Alex Hershaft is an American animal rights activist, Holocaust survivor, and co-founder and president of the Farm Animal Rights Movement, the nation's oldest organization devoted exclusively to promoting the rights of animals not to be raised for food.
23 Facts About Alex Hershaft
2.
Sabina and Alex Hershaft were liberated by the allies in the spring of 1945.
3.
Alex Hershaft went on to study polymer chemistry at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.
4.
Alex Hershaft then spent a year running the chemistry department at the Israel Institute for Scientific Translations in Jerusalem.
5.
In 1967, Alex Hershaft joined the Grumman Aerospace Corporation in Bethpage, New York, to review potential areas of new business in air and water pollution control, and solid waste management.
6.
Alex Hershaft joined the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton in Bethesda, Maryland, to evaluate water management alternatives, impacts of electric power plants and transmission lines, and costs and benefit of data from the Earth Resources Technology Satellite.
7.
Alex Hershaft spent a couple more years directing environmental studies for the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Council on Environmental Quality with two erstwhile consulting firms: Enviro Control and Interstate Electronics Corporation.
8.
Alex Hershaft studied emissions from various heating fuels and prepared protocols for assessing and cleaning up hazardous waste sites as part of the US Superfund program.
9.
Alex Hershaft had been involved in student extracurricular activities throughout his undergraduate and graduate studies.
10.
Between 1965 and 1978, Alex Hershaft served on the board of the American Humanist Association, a national organization that affirms the ability and responsibility of human beings to lead ethical and fulfilling lives without reference to a supernatural being.
11.
In 1961, shortly after arriving in Israel, Alex Hershaft dropped meat from his diet.
12.
In 1976, Alex Hershaft founded the Vegetarian Information Service to distribute information on the benefits of a vegetarian diet.
13.
Accordingly, in the summer of 1981, Alex Hershaft organized Action For Life, a national conference at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that effectively launched the US animal rights movement.
14.
Immediately following the 1981 conference, Alex Hershaft founded the Farm Animal Rights Movement to promote a vegan lifestyle and animal rights.
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Alex Hershaft currently serves on the Advisory Council of Jewish Veg.
16.
Alex Hershaft has written several hundred letters to newspaper editors about the merits of a vegan diet.
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Alex Hershaft has been listed in Marquis' Who's Who in America, American Men and Women of Science, and other biographical directories.
18.
Alex Hershaft has been inducted into both the US Vegetarian Hall of Fame and the US Animal Rights Hall of Fame.
19.
Alex Hershaft is an honorary fellow of the International Vegetarian Union.
20.
Between 1984 and 2000, Alex Hershaft served on the governing council of the International Vegetarian Union.
21.
Alex Hershaft met Eugenie Krystal while working at the Israel Institute for Scientific Translations, and they were married in Jerusalem in 1962.
22.
Alex Hershaft became a vegetarian in 1961 and a vegan in 1981.
23.
Alex Hershaft has been physically active throughout his life, mostly by playing soccer on various school and county teams, running marathons in the early 1980s, and more recently, by engaging in weekly folk dancing and swimming.