{"id":3302,"date":"2015-10-02T08:41:50","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T16:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/?p=3302"},"modified":"2015-10-02T08:41:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T16:41:50","slug":"how-animal-rights-activist-gary-yourofsky-turned-8-of-israel-vegan-after-comparing-slaughterhouses-to-the-holocaust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/2015\/10\/02\/how-animal-rights-activist-gary-yourofsky-turned-8-of-israel-vegan-after-comparing-slaughterhouses-to-the-holocaust\/","title":{"rendered":"How animal rights activist Gary Yourofsky \u2018turned 8% of Israel vegan\u2019 after comparing slaughterhouses to the Holocaust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deni Kirkova for Metro.co.uk<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Gary<\/a>

Gary Yourofsky – credit: Gary Yourofsky\/Facebook<\/p><\/div>\n

Gary Yourofsky is a name that will ring a bell with most vegans.<\/p>\n

The animal rights activist, from Detroit, Michigan, is credited with singlehandedly turned more people vegan \u2013 including 8% of Israel \u2013 than anyone else in the world, after an hour-long speech he gave at Georgia Tech was recorded, translated into Hebrew, and\u00a0shared on social media.<\/p>\n

In it Gary, 45, who is Jewish himself, controversially calls slaughterhouses \u2018concentration camps\u2019 and compares the treatment of animals to the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

The speech, which was recorded in the U.S., is now the most-viewed in Israel\u2019s history, and is thought to have been\u00a0the cataylst for a large portion of Israel\u2019s population to go vegan.<\/p>\n

Indeed, according to Israeli media<\/a>, Yourofsky is responsible for increasing Israel\u2019s vegan population from 5% to 13%.<\/p>\n

Gary has also been arrested 13 times, is banned from entering Britain (despite never having been convicted of a crime or visiting) and\u00a0Canada and has spent time in a maximum security prison after raiding a fur farm.<\/p>\n

Here, in his own words, Yourofsky tells Metro.co.uk his argument for a meat-free lifestyle \u2013 and explains why he thinks his words have converted so many.<\/p>\n

\"Gary
Gary says: \u2018The fundamental rights of life, liberty and bodily integrity, rights that every person demands or takes for granted, should not be exclusive to humans\u2019 (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018As a so-called intelligent and civilised species, how can we justify artificially impregnating\/raping female animals so we can steal their babies after birth so those babies, along with the mothers, can be enslaved, raped and eventually murdered, too?<\/p>\n

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\u2018The great Jewish humanitarian Isaac Bashevis Singer once explained: \u201cWhat do they know \u2013 all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world?<\/p>\n

\u2018They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Writer
Writer Isaac Bashevis Singer in Paris, France, 1978 (Photo by Ulf Andersen\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Singer\u2019s indictment is probably the most damning statement ever about humankind.<\/p>\n

\u2018It establishes the fact that violence is violence and murder is murder even if the victims have beaks, horns, gills, feathers or fur. Animals were the first victims of slavery, oppression and murder, which is how humans perfected these psychotic techniques for use on each other.<\/p>\n

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\u2018The fact that Heinrich Himmler, the Gestapo commander who created the Jewish Holocaust\u2019s gas chamber system, was a mass murderer of chickens before orchestrating the mass murder of humans makes the aforesaid point impossible to impugn.<\/p>\n

\u2018If you drove to the nearest cow or chicken slaughterhouse and removed the animals and replaced them with Jews \u2013 or mentally-retarded people, black people and Gypsies \u2013 Birkenau would be resurrected. So the question I want you to ponder most is how come when cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys and fish are victims, everyone forgets how to think clearly and be compassionate?<\/p>\n

\u2018The global atrocity of eating animals and wearing animal skins is responsible for the mass murder of more than 150 billion innocent animals annually. If you added up all the humans who have been enslaved, raped and murdered since the beginning of time, you wouldn\u2019t even approach the 1 billion mark.<\/p>\n

\"(Picture:
(Picture: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018The Animal Holocaust remains the most massive and longest-running murder campaign of all time. And it makes veganism the most important aspect of animal rights because almost every animal who is abused and killed on this planet is abused and killed by the meat, dairy, egg and honey industries, despite the fact that humans have no right \u2013 nor need \u2013 to commodify animals and turn them into sandwiches and shoes.<\/p>\n

\u2018The fundamental rights of life, liberty and bodily integrity \u2013 rights that every person reading this piece demands or takes for granted \u2013 should not be exclusive to humans.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Small groups of people should not have to constantly convince the masses to stop enslaving and murdering groups of innocent beings, animal or human.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fortunately, the Holy Land has been listening to the animal rights message and responding with sanity, compassion and clarity. And that\u2019s because in 2010, a few Israeli activists put Hebrew subtitles on my 70-minute vegan lecture (recorded at Georgia Tech) and shared it extensively on social media.<\/p>\n

\u2018That speech is now the most-viewed speech in the history of Israel with well over 1 million hits. With a population of 7 million, that means one in seven Israelis has seen it.<\/p>\n

\"Gary
Gary Yourofsky lecturing in Israel (Picture: Gary Yourofsky)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Since so many people were yearning for more information, I embarked on one of the most effective animal rights campaigns ever for six weeks in 2012-13, giving around 25 lectures in packed theatres and colleges in Jaffo, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Be\u2019er Sheva, Givatayim and Haifa.<\/p>\n

\u2018I also conducted more than a dozen interviews with newspaper, radio and TV outlets. The results have been astounding.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Before Hebrew subtitles were added to my speech, Israeli media reported that 5% of the population was vegetarian\/vegan. The estimates have now risen to 13%, with meat and dairy sales dropping 7%.<\/p>\n

\u2018The demand for vegan products forced T\u2019nuva, the largest dairy producer in Israel, to release four soy yogurts, while Domino\u2019s added vegan cheese to all of its 50 locations, and more than 700 restaurants converted 25% of their menus to vegan fare.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the controversial speech in full:<\/em><\/h2>\n