Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism: Studies and New Directions ed. by Jacob Ari Labendz and Shmuly Yanklowitz (review)

Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism: Studies and New Directions, edited by Jacob Ari Labendz and Shmuly Yanklowitz, is a collection of essays by scholars and practitioners of Judaism, vegetarianism, and veganism. Contributors draw from a range of fields, including literature, history, religious studies, linguistics, and biomedical engineering. They include scholars, artists, rabbis, Jewish educators, and activists in organizations dedicated to advancing vegan and vegetarian diets. The book is divided into two sections, the first "studies" being broadly speaking descriptive academic work and the second, "new directions," being broadly speaking normative or political work. That said, as the biographies indicate, many of the scholars are practitioners and sometimes these overlapping identities are evident in their essays.

The range and scope of the essays in this book is truly impressive. In the "studies" section, we see a stunning work on why and how the Talmud approaches animal suffering, and why it (and we) are sometimes deeply moved by it and at other times utterly indifferent; an excellent historical exploration of a moment between World Wars I and II, when anti-kashrut laws made it impossible to buy kosher meat, such that Jews, and in particular, Jewish women, turned to vegetarianism as a way to maintain Jewish practice; studies of both vegetarianism and animal suffering in Jewish literature; an exploration of vegetarianism and veganism in the Jewish punk community; an argument for vegan and Jewish identities as tied together by a particular ecological worldview, paired with a deeply nuanced exploration of how that worldview is lived out in the Jewish community farming movement; and a linguistic study of how Israelis define and understand animal suffering, in both English and Hebrew. These essays offer a range of motivations for vegetarianism and veganism, ranging from the need to comply with Jewish law to an awareness of animal suffering to ecological concerns. They also note tensions between Jewish practice and vegetarian or vegan diets—whether that is the difficulty of creating a "milk" section of the Shabbat dinner table for the one vegetarian in the family, while everyone else eats meat; the fact that the Talmud does not, unilaterally, reject animal suffering; or the fact that it is extremely difficult to make a satisfactory vegan matzo ball, and that veganism makes the avoidance of kitnyot (legumes) an extremely "steep challenge" during Passover.

The "new directions" section of the book is similarly broad in its scope. Particularly captivating essays cover the potentially uncomfortable reality that Jewish understandings of covenant may well allow for the eating of well-cared for domestic animals (but not wild animals for whom humans have not cared) and the idea that musar calls upon Jews to "restrain their appetites," such that a "contemporary engagement with musar can also help us cultivate a willingness to put aside the pleasures of eating animal product." (208) A particularly disturbing but intriguing article articulates a rationale linking Jewish veganism to the inherited trauma of the Holocaust. The editors of the volume also contributed compellingly in this section, with one arguing, Jeremy Bentham-like, that we owe our fellow animals rights and compassion because, despite a myriad of differences from us, they experience pain and the other arguing that veganism can provide a deeply valuable Jewish identity for those who find neither religion nor ethno-nationalism compelling.

The diversity of the essays in this book are both one of its strongest points and also its greatest challenge as a teaching tool. The essays themselves are methodologically diverse, including voices by scholars, artists, activists, and journalists and the multiple methods add both texture and dilemma to the volume. On the one hand, this diversity is extremely useful if one wants to use a food justice as an organizing theme for an introduction to Jewish studies, as one can see history, ethnography, survey-based social science, literature, and Jewish thought represented. The...