Jewish Animal Welfare Group Pushes Synagogues To ‘Go Vegan’

Image by YouTube

By Ari Feldman July 27, 2017

A Jewish animal welfare group is providing grants for U.S. synagogues to “go vegan” for one year. The Shamayim V’Aretz Institute will donate $5,000 to five synagogues to help offset the costs of only providing food on Shabbat and holidays that contain no animal products whatsoever.

“Veganism is one of the fastest-growing trends in America aimed at improving human health, supporting the environment and reducing animal suffering,” Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz, the founder and CEO of the Shamayim V’Aretz Institute, told PlantBasedNews.org. “The Jewish community needs to show leadership, but there is not one vegan synagogue in America yet.”

The Shamayim V’Aretz Institute, founded in 2012 to put “animal welfare on the Jewish agenda,” counts Mayim Bialik, a star of the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” as one of its founding members.

Contact Ari Feldman at feldman@forward.com or on Twitter @aefeldman.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at feldman@forward.com. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO