The Jewish Vegetarian Society is to rebrand after more than 50 years, with its chair saying that its current name “does not reflect where we are now”.
Dan Jacobs, the chair of the organisation’s board of trustees, said that the question of changing its name was “something that has been discussed for a long time.
“For several years we have only promoted veganism. We recommend a vegan diet, all of our events for several years have been vegan, all the recipes on the website, that kind of thing.”
The JVS was formed in the 1960s, following a letter from Vivien Pick to the JC inquiring as to whether there were like-minded vegetarians who wanted to meet. Since then it has set up chapters in a number of different countries, as well as an affiliated society in Israel.
“Historically when the society was formed there was a lot more of a justification for vegetarianism,” Mr Jacobs explained.
“In that time, the last 50 or 60 years, the industrialisation [of the food industry, with battery farming] has taken place, and it’s much harder to be ethical on a vegetarian basis.”
Mr Jacobs confirmed that a “consultation has been put out to our members, to ask them what they think of a name change.
“We’ve had a robust conversation with people expressing their views. We’ll look at that in January, see the response we’ve had back, and then have some internal conversations about it.”
However, he said he “doubted very much we’ll end up with ‘vegan’ in the new name.
“I think it’s more like the [current] name doesn’t reflect where we are now, but also we don’t want to be like ‘the Jewish Vegan Society’ because I think that would put people off.
“We want to be inclusive. Being a vegetarian is great, we don’t want to say ‘being a vegetarian is terrible’. We’re definitely not a binary organisation. We recommend that the ideal is veganism, but if you’re a meat eater who understands the issues and is interested and is trying to reduce – anyone in that field, from reducetarian all the way through to vegan, anyone along that spectrum is very welcome, there’s no point just preaching to the converted.”
Mr Jacobs said that he personally, as well as the society, “don’t like advocacy that is very aggressive and confrontational.
“Before I was vegan, I wasn’t vegan - I was still a good person, and it’s the same with everyone else. We all come to understanding at different points of our lives. We’re trying to be as inclusive an organisation as possible. So the name change which we’re consulting on at the moment is a part of that.”
