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| '''Holocaust on your Plate''' was a controversial exhibition mounted by ] in ]. It was funded by an anonymous ]ish ],<ref name=Teather>Teather, David. "'Holocaust on a plate' angers US Jews"], ''The Guardian'', March 3, 2003.</ref> consisted of eight 60-square-foot panels, each juxtaposing images of the ] with images of ]. Photographs of concentration camp inmates in wooden bunks were shown next to photographs of battery chickens, and piled bodies of Holocaust victims next to a pile of pig carcasses. Captions alleged that "like the Jews murdered in ]s, animals are terrorized when they are housed in huge filthy warehouses and rounded up for shipment to slaughter. The leather sofa and handbag are the moral equivalent of the lampshades made from the skins of people killed in the ]."<ref name=SmithHolocaust>Smith, Wesley J. , ''San Francisco Chronicle'', December 21, 2003.</ref> | The '''Holocaust on your Plate''' was a controversial exhibition mounted by ] in ]. It was funded by an anonymous ]ish ],<ref name=Teather>Teather, David. "'Holocaust on a plate' angers US Jews"], ''The Guardian'', March 3, 2003.</ref> consisted of eight 60-square-foot panels, each juxtaposing images of the ] with images of ]. Photographs of concentration camp inmates in wooden bunks were shown next to photographs of battery chickens, and piled bodies of Holocaust victims next to a pile of pig carcasses. Captions alleged that "like the Jews murdered in ]s, animals are terrorized when they are housed in huge filthy warehouses and rounded up for shipment to slaughter. The leather sofa and handbag are the moral equivalent of the lampshades made from the skins of people killed in the ]."<ref name=SmithHolocaust>Smith, Wesley J. , ''San Francisco Chronicle'', December 21, 2003.</ref> | ||
| Wesley J. Smith of the ] wrote in ''The San Francisco Chronicle'' that: "Making odious moral equivalencies between animal husbandry and the worst crimes against humans has become a PETA trademark."<ref name=SmithHolocaust/> ] of the ] said the exhibition, which was shown in San Diego, New York, and the University of California in Los Angeles, was "outrageous, offensive and takes ] to new heights ... he effort by Peta to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent."<ref name=Teather/> The Jewish ] (ADL) denounced the campaign<ref name=ADL1>Press Release , February 24, 2003</ref> and PETA eventually issued a weak apology<ref name=ADL2>Press Release , ADL Website, August 2, 2005</ref>. The ] urged animal-rights groups to avoid holocaust comparisons, saying that "the issue should stand on its own merits, rather than rely on inappropriate comparisons that only serve to trivialize the suffering of the six million Jews and others who died at the hands of the Nazis."<ref name=ADL3>Press Release , ADL Website, August 2, 2005.</ref> | Wesley J. Smith of the ] wrote in ''The San Francisco Chronicle'' that: "Making odious moral equivalencies between animal husbandry and the worst crimes against humans has become a PETA trademark."<ref name=SmithHolocaust/> ] of the ] said the exhibition, which was shown in San Diego, New York, and the University of California in Los Angeles, was "outrageous, offensive and takes ] to new heights ... he effort by Peta to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent."<ref name=Teather/> The Jewish ] (ADL) denounced the campaign<ref name=ADL1>Press Release , February 24, 2003</ref> and PETA eventually issued a weak apology<ref name=ADL2>Press Release , ADL Website, August 2, 2005</ref>. The ] urged animal-rights groups to avoid holocaust comparisons, saying that "the issue should stand on its own merits, rather than rely on inappropriate comparisons that only serve to trivialize the suffering of the six million Jews and others who died at the hands of the Nazis."<ref name=ADL3>Press Release , ADL Website, August 2, 2005.</ref> | ||
Revision as of 18:16, 13 August 2006
The Holocaust on your Plate was a controversial exhibition mounted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in 2003. It was funded by an anonymous Jewish philanthropist, consisted of eight 60-square-foot panels, each juxtaposing images of the Holocaust with images of factory farming. Photographs of concentration camp inmates in wooden bunks were shown next to photographs of battery chickens, and piled bodies of Holocaust victims next to a pile of pig carcasses. Captions alleged that "like the Jews murdered in concentration camps, animals are terrorized when they are housed in huge filthy warehouses and rounded up for shipment to slaughter. The leather sofa and handbag are the moral equivalent of the lampshades made from the skins of people killed in the death camps."
Wesley J. Smith of the Discovery Institute wrote in The San Francisco Chronicle that: "Making odious moral equivalencies between animal husbandry and the worst crimes against humans has become a PETA trademark." Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League said the exhibition, which was shown in San Diego, New York, and the University of California in Los Angeles, was "outrageous, offensive and takes chutzpah to new heights ... he effort by Peta to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent." The Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) denounced the campaign and PETA eventually issued a weak apology. The Anti-Defamation League urged animal-rights groups to avoid holocaust comparisons, saying that "the issue should stand on its own merits, rather than rely on inappropriate comparisons that only serve to trivialize the suffering of the six million Jews and others who died at the hands of the Nazis."
PETA defended the campaign. The project's website cited Jewish Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote of animals: "In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.". Singer's words were actually spoken by a character in his novel "Enemies: A Love Story." The exhibition was supported by Singer's grandson, Stephen R. Dujack, when it traveled to New York. The creator of the campaign, Matt Prescott, who is Jewish and lost several relatives in the Holocaust, told The Guardian: "The very same mindset that made the Holocaust possible — that we can do anything we want to those we decide are 'different or inferior' — is what allows us to commit atrocities against animals every single day ... The fact is, all animals feel pain, fear and loneliness. We're asking people to recognise that what Jews and others went through in the Holocaust is what animals go through every day in factory farms."
PETA has used Holocaust imagery before. A television public service announcment entitled "They Came for Us at Night," which aired on U.S. cable networks and in Warsaw, Poland in July 2003, "showed the outside world through the slats of a boxcar and is narrated by a man (with an accent) who describes the plight of being transported with no food and water," according to the Anti-Defamation League, and drew an analogy between the plight of animals being transported to their deaths in cattle cars with Jews in the same situation during the Holocaust. Newkirk has been quoted as saying "Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses."
References
- ^ Teather, David. "'Holocaust on a plate' angers US Jews"], The Guardian, March 3, 2003.
- ^ Smith, Wesley J. "PETA to cannibals: Don't let them eat steak", San Francisco Chronicle, December 21, 2003.
- Press Release "ADL Denounces Peta for its 'Holocaust On Your Plate', ADL Website Campaign; Calls Appeal for Jewish Community Support 'The Height Of Chutzpah', February 24, 2003
- ^ Press Release "Holocaust Imagery and Animal Rights", ADL Website, August 2, 2005
- Press Release "Animal Rights Group Should Take the Lead of PETA and Stop Using Holocaust Imagery", ADL Website, August 2, 2005.
- "Eternal Treblinka", Peta.org
- "Group blasts PETA 'Holocaust' project", CNN, February 28, 2003.
- "Grandson of Celebrated Jewish Author Brings Giant Graphic Display to Show How Today’s Victims Languish in Nazi-Style Concentration Camps", Peta.org, October 9, 2003.
- <Rabbi Avi Shafran, [http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/25916/format/html/displaystory.html "This time PETA's guilty of missing the point", Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, May 20, 2005