Alex Hershaft

"I was always bothered by the idea of hitting a beautiful, living, innocent animal over the head, cutting him up into pieces, then shoving the pieces into my mouth. I finally made my decision to stop eating animals when I came upon a ritual slaughter scene during a visit to Israel. My experiences in the during the Nazi Holocaust had a profound impact on my subsequent life choices. I felt some guilt that I lived when so many others didnt, and a sense of duty to redeem my survival by assuming their share of responsibility for making this planet a better place to live for all its inhabitants."

"In the midst of our high-tech, ostentatious, hedonistic lifestyle, among the dazzling monuments to history, art, religion, and commerce, there are the black boxes. These are the biomedical research laboratories, factory farms, and slaughterhouses—faceless compounds where society conducts its dirty business of abusing and killing innocent, feeling beings. These are our Dachaus, our Buchenwalds, our Birkenaus. Like the good German burghers, we have a fair idea of what goes on there, but we dont want any reality checks."