Welcome to the Spring 2016 issue of the Jewish Vegetarian
Last year ended with the Board of Deputies, the representative body for British Jewry, actively promoting a meat-free Chanukah, a very promising sign of change on the horizon. We look forward to more organisations joining the dots between Judaism and vegetarianism.
This year is going to be an exciting one for the JVS. September will mark 50 years of this magazine. We are planning a very special edition. Please help us to make this a true celebration of all we have achieved together over the last half a century by emailing us [[email protected]] your photos, stories and memories. Were you there at the very beginning? What was it like to be a vegetarian in the mid 1960s? Did you know or meet our founder Philip Pick? What has been your favourite JVS event? We can’t wait to hear from you.
Further afield, in Israel, the meat-free revolution continues to gather pace, with three particularly notable headlines in recent months. The first, ‘Agriculture minister orders installation of cameras in all slaughterhouses’, is a bold move we applaud. Contrast that to the United States, which has been reducing the number of inspectors in slaughterhouses. The second, ‘Meat producer Soglowek lays off 35 staff’, this followed ongoing claims of animal abuse so bad it not only led to closures in 2015, but the kosher status was called in to question by many – including one of Israel’s two Haredi chief rabbis. The third: ‘Life after brisket: veganism in Israel is taking hold among the Orthodox, who use textual sources to argue against all meat consumption’ demonstrates the breadth of the movement.
We are delighted that a book on Jewish veganism edited by Rabbi Dr Shmuly Yanklowitz and Jacob Ari Labendz, Ph.D. is in the pipeline [jewishveganism.wordpress.com].
Wishing all of our readers a happy and kosher Pesach,
Lara SmallmanDirector, Jewish Vegetarian Society