A Holocaust survivor led a Los Angeles protest in front of meat-processing plant where some 1.5 million pigs are slaughtered annually, in a move he says was influenced by his experiences in the Warsaw ghetto.
Alex Hershaft, founder of Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), traveled to California from his Washington D.C.-area home to mark Tuesday’s World Farm Animal Day in a demonstration in which two people were arrested.
“As a Nazi Holocaust survivor, I am honor-bound to call public attention to this ongoing tragedy,” he said. “Indeed, my 37-year struggle to end the use of animals for food has been inspired largely by my experience of the Nazi Holocaust in Poland.”
“Obviously, I am not equating the millions of my fellow Jews slain tragically in the 1940s and the millions of pigs slaughtered every week for U.S. dinner tables, for we differ in many ways. Yet, we all share a love of life and our ability to experience many emotions, including affection, joy, sadness, and fear.
He says he draws inspiration from Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer: “For the animals, [life] is an eternal Treblinka.”
oy vey!
Yes, he is absolutely equating pigs with holocaust victims. What a jerk..
@ Alan Greene, yes, what a jerk using a personal tragedy to relate to a group of victims of torture and being the voice of those who can’t speak up for themselves. What a jerk indeed. Don’t bother looking at the actual issue of how we treat animals or his own words when he says that he’s NOT comparing pigs and holocaust victims because they suffer differently. BTW you think he’s offending holocaust victims? Well guess what, he’s actually been through it and I’m gonna go ahead and guess that you probably haven’t. I think that little fact alone buys him the right to compare his experience in the holocaust to whatever the hell he wants.