June/July
2002
Special
Section: Animals and the Holocaust
Reviews of Eternal Treblinka
Book Review by Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.
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When I first learned that Charles Patterson was going to write a book
about “our treatment of animals and the Holocaust,” I had
some misgivings. I was aware that some animal rights advocates had made
superficial, misleading comparisons between the treatment of animals
on factory farms and the treatment of Jews and others in the Holocaust,
and I knew that this had hurt the vegetarian/animal rights cause by
giving people an excuse to avoid considering the many negative effects
of animal-based diets. However, I was an early endorser of Patterson’s
project because I felt that we needed new, creative ways to alert people
to the horrors of modern intensive livestock agriculture, and my knowledge
of his character, sensitivity, and background convinced me that he
would
be an ideal person for this project.
Charles Patterson’s first book—Anti-Semitism: The Road to
the Holocaust and Beyond—received much acclaim. Judaica Book News
stated, “It deserves a place in every home, school and public library...excellent
background reading in Jewish history and the history of western civilization.”
He is a Holocaust educator who has reviewed books and films for 18 years
for Martyrdom and Resistance, a publication of the International Society
of Yad Vashem (Israel’s Center for Holocaust studies).
Now that I have read the completed book, I feel that my confidence in
his ability to carry out this project was well placed. The book is very
well researched (with almost 700 endnotes), and it is written with great
sensitivity and compassion. Eternal Treblinka does not equate animals
and people. Rather, it shows how the frequent vilification of people
as rats, vermin, pigs, insects, beasts, monkeys, etc. dehumanizes people
and makes it easier to oppress, enslave and murder them. He documents
many examples of this process, relating it to the treatment of slaves,
Native Americans, Japanese people during World War II, Vietnamese people
during the Vietnam War, and others.
The book carefully shows how the enslavement (“domestication”)
of animals became the model and inspiration for all the oppressions
that followed. In particular, Patterson documents a trail from slaughterhouse
production lines to Henry Ford’s assembly lines for the mass production
of automobiles to Hitler’s methods in the extermination of Jews
during the Holocaust.
This book has helped me understand how the exploitation and oppression
of animals has been a major part of human history and how the degradation
of humans by vilifying them as animals has justified horrific treatment
of people. It has inspired me to increase my efforts to promote vegetarianism
and animal rights. Patterson’s extensive and positive discussion
of Jewish teachings about tsa’ar ba1alei chayim, the Torah mandate
to avoid causing “sorrow to living creatures,” is very welcome.
A problem is that in the opening chapter Patterson states that some
historians and environmentalists blame the Genesis verse, in which
God
grants people dominion over the earth, for western civilization’s
destruction and despoliation of the environment. By failing to mention
traditional Jewish interpretations of this verse that define dominion
as responsible stewardship rather than as domination, he may leave the
mistaken impression that the exploitation of animals and the environment
is religiously sanctioned. The biblical teaching that humans are granted
dominion over animals does not give people a warrant to wantonly exploit
animals. It certainly does not permit us to breed animals and then treat
them as machines designed solely to meet human needs. Jewish tradition
interprets “dominion” as guardianship, or stewardship: we
are called upon to be co-workers with God in improving the world. This
view is reinforced by the fact that immediately after God gave humankind
dominion over animals (Genesis 1:26), He prescribed vegetarian foods
as the diet best suited to humans (Genesis 1:29). To the author’s
credit, however, once alerted to this omission, Patterson agreed to
correct the matter in future editions of the book and has added my article
giving traditional Jewish sources on this issue to the book’s
Web site (www.powerfulbook.com).
While not discussed in this book, a second error of some animal activists
(as well as those who exploit animals) is the presumption that the
biblical
teaching that only people are created in the Divine Image means that
God places little or no value on animals. While the Torah does state
that only human beings are created “in the Divine Image” (Genesis
5:1), it also makes it clear that animals are also God’s creatures,
possessing sensitivity and the capacity for feeling pain. God is concerned
that they be protected and treated with compassion and justice. In fact,
the Jewish sages state that to be “created in the Divine Image”
means that people have the capacity to emulate the Divine compassion
for all creatures. “As God is compassionate,” they teach,
“so you should be compassionate.” Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch,
a leading 19th century Jewish thinker, discusses this concept: “You
can know God only through His acts of love and justice; and, in turn,
you too are called upon to act with love and justice.” Concerning
the biblical concept that human beings were created to “serve and
safeguard the earth” (Genesis 2:15), Rabbi Hirsch states that this
actually limits our rights over other living creatures. He writes: “The
earth was not created as a gift to you. You have been given to the earth,
to treat it with respectful consideration, as God’s earth, and
everything on it as God’s creation.”
If only these biblical verses and other Jewish teachings on compassion
to animals were correctly understood and applied, the many examples
of human and animal abuses that Patterson so cogently considers might
have been prevented.
The connections between the mentality and methods behind the oppression
of animals and the oppression of human beings that are documented in
this important and timely book have great potential to stir Jews (and
others) to start to apply these verses in Genesis and other Jewish
teachings
on the proper treatment of animals, and thereby to help shift the world
from its present perilous, inhumane path. I hope that Eternal Treblinka
will be widely read, that its message will be extensively applied for
the benefit of both humans and animals, and that it will help lead
to
that day when, in the words of Isaiah (11:6), “no one shall hurt
nor destroy in all of God’s Holy mountain.”
Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D., is the author of Judaism and Vegetarianism,
Judaism and Global Survival, and Mathematics and Global Survival. He
is a frequent public speaker and contributes articles on environmental,
health, and other current issues. Visit jewishveg.com/schwartz to read
some of his articles. He is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the
College of Staten Island. This is an edited version of a review that
appeared in the March/April issue of Martyrdom and Resistance. Reprinted
with kind permission.
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