The Retirement of heebnvegan

Dear Readers,

On August 27, 2005, I started heebnvegan as a vegan voice in the Jewish blogosphere. I've accomplished more with this blog than I ever expected, but after five years, I have decided to retire the blog.

To some readers, heebnvegan is nothing more than the sum of its parts: a collection of more than 360 individual posts. While I am certainly proud of many of the posts exploring the intersection between Judaism and animal protection, among other issues, heebnvegan has become so much more to me.

Thanks to heebnvegan, I have furthered my knowledge about Jewish and vegetarian issues. heebnvegan has been a vehicle for me to grow my Jewish identity and understand my compassion for animals in greater depth. It has given me a platform to write op-eds, letters to the editor, and guest posts and to speak at a synagogue, a university's religious studies class, and another university's Hillel. heebnvegan has put me in touch with bloggers and other people who are doing great work in the Jewish community and given me the opportunity to interview the world's foremost Jewish vegan, musicians I admire, and people who devote their lives to making this world a better place. It has given me a great conversation-starter for academic and professional networking as well as numerous social situations. It's allowed me to feature voices that deserve to be heard through guest posts, and it's enabled my ideas and writing to be quoted from and referred to on other blogs and Web sites. And I certainly appreciate all the complimentary books, CDs, and admission to events I've received along the way.

As some readers know, I have undertaken an exhaustive reevaluation of my dietary habits of late. This quest has led me to eat processed foods less frequently, and it has reaffirmed my decision not to eat fish. As I question my dietary habits and come up with slightly different takes on the same overall picture, I'm left with one cardinal rule that I've hammered home time and time again: Tza'ar ba'alei chayim (unnecessary animal suffering) is the norm, not the exception to the rule, in modern animal agriculture. The best way to avoid causing animals unnecessary suffering is to stop consuming the products of cruel animal agriculture.

Thank you to everyone who read heebnvegan and helped keep this blog alive for so long. Thanks to The Jew & The Carrot, Failed Messiah, Jewish Vegetarians of North America, and VeggieJews for inspiring and informing the plurality of heebnvegan's content. And last but not least, Baruch Hashem.

Sincerely,

Michael Croland
Editor, heebnvegan