-the healing and repair of the world -- become 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.

A letter will be sent to rabbis and other Jewish leaders with the message in this press release, along with a summary of the threats and how Jews can address them.

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Further information about these issues can be found at JewishVeg.com. JVNA will provide complimentary copies of its new documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD and related materials to rabbis and other Jewish leaders who will consider using them to involve their congregations on the issues.


Source: Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA)

Link: Earth Save - Interview with Richard Schwartz
Link: The Rationality of Becoming Vegan.

Date: 2009-05-26
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Newssource: EVANA

 

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