Vegan Revolution

The global authority on Judaism and animal protection describes the grave challenges and exciting opportunities for repairing the world and saving the planet.

For over four decades, Richard Schwartz has engaged with two ethically rich ways of living that, as he charts in this book, he came to appreciate in middle age: Judaism and veganism. Having been born into a secular Jewish family, it was his marriage and an increasing commitment to social justice that propelled him to study and rediscover the essence of his Jewish faith. That sense of social justice further raised his awareness of the environmental movement, and, ultimately, to animal rights and veganism.

In Vegan Revolution: Saving Our World, Revitalizing Judaism, Schwartz shows how, now perhaps more than ever, veganism offers a pathway for all of us of whatever faith (or no faith) to reduce hunger, conserve the environment, save water, reinstitute justice, and care for animals and the Earth. It is no coincidence, as Schwartz demonstrates, that many of these ideas are mandates in Jewish scripture, and that reincorporating a care for the world (tikkun olam) can itself reinvigorate the spirit of a faith and galvanize its practitioners to act.

“This pioneering book by Richard Schwartz, the world’s greatest living authority on the teachings of Judaism on protecting animals and nature, provides nothing short of the revolution in our way of thinking and acting that is now required in efforts to avert a climate catastrophe and other environmental disasters. This compelling, magisterial book is a must read. Its message must be heeded. Our future depends on it.”—Lewis Regenstein, author Replenish the Earth