in our obscurity. In all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. These words were spoken by Carl Sagan and were inspired by the pale blue dot, a picture of Earth taken by the Voyager 1 space probe from a distance of 6 billion kilometers or 3 .7 billion miles. In the spirit of that insight, I asked today's guest, Rabbi Akiva Gersh, also known as the vegan rabbi, why does God not intervene to stop the horrors of animal exploitation?
That kicked off a fascinating conversation about religion and its place in the vegan movement, the nature of evil, antisemitism, and why does Rabbi Akiva think that the fight for animal rights is a holy fight. I am full of admiration for Rabbi Akiva's tireless work of using religious arguments to promote compassion for animals in the Jewish community. Connect with him on Instagram at veganrabbi or visit his website akivagirsch
.com. Link in the episode's notes. There's this big problem that we're all aware of in the vegan community, which is animal exploitation. In terms of scale, the scale of this horror, it's unimaginable. There isn't something comparable to think about the billions of animals and the way they are. kept in captivity and then also tortured and killed. So, you know, it's just beyond, it's a category of its own, this type of horror. But then, you know, in... religious communities,
and I consider myself a religious person. We believe in all sorts of supernatural beings, starting with God, capital G, but also God, small g, angels, spirits, the list goes on. And sometimes I ask myself, what are they up to? Why are they not intervening? Why is heaven, God, whatever, not doing something? about this horror that is unfolding. And of course, I can hear the skeptics say, because they don't exist. That's why they're not intervening. But what do you make of that
question? A really powerful question. It's a really good question. And I'll say, please, God, help me with my answer in answering that question. Look, as a Jew and in Judaism, we believe and we teach the very important place of free will, free choice. And God created this world and God created creation and God created all these creations and this wonderful, magnificent, beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful world that we live in. and gave humans
free choice. And that was both the best idea, and I think you could even say the worst idea on some level, with all due love and respect to God, of course, right? I mean, it was God's wisdom. God gave us free choice, but God knew. I mean, as part of the Jewish tradition, I imagine other religious spiritual traditions as well, that God knew with free choice, anything can
happen. There's even an oral teaching, it's a teaching in the Jewish oral tradition that says that before humans were created that the angels, basically God asked the angels about creating humans, you know, as this different kind of creation and the angels were against it. The angels were actually against it because of what possibly could happen as a result of us being in the world and with our free will and God created us anyway. So there is great risk in creating A, being with
free choice. But to answer your question, I feel like it all comes down to that, that God felt that it was very important that there be one creature in this world, that being the human beings, with free choice. Because with free choice can come incredible and magnificent things, but of course, unfortunately, the opposite can be true as well. So right, we're always, maybe not always, but often whenever there are moments of great challenge and suffering and tragedy.
We're like, where is God? This would be a perfect time for God to intervene and save the day. Come down and swoop down and save the day like some magnificent movie scene where all the evil people or doers just get wiped out and good prevails. That's not the kind of world that God created. God created a world where humans are in the world with free will and with free choice. And with that comes great responsibility. and we are meant
to. I mean the teachings of Judaism and other traditions as well are filled with moral and ethical teachings to teach us and to show us and to guide us how to use that responsibility and how to use that free choice in the best possible way. Unfortunately, we the human beings have
not always made the best choices. Sometimes we've made horrible choices and we continue to make horrible choices and for some reason we are okay doing things that cause such great suffering and pain to other humans and to other creatures. And so God's role here is not to swoop down and save the day. God wants us to do it. We're the ones who are supposed to live the right way. And if we don't live the right way, then to make the corrections and to make the fixings in order
to make this world a better place. It's on our shoulders and our shoulders alone. And so, yeah, it's painful for anyone who's sensitive and aware to see the suffering happening in the world. And we want it to be over in a second. Of course, we don't care how it ends. We just want it to be over. But this is the world where humans were created and humans have free will and we're meant to use our free will to solve the problems that,
let's be honest, we created ourselves. Sometimes, unfortunately, it takes a while for us to find the solutions or to convince people to use the solutions that have already been found, especially in the case of how we eat and the food choices that we make. Is there a place in Judaism for evil, you know, for the belief that there is like a devil or something, something demonic? I often attribute, you know, or let me put it this way, if there was a evil, I guess the closest
thing to it would be animal exploitation. So is there a place for that in Judaism? like there's a lot a lot has been written um about evil good and evil again connected to human free will uh over the thousands of years that judaism has been uh an organized and existing religion in in judaism we we talk about something called the which is the evil inclination okay first of all as you know as a monotheistic uh path we believe that there's one force only one force
everything's from God. God is the only force that created and maintains everything in the world. So that of course brings up the big philosophical question that was related to your question before, like how can there be evil in a world that was created by an all -loving and all -good God? But there is a place for evil because of free will. Free choice gives birth to the possibility of humans choosing the opposite of good. And
we see that. And while we don't have this belief of any spiritual force really being against God because everything's on God's side, everything's within the realm of God, when it comes down to this world, this physical world that we're in, yes, we the humans do have the possibility of choosing evil. We do have this inner kind of battle between us, between good and evil. We have this evil inclination, and that could, if acted upon, that can come out in all different
kinds of ways. You know, selfishness, lack of compassion and greed, stealing, lying on and the like. And unfortunately, humans have and continue to choose that path of selfishness. And when we look at animal exploitation, You know, I think there's a lot of things that lead to that. There's a lot of factors, but I think one very strong factor is one selfishness, just
focusing on myself. I don't care. I just like the taste and I want it to be cheap and I want it to be readily available, you know, and not thinking about it and not even caring about what happens behind the scenes, you know, before the animal is turned into a, you know, a piece of food. wrapped in plastic and sold in the supermarkets.
I think it's also, in addition to selfishness, I want to say inability, but maybe a better way to say it is not yet tapped into ability to feel the pain and suffering of others, whether those others be humans or non -human creatures in this world. And I think also in there, and I've heard this, is the absurd belief that animals can't feel pain and suffering like we humans can. So
I think it's also ignorance. It's a lot of different factors, but all those things that I just mentioned are rooted in evil, in using free will to choose the evil path and the evil side and the one that's not compassionate, that's not... loving and that's not seeking to bring goodness and justice into the world. Fighting this evil is not an easy
business. And you know, I've had so many I've talked to so many activists who have felt, you know, burned out and tired and depressed from doing the work of advancing, you know, the vegan cause and being pro -animal. Is there any teaching in Judaism that helps us deal with being faced to that evil and fighting that evil as a weapon for our well -being and safeguarding our sanity in this fight? Right, right, which is so important.
It's so important in order not to get burnt out so that we can continue to do this very important, and I even call it holy work. Judaism says a lot about this. You know, Judaism, when you look, when you go deep, when you go deep, when you go deep, Judaism at its core, I think we can say is an activist movement. It's an activist movement. Why? What is an activist movement?
An activist movement or activist organization is focused on something that's wrong in the world or broken in the world and they want to fix it. They want to solve it. They want to bring wholeness to where there's brokenness. That's Judaism at its essence. Judaism is literally all about fixing the world. There's a concept called Tikkun Olam, which means fixing the world, literally, which is an ancient Jewish concept. It's talked a lot
about in the mystical tradition. but also in the ethics and morals of Judaism, it shows up a lot. And it's really based on this idea that the world has a lot of brokenness in it and we're here to fix it. We can use our free choice. We keep going back to that theme of free choice and we can use a free choice or free will to fix it, but that's what we're supposed to do. And in Judaism, I think the tools that we can use to help us not get burnt out, not get overwhelmed,
one is faith. Like the person you mentioned before, faith is very strong in Judaism. And knowing that even if I see so much wrong in the world, first of all, and I'm going to get back to this in a second, there's so much beauty. There's so much beauty in the world as well. We can't forget that. We have to open up our eyes to the constant. Beauty of the world and the constant goodness. It's not all evil. It's not all broken.
There's so much Gorgeousness in this world and it's all from God and God created an incredible world And we have to really remember that one for the sake of knowing that you know to recognize the goodness of this world But also it helps us in terms of moving on but coming back to the idea of faith Faith is very strong in Judaism. Obviously, and it's the idea. Okay, you know what? This is how brokenness was built into the
world. This is all from God, you know, and God wants us to do the work to fix it, and God's with me, right? God's giving me the strength. My strength comes from God, right? Like King David says, In Psalms, I'll say it in Hebrew because it's so beautiful and then I'll translate it into English. I lift up my eyes to the mountain. Where does my help come from? My help comes from God, makers of the heavens and the earth. So it's constantly, literally daily. constantly
tapping into our faith, right? And from that faith comes so much, including the strength to continue on even in the face of challenge and brokenness. And the last thing I'll say just for now is that Judaism has built into it the celebration of life and the celebration of the beauty of the world. And that happens on a weekly level, a monthly level, and an annual level, weekly of Shabbat. Every single week, every seven
days, we pause. We rest on Shabbat, on the Sabbath, not only to rest from our work, but also to create space to appreciate the goodness of the world and the beauty of the world. And the classic Jewish teaching is for six days of the week, we're doing our work, we're fixing the world, we're noticing, we're very aware of, even sometimes hyper aware of the brokenness, the challenges of a world, and on Shabbat, On some level, we
stop being activists on Shabbat. Because now Shabbat is to fill myself back up, is to say, wow, what a world. What a gorgeous world. Give myself that rest. I'm not going to try to fix anything, either physically or figuratively. And I'm going to tap into the holiness of this day. And that fills me up for another six days after that. to keep doing the work. And then I have another Shabbat. Wow, again, amazing. I have a day of rest and I feel myself back up.
Wow, and I go another six days, right? And it's this incredible institution, if you want to call it that, of reconnecting ourselves, plugging ourselves back in so that we have the physical and spiritual strength and ability to keep going on and not burning out. I feel like Shabbat at its core is all about not burning out physically and spiritually and as an activist. That's a
priceless priceless tool. You mentioned King David and There's this recent TV series that was released on Prime video I don't know if you if you were aware of it. It's about King David and I guess it's the first time I've watched something, you know a Judaic story adapted to the movie format. This was the first time for me watching Dange. Did you watch it? No. Too bad. I wish I had your feedback on that. But something interesting in that TV series, I noticed
as a vegan, of course. is, you know, they talk a lot about, you know, animal sacrifices and they do lots of animal sacrifices, but they never show, you know, the animal itself being sacrificed. You know, they always cut to the scene of here's the meat or whatever, the burnt sacrifice. And I found it very interesting that they would censor that part. you know, and not expose their audience to it. You know, they show armies battling with,
you know, people dying left and right. But, you know, the sacrifice of the lamp that they don't show. What do you make of that editing and how, you know, they perceive people to be more sensitive to showing a lamp being sacrificed to armies killing each other. That is very interesting.
Yeah, I think I think it's a reflection of human society in our modern -day world that people are disconnected from what really happens behind the scenes when they choose to eat animals and they don't want to see that because they don't want to know or they don't want to be reminded maybe they heard about it saw something once or twice even or three times but they want to forget about it and to be shown that it's a reminder of you know even though that's in the context
of you know ancient sacrifices which we don't do anymore it's still a reminder of you know the that yeah it's intense to take an animal's life for your own personal needs whether it's a sacrifice or or for food is an intense thing and you should think about that and you should be aware of that before you do it and people don't want to do that people just want to eat the steak or the hamburger and nothing about what had to happen you know before that and that's
that's a problem Um, I, I met people in the past, you know, um, who, you know, they would, they would only chicken if it was like in the form of like a patty, but no bones. Cause if they saw bones, they wouldn't be able to eat it. And it's like, you know, um, and yeah, I think it is a reflection of, of the disconnect today and the real kind of like, don't tell me I don't, I didn't see it. I don't know about it. I don't have to think about it. And then I can just keep
doing whatever I want. I'm sure there's a big Jewish audience, you know, watching that TV series. What is the state of, you know, progressive veganism in the Jewish community? I know that, you know, when I look at Buddhists, I wish there were more vegan Buddhists. And I feel strongly that this is the natural way to be a Buddhist, you know, being vegan. that there should be more vegan Buddhists than there are right now. Do you have
the same feeling? Yes, I do. I wish there were more Jewish vegans and specifically I wish there were more Orthodox Jewish vegans. As you might know, there's different kind of denominations in the Jewish world. The three main ones are Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. I'm part of
the Orthodox Jewish community. um and definitely there's not that many orthodox jewish regans out there and i wish there were more for sure and my you know long story short i i was always jewish but i didn't grow up religious i grew up very secular in a secular family and a secular lifestyle in america i now live in israel um but uh as a result of a spiritual journey in college, searching for spiritual meaning and spiritual traditions, eventually that took me
full circle to my own Jewish tradition, inspired actually by the environmental and animal welfare teachings that I discovered in Judaism at the age of 19 and 20, which nobody told me about. I was already at that point vegan. I went vegetarian when I was 18, vegan when I was 19. I'm now 49. So this fall, God willing, I'll be celebrating 30 years of being vegan. And it was an environmental studies major and the environmental movement
was a big part of my life. And I never knew anything about Judaism and the environment or Judaism and animal welfare. And when I started to discover that, I'm like, really? Judaism has what to say about this? And that really opened up the door for me to explore more of my Jewish roots, eventually more of the spiritual tradition in Judaism. And that's when I really got interested and then started learning and took on an Orthodox traditional lifestyle. For me, Judaism supports veganism
100 % in very strong and powerful ways. So for me, I see, I mean, dozens if not hundreds of sources in Judaism that support going vegan today because of the horrors of the factory farming world and the negative impact of eating an animal -based diet. So yeah, I see it as a very Jewish thing. Unfortunately, not that many, not enough
Jews. are vegan, more out of the Orthodox community, most if not all of the Jewish vegans that I know are not in the Orthodox community, a few of them are, but more in the conservative and reform, which are, you know, tend to be labeled as more kind of open to and interested in kind of progressive movements and causes and the like. But all that is rooted in the concept I brought up before, Tikkun Olam, fixing the world. It's so Jewish.
If I'm choosing the way that I eat because I care about the world and I want the world to be a better place, both for the planet and for all the creatures and creations living on this planet, that's... that's tikkun olam that's fixing the world that's because i want this world to be a better place so it's very jewish but uh still not enough jews are choosing that path in my uh opinion i want to know more about what you discovered exactly i uh recently watched
your teaching um about that dairy holiday and you can tell me more about it and um you were quoting that um jewish scholar who lived Like a long time ago and was already you know thinking and preaching about he was a rabbi. About vegetarianism and the the suffering of animals and i was really surprised like positively surprised about his existence and i was really not aware of that you know happening during that time so. Yeah,
please tell me more. Yeah, so basically, you know, Judaism is filled with laws and values and ethics and teachings. And within the laws of Judaism are laws that obligate us to show compassion for animals obligate us. It's not a choice, it's not a suggestion, it's an obligation. There's laws on the books that you cannot cause unnecessary pain and suffering to animals, that you need to show compassion. And, you know, we've been around for over 3 ,000 years, so we have
lots of books. You know, there's the book, the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, but then there's also all kinds of commentaries and other books and anything from Jewish law to Jewish mysticism and Jewish philosophy and everything in between. And so many Jewish rabbis, leaders, and writers have talked about throughout the generations about this, about compassion for animals. One very famous one is Rabbi Moshe Kordavero, who
lived 500 years ago in Israel. He wrote about that if someone disparages, if someone shows disrespect to an animal, what they're really doing is disrespecting God, because God created that animal, which is a very powerful teaching. The class that you were referring to specifically about the holiday we recently had called Shebuot, which is a holiday that we commemorate and celebrate the giving of the Torah Mount Sinai over 3 ,000 years ago, eventually became known as like the
dairy holiday. It's not an obligation to eat dairy, but because Torah is compared to milk, you know, for various reasons, one, because milk gives life to newborn animals. So to Torah gives life. So there's no obligation whatsoever to eat dairy on Shavuot, but it became a custom. Judaism, like other traditions, is filled with customs as well, not obligations, but customs, which is a beautiful thing. Customs are beautiful
traditions. But when a tradition gets in the way of an obligation, in this case eating dairy which causes incredible and immense pain and suffering both physically and emotional to God's creatures to eat those foods on a holiday that celebrates the giving of the Torah by God makes no sense whatsoever. We're celebrating, you know, our tradition through causing pain and suffering to God's creatures. That just doesn't make sense.
So the rabbi whose teaching I shared in that class, his name was Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kulk. He lived from 1865 to 1935 and he was very, very holy visionary of a man. You know, we don't have prophets these days anymore, but if we did he would be included in them. He really saw the world in a very different way and he wrote quite
a lot. He wrote a lot in general, but included in his teachings he wrote about animal welfare and about eating animals and how the original diet that was given to humanity in the Garden of Eden through Adam and Eve, which was a purely plant -based diet, as it says in chapter one of Genesis, verse 29, that that was the ideal, that that was the ideal, and that one day we're
meant to return to that ideal. And so he wrote about that, he brought it into his own life, and yeah, he was one of the few rabbinic leaders to really talk about it in such a direct way. talk to Jews about all of that. What is their first reaction? I get a lot of pushback, a lot of pushback, specifically with all due love and respect to my Orthodox, my fellow Orthodox Jews, especially from Orthodox Jews. They say a lot of the things that they say are the same things
I've heard from many people. many times. Well, God let us eat animals so there's no problem. It's kosher. That's all I care about. That's all I have to care about is that it's kosher. My rabbi does it. That means I can do it. My rabbi eats it so I can eat it. These are classic kind of responses and I always have my answers that I share back with them. Yeah, it's very much kind of rooted in like I'm allowed to so I do. Right? God let us eat animals, so I do.
So don't tell me I can't or I shouldn't. And my response almost always is, it's yes, obviously, God gave us permission, right? Like we just said that God gave a purely plant -based diet in the Garden of Eden. That lasted until the generation of the Flood and the generation of Noah, after which, you know, after the Flood God then changed the diet and allowed humans to eat animals, the main word there is allowed, not obligated them. And so I always share back with them, it's like,
yes, we do have the permission. Clearly, Judaism allows us to kill animals for food, right, in a very specific way, something called shchita, which is kosher slaughter, but we're allowed to, we're allowed to for sure. But if we're doing that in a way that's going against other obligations of the Torah, like not causing pain and suffering to animals. So what are we doing? We're doing something that's, you know, permissible, but in the process we're breaking a law that's an
obligation. So how do you justify that? I don't really usually ever hear a good answer to that question. I'll be honest with you. You mentioned that this work of confronting people and convincing them to become vegan and care about animals, you consider that holy. What did you mean by that? Good question. I think it's connected to something you guys said before, is that of all the things that we do as humans, I really believe that our food choices, what we eat, has the greatest
impact in so many different ways. on the world, on the planet, on creation. What I eat will impact the earth. It will impact the soil, the water, the atmosphere. It'll impact other humans. It'll impact other creatures, of course. It'll impact my health. It'll impact my family. It's pervasive.
It's one of the few things that we do in our lives that has such a... diverse and wide -reaching impact and so when we and in addition to that we have you know we have desires for good tasting things and tavot as we call them in Hebrew like lusts and desires and it's not always easy to to hold ourselves back and to to not give into them especially if they're permissible right I'm allowed to eat a steak I'm allowed to eat burgers right I'm allowed to have a barbecue
with you know meat hot dogs and the like. And when we overcome that desire for the sake of a value that takes a lot of strength, that takes a lot of self -discipline, and when that action of ours, when that change is for the sake of creating a better world, which is the ultimate mission and vision of Judaism, that's holy. That's holy. You're sanctifying life. What does it mean, holy? In Judaism, something that's holy is something that's been sanctified. Why is Shabbat holy?
Because it's been sanctified. It's being elevated. And we're supposed to do the same thing with the world. We're supposed to sanctify this world. We're supposed to make this world a dwelling place for holiness, for godliness. And when we choose actions, for the sake of that, with that in mind, with that intention in order to make this world a more godly place, that's holy work.
Do you feel like the vegan community is investing enough in supporting religious, not movements, but organizations, activists, because I feel like the best argument we can make for people to become vegans is a religious argument. I think that to make real change in this world, we have to focus on the religious aspect of this whole equation. I feel like we focus too much on the economic aspect of it. And I see, you know, lots of street activists and so on making the ethical
argument for veganism. But then, like you mentioned before, if I take my moral, ethical cues from my rabbi, who are you to tell me, you know, what is ethical or not? Of course, we are all capable of, you know, being independent in our thoughts and mind, but there are people we consider moral authorities in our life. And so why aren't we doing more to reach those people, to support those, you know, Rabbi, Imam, Buddhist monks and priests that make the the argument for veganism?
Another very good question. I think that a lot of people, I mean, I think we clearly see it in our world today. A lot of people are turned off to religion. People, even though I think we religious people see the real beauty and even purity of religion, we're still human beings and not everyone who is, quote unquote, religious or a member of a certain religious path. and community lives up to the values and the highest values of that religious community and path.
And I think people today, a lot of people are turned off to religion and by religion because they see it as something that has been corrupted and they see a lot of corruption in religions. And even though that's not the essence of religion, that's human error. on the part of religious people. They kind of, you know, put it all together and they throw out religion. So I think there's a weakened interest in religion in general in
our society today. And even if, you know, you were to target the people who are connected to religion, they often use those same arguments as like, where God created us as higher than animals, we're allowed to use anything we want in this world. We're better than the animals. So I don't have to think about this stuff. So don't tell me that I have to. And they have their own religious arguments, you know, against our religious arguments. So it makes it very challenging
in that sense. But I think it's easier for most activists today to hold on to the ethical arguments, and that the religious arguments, though in my eyes, they're one and the same. Where do ethics come from? Ethics are rooted in these religious traditions. But yeah, and I'll be honest with you, I think there's not that many religious vegans out there, there's not enough for them to be known about, seen, heard. And so therefore their time, energy and resources are going to
be invested elsewhere. Yeah, I'm thinking more and more, you know, what are we doing, creating fake meat in laboratory when there's this whole lane of developing the religious argument for veganism, that it is, you know, unexploited and pretty much neglected. And, you know, all the resources and funding goes to playing Dr. Frankenstein with, you know, lab -grown meat. Yeah, I agree. I'm totally on that page with you. I find it
so interesting. You know, the way I look at it, he says, God created a world filled with food, filled with a diversity of colorful and and beautiful and nourishing and delicious food, why are we going into a laboratory investing tons of money and tons of energy and resources, right? This is an energy -intensive process that they are trying to perfect for the market. He said, why, why are we doing, we can take all that money and put it to education, into outreach, into
all kinds of things. And we don't need that. We, I can get my health and nutrition from things that are already just simply growing in the world. I'm also a bit confused by it. Yeah. I'm, I, I used to look at this lab grown meat as, um, you know, using religious terminology, the Messiah, you know, I was thinking this will come, this will be developed and then it will be the end of animal exploitation. Nowadays, I'm thinking more and more that it won't, for many different
reasons. I think that this fight is a religious fight, this fight is a cultural fight, this fight is a psychological fight, societal fight, not an economic one. changes. We will make and there has been tremendous changes on that front, but caused by, you know, economic pressure, but it won't resolve the problem, you know. But yeah, that's my opinion. Okay, let's talk about antisemitism. I think we cannot just, you know, have a conversation about Judaism and just, you know, forget about
this, go over it. I did an episode on anti -Semitism in the vegan community. And I was thinking of you and how this must complicate your work in reaching out to to Jews because, you know, you're trying to make the religious argument for veganism and you're trying to influence Jews to adopt a vegan lifestyle. But then they look at the vegan community and there isn't, you know, a welcome party, you know, waiting for them quite the opposite. So this must really complicate
your work. Very much so. Very much so. Um, already before October 7th, 2023 and way more since. Um, I remember years ago, I wrote this little booklet about Judaism and the environment and included in that was about animal welfare and our food choices. And I tried to put it, excuse me. I tried to get into, um, religious bookstores in New York and the first story I went to, the first thing that the book owner said is like,
oh, is that that PETA stuff? I saw their advertisement comparing, you know, animal suffering to Holocaust, you know, victims. That was horrible, right? So right away, you know, there was this negative kind of perspective on the movement, you know, how dare they take something that's so sensitive to us Jews and use it in their campaigns. Right? That was years ago. That was like 25 years ago,
if not more. But more recently, you know, more and more activists have been showing up and doing protests at something you might be familiar with called Kippot, which is a ritual that Jews do before Yom Kippur, which is all about asking God for forgiveness. Most of the Jewish world does it with money that then gets given to those
who need it. Some, a minority, but unfortunately enough, in the ultra -orthodox community, you do it with chickens, live chickens, and they wave them around their head, and then they slaughter them right there on the spot, and it's a whole mess. It's a horrible, horrible mess, and me as a Jew, I'm totally against it, and many Jews are against it. They can still continue to do
it. What happens is that oftentimes, you know, non -Jewish animal welfare activists will show up at these places and they just are screaming at them and they start you know being so offensive to them and so these orthodox jews see them as like the representation of the animal welfare movement and the vegan movement and they're just like see look how they act look what they're doing to us this is anti -semitic they're they're coming out here and they're getting involved
with our religious rituals and things like that so that's just another example which has been a big turned off, at least in the Orthodox world. But by far the greatest damage to Jewish vegans and the general vegan world and movement has been post -October 7th. I've talked to countless Jewish vegetarians and vegans since then. and they just told me how they've been ostracized
by their vegan community. Many of these Jewish vegans, their vegan community was a bigger part of their life than their Jewish community was, right? Their veganism is so important to them that it was their vegan community that they went to for gatherings and for events and social connections. And then post October 7th, they see their vegan friends posting all kinds of horrible stuff about Israel. There's always that fine line between, you know, criticism of Israel, anti -Israel,
and anti -Semitism. And these people are, you know, these people are good people, you know, really open people wanting to make the world a better place. And they just felt completely... I mean, on some level, people would say to me, like... I know saying duped is a harsh and a hard word, but they felt really almost tricked, traumatized by the hate that was coming out of their fellow members of their vegan community. And they lost it all. Many of these people lost
it all. Either they were kind of like pushed out or had to leave literally for their mental health. It was very, very traumatic and I've talked to many people. About a month or two into the war, I opened up a Zoom webinar, you know, for free for people just to join. dozens and dozens of Jewish vegans came on, and everyone said the same thing, everyone talked about the
same thing. You know, this person, I know that for 15 years we've been so close in the vegan community, we've done such great work together, and now I see what they're saying, what they're sharing, what they're posting, it's like, it's horrible, it's traumatic. So yeah, anti -Semitism in the vegan community has been felt tremendously since October 7th, and it's caused a lot of Jewish vegans to go in there. I'll be honest with you, it's very unfortunate to lose trust in the general
vegan world. Obviously it's not everyone, but it's been enough people and enough times that they feel like they're not sure if those connections can ever be rebuilt. And I guess you can say the silver lining of that, the benefit of that is that the Jewish vegan community has gotten really much more inner and stronger as a result. And our kind of inner ties and connections have
become much stronger. And I've become connected to people, other Jewish vegans, who maybe I wouldn't have as a result of the anti -Semitism that has come out since October 7th. So it's unfortunate. It's real. It's there. It's visible and it's felt. And yeah, it's sad to say, but I don't know if it's reparable. I think this might be, you know, one and done thing that Jewish vegans are not going to look back to even try to repair that because it's been so hurtful and so damaging.
Yeah, that was my my next question. What is the solution to that? And is there a path to, you know, reuniting and and and having a more, I guess, healthier unity in the vegan movement, is there a way to forgive, not forget, but to amend those offenses and have a new united front in terms of pro -animal movement Or is the solution or is the path forward to create new organizations this time that will not reflect those anti -Semitic
positions? So what is it? I think it's continuing separately, doing the similar work, but doing it separately. I'm doing it within a Jewish context with other Jews. That's a safe space. It's a safer space. It's a supportive space and just too many people have seen too many things and heard too many things. I think to ever really, you know, kind of go back, you know, of course that's not everybody, but I think it's enough people and I just, I've heard it so many times.
I mean, myself, we've all, those of us in the Jewish vegan world, we've seen it so many times, like big... vegan influencers, you know, they start wearing the the kaffir and saying all kinds of anti -Israel stuff and and uh you know when their whole page was just about like vegan food all of a sudden it's about politics now and they're bringing up Israel and they're saying this about Israel and that about Israel and it's a big turn
off. I've went at the beginning of the war you know my vegan rabbi social media page up until October 7th 2023 I only talked about veganism I never talked about anything else on it on purpose. And then after October 7th, I had to. I had to talk about Israel. I had to talk about what's going on. And I lost tons of followers. I lost probably hundreds of followers, got all kinds of horrible either comments or messages. Every
now and then I still get them. But what I also saw is all these influencers using their platforms and their pages to spew a lot of hate. against Israel, against the Jewish people. And that was, I mean, people I really, really liked and really looked up to. I had to unfollow them because I couldn't see it anymore. You know, there's this one, I wouldn't say his name, but this is one vegan chef. He's got like a million followers on Instagram. And all of a sudden he's like showing
up at the cafe and saying all this stuff. Like, who are you? Like, what do you even know? What did you even know about any of this before October 7th? You know, so you watched a few TikTok videos and now you think, you know, you know everything. It's very disturbing. It's very disturbing. So it's very painful. And I'm not sure in our generation, you know, that there's going to be much healing there. So we're just continuing our work, you know, on our own and doing it together in our
way. You mentioned comparisons to the Holocaust. Now, I believe that what Peter did with that Holocaust campaign was in pretty bad taste, and that is a euphemism. But at the same time, there is work, you know, for instance, the book, An
Eternal Treblingham. And, you know, there is the fact that you can... or at least, you know, I've done it and other activists have done it to say, you know, there is a animal Holocaust, you know, I'm not going to put pictures of Holocaust victims in front of, but, you know, just saying it. Do you think that also is offensive to the Jewish community? What do you make of the book, An Eternal Treblinka, if you know about it? I'm
aware of it, yeah. It's interesting. I 100 % understand why Jews take offense to it, without a doubt. I get it. The Holocaust is still very recent in Jewish history, just about 80 years since the end of World War II and the end of the Holocaust. Many of us have family members, you know, none that we met obviously, but that we've been told about that were murdered in the Holocaust. My own family on my mother's side,
her parents were from Poland. They got out before the war, but more than half of their families were murdered in the Holocaust. So like we grew up with this stuff. Like we grew up with the Holocaust like fresh in our minds. So I get why Jews have that reaction. I think they're 100 % right. I personally, as a vegan, I get it. I get the comparison because from the perspective of the animals this is, and this is very controversial what I'm about to say, it's worse than the Holocaust.
The numbers are far greater like you said at the beginning. We're not talking about millions, we're talking about billions and that takes nothing away from the tragedy. and the horrors of the Holocaust. It takes nothing away from that. But at the same time, when we look at reality from the perspective of the animals going through the factory farming world, it is an absolute Holocaust. From the day that they're forced to be born to the day that they're forced to be
killed. So I do agree that it's a Holocaust from their perspective on a magnitude that we can't even imagine. And so I personally do not find a fence in the comparison. I don't really talk about that opinion of mine because almost even other Jewish vegans that I'm connected to, they do take offense to it and I understand that and I respect it. So I think I'm a minority opinion
on that. But I think if we understood what's going on in the factory farming world and what these animals are going through from their perspective, what they're going through, That maybe maybe we have a higher chances of people opening up their hearts and making changes So I I get Peter's tactics I get there like in your face intense like because it's real It's it is intense and it's actually happening every single second.
So I I actually understand them why they did that Do you think that we should be at a certain level? I'm comfortable with offending people in our activism. Yes, I do. People have to be shaken out of their comfort zones. And there's lots of causes. There's lots of issues. I'm sure there's causes and issues that I need to be shaken out of my comfort zone for sure. Right. I'm sure, you know. People can come up to me and say things about my lifestyle choices. Where about my clothing
from? You know, I don't buy all like, you know, sensitive and aware and conscious and organic and handmade clothing. I know my clothing comes from factories and that's a real problem. So, you know, I'm not perfect. None of us are perfect. We live in a very problematic world in terms of striving for perfection in our lifestyle choices. And I'm aware of that. But yes, I think people need to be shocked sometimes, not all the time
because then you'll lose them. But I think shock activism is proper, in the right measure, at the right time and in the right way. Because people, you know, sometimes I, you know, I might be like, you know, on my phone and I'm on Instagram and I see, you know, Half of the things I see on Instagram have to do with veganism just because of the algorithm. Um, and so I'll see a video or a picture of animal suffering. And if someone's next to me who eats animals, I'll show them that
right away. They got freaked out. Why did you show that to me? I'm like, hello, this is what you eat. You know, what are you talking about? So I think there's absolutely a space for that. Uh, we need a multi kind of, uh, multifaceted approach, but I think that's one that. It's important to use, again, in the right way and in the right measure at the right time. You said you're based in Israel. What is the state of animal welfare and animal rights in Israel? Horrible, just like
most other places. There is a relatively large vegan and vegetarian community here. statistics come out and say that Israel per capita is one of the most vegan countries in the world, which is really nice to know. And about five percent of the population is vegan. If you include vegetarians, it goes up to 13 percent, which is pretty high. But at the same time, it's a meat heavy society and animals here are treated just as poorly as in other places. So unfortunately, you know.
not much good to share when it comes to that. I feel like in Israel, but I think this is happening globally as well, like the vegan movement is growing, awareness is growing, but at the same time, the pace at which people eat animals is not slowing down. If anything, it's kind of growing. And so I feel like these two movements are growing
simultaneously and parallel to each other. So yeah, so it's nice to see the vegan expansion in Israel, but it's upsetting to see what's happening in the animal agriculture world, that it's not very enlightened and it's just as bad as other places. Five percent is a gigantic voting bloc. Why aren't we seeing more pro -animal... progress reflected in Israeli politics? Or are we that I'm not aware of? Very good question. I'll say
two things. One, there have been successes along the way in terms of animal rights and animal welfare in Israel. Certain things having to do with fur and certain kind of animal, I hate saying the word animal products, but you know, food that comes from animals, food products that come from animals, live transports. I believe if I remember correctly there was a law that was recently passed that by a certain year in the now for our future that that will be banned in Israel.
I have to look that up again to make sure that that's correct but I remember seeing that. But it's an interesting question you're asking because as you can imagine, politics here in Israel are very different than politics elsewhere because we're dealing with so many security issues and
politics here are very security driven. And so it's not, you know, like in other places where, you know, there's all these, you know, you're voting for someone because of what they say about the environment and what they say about this cause and that cause. It's like literally on some level, especially during wartime, it's like a single issue political It's like, what are you going to do for security? We're constantly
facing real intense security challenges. So what are you going to do to make the country stronger and ensure our survival? So because of that, other issues get a back burner. And while there are members of the Israeli parliament that do care about these issues and do push forward legislation that does happen, I know a couple of politicians over the last few years who are members of the Knesset, who were vegan, which was amazing. But still, it doesn't get spoken about very much.
It's really about, again, how you fight our enemies in the most effective way possible. And it really kind of takes up most of the space here politically. Yeah, that's really interesting. Sorry for being unfamiliar, but is it a proportional democracy system in Israel? Is there a place for smaller parties to win positions in the government or even elect MPs in the Knesset or something like that? There is on paper. Yes, absolutely You
know, it's not a two -party system. It's a multi -party system It's dozens of parties when you go to vote here in Israel. You literally see dozens of choices Which on one level is great, but most of them never passed the threshold. So it's kind of pointless Doesn't really have an impact and and still it's usually the same kind of seven or eight political parties that make it through. And then they're the ones who have to kind of scramble around to make a coalition.
Right. You know, the winning party gets the first chance to make a coalition. If they do great. If not, then the second one gets to and the second place is usually, you know, the opposition to the to the to the leading political party. But it does create space. And there are, you know. political organizations based on all kinds of issues, single issues as a result. But again, the problem is that they don't make it through the threshold so they don't have the impact that
they're seeking. And they're never ever involved in the coalition, if they even get through the threshold, which they usually don't, except to get a certain number of votes to get into the parliament. So a lot of people look at it as
wasted votes. Even if they care about that single issue, they're like I'm not gonna vote because they're not gonna get through I rather give my vote to this party who I believe in how they're gonna approach security issues that always goes back to that so it is very democratic in that sense, but in the end when when the coalition is coalition is actually built it's there's not a lot of if any of these single -issue parties represented Yeah, I'm asking that because I The
bet here in Canada is to get, you know, proportional democratic system in order to get power for pro animal party and make, you know, more progress. Yeah, listeners will understand, you know, I've had many conversations about that. mostly with Liz White, who's the incredible leader of the Animal Protection Party of Canada. Okay, I want to end the conversation, Rabbi, with something else you're specialized in, which is matchmaking. And I want to hear how you got into that and,
you know, What is your rate of success? And maybe if you have, you know, stories to share about, you know, happy stories about that, I would love to hear them. Great. Yeah. So I never thought I'd get into matchmaking after my vegan rather work. You know, the platform I started about four years ago, I've been doing Jewish environmental education for over 20 years. And within that, again, focus on animal welfare and veganism.
But really with the creation of Vegan Rabbi, it was definitely the most focused work and outreach that I've done in my whole life. And it's become a big part of my life and a growing part of my
life. And already within the first year of creating Vegan Rabbi, singles who are in my network... you know followers of mine on social media they got started getting in touch with me one after the other after the other asking hey i'm jewish vegan single looking for somebody do you happen to know anyone can help me and at first i'm like what do i know about any of this i'm not a matchmaker i'm not you know and then i just kept hearing from people i mean wait a minute there's something
happening here right uh the jewish world is very much focused on matchmaking but maybe there's nothing specifically for jewish vegan vegetarian singles and I did some scouring around the internet, found nothing, and I decided I'm going to do something. I had no background, no experience, but I'm going to try. And I built a database and I invited people to join it. And shortly after that, a friend of mine built like a free matchmaking website. So I kind of uploaded my
database members to his platform. And then shortly after that, I met a woman named Aliza Ben Shalom. who was the star of the Netflix show Jewish Matchmaking. She had recently moved to the town I live in in Israel. And I told her, this was before the Netflix show came out, but I knew she was a matchmaker. And I told her about what I was starting to get into. She was like, wow, we should talk. And I told her about what I was doing. She actually used to be vegan, interesting enough. She's no
longer now. But I told her what I was doing and she invited me to train with her. I'm like, wow, I get to train with this top matchmaker. That's amazing. So I did a whole training with her. And then she invited me to join her team and her staff. which I did for over a year and a half. I recently left a couple of months ago, but basically that was just incredible experience learning the ins and outs of the, of the world of matchmaking and dating coaching. And that's
become a part of my life as well. And so, you know, specifically since, um, leaving working with her, I've been kind of like investing my energies more again, uh, in my niche. in the Jewish matchmaking world for Jewish, vegan, vegetarian singles. I have a whole network of hundreds and hundreds of people and people reach out to me. You know, they heard about me, they get my number from somebody, they tell me their story, they share their bio and ask if I know of anybody.
So, you know, I have lots of people in my network, lots of people I keep in mind and then there's some people I work with, like actually like in a very official one -on -one way in terms of whether it's dating coaching or full -on matchmaking.
It's an ancient Jewish art, Jewish matchmaking, and you know, it's really based on these values that we're talking about and I understand it because I was in the same place many, many years ago when I was dating and looking, you know, to meet someone and looking to get married that I wanted to, one of the top, if not the top things on my list that was so important to me is that someone who shares this lifestyle with me, shares these food choices and lifestyle choices with
me and these you know, the concern for the environment, for animal welfare. That was very, very top of the list for me. And I met, you know, different women, different great women, but not always did they share that passion and that compassion until I did, and that was my wife. And so the singles who I'm connected to with now or work with, I very much understand where they're coming from. Because again, I went through that. I was
in that same place many years ago. And just for me, it's just, you know, to bring two people together is an incredible thing in and of itself. And to bring two, you know, people with shared values about the environment and about the animal welfare and about human health and protection of our world is even for me, even greater. So it's, you know, to build, to help two people come together, who will then build a home based on those values and raise children with those
values. It's just, you know, talk about trying to change the world. It's, it's, it's one of the ways, you know, to make the world a better place. I know I said, you know, last question, but I lied. So you mentioned shared values. We often hear about chemistry, how important it is to have chemistry, but I feel not enough about shared values. Can you comment on that? Yeah, look, you know, again, I talk to all kinds of people. I'm in touch with vegan singles, or have
been, or currently am. Like, I can only date a vegan. Only date a vegan. There's no way, you know. And then I know vegan singles who are like, you know, ideally she's vegan, but if she's vegetarian, that's fine as well. And even people like, you know what, I'm very open, you know, as long as
we match up in other ways. And hopefully she'll... come towards my side you know or vice versa like a girl talking about a guy so I meet all kinds of people right but yeah you know for for the majority of them the shared value aspect is very very important and and they're just like I don't I don't want to open up my fridge and see you know, see chicken and steak and all these different things and it's really really important to them and they want their kitchen to be a reflection
of their values and they want their spouse to also share in that. So it's really really important. Shared values is just so important in terms of relationships and marriage in general but especially for vegans and vegetarians who have made very specific choices in their life. And their lives and their lifestyles reflect that when it comes to finding someone to spend, God willing, the rest of their life with, this is just a very,
very high importance and will help. It's not a guarantee, but it will definitely help to strengthen the bonds between them and to maintain the strength of their bonds. I want to ask more questions because we're going to actually record a special episode just about that with also, you know, vegan activist couples who will be participating in this group conversation. I'm really looking forward to having that conversation because every time I open social media, I feel like it's one
of the top issue. People asking questions or commenting about how it is tough to find someone who's vegan. or being in a relationship with someone who's not vegan comes with a whole lot of troubles. And I feel people need help navigating the dating world, at least vegans. But yeah, I'm looking forward to that conversation. Same here. It was a great conversation to have. Looking forward as well. Wonderful. Rabbi, did you have anything to add before I stopped the recording?
First of all, just say thank you so much for this opportunity to speak with you and about this very important topic. Really a pleasure and an honor. And just really to sum up, you know, kind of what we're focusing on before that, you know, I think a lot of people today look at veganism as extreme and vegans as extreme. But really, when you look at the root of it all, it's like We're just trying to be like nice people.
We're trying to be the best people that we can be and try to create the best world we can create. It's really so much about such a basic value of creating a better world, more goodness in the world. Like who doesn't want less pain and suffering in the world? You know, who doesn't want more health in the world? Who doesn't want more wholeness and wellness in the world? That's
what it's all about, right? And I think it's important for people to know that and I think it's important for us vegans to kind of broadcast that and share that in our messaging so people can really understand where we're coming from and why we're doing this work. Wonderful, great parting words. Again, Rabbi Akiva, thank you so much for your time and for answering my questions. Thank you everyone for listening. I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans you
know. Let's encourage more people to take action. Again, thank you so much for caring and I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.