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The reaction of Agi Mishol, one of Israel’s most acclaimed poets

“This earth shattering speech demonstrates exactly what I’ve read in Patterson’s Eternal Treblinka (a partial quote from writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote: “…In relation to them [the animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.“).

“Our country’s roads are full of trucks transporting cows with branded numbers on their backs, full of trailers carrying cages with chickens in them, packed to suffocation. And we, a people who went through a holocaust, we see these sights but something has gone bad in us, as if it weren’t the exact same thing, as if there was a difference between the material of life we’re all made of, humans and animals alike. The moment your children begin to realize that “poultry” is nothing but the chicken from their story books, and that “meat” is the cow in the book who goes “Moo” – that’s the time to awaken the sightful spot, which in most people turns into a blind spot over the years.”

Agi Mishol