Staging a Silent Protest; This Vegan is in Jerusalem

Yesterday I arrived to Jerusalem for a five-day leadership conference sponsored and organized by an organization called Masa Israel. I have met people from all over the world here. I'm guessing there are about 200 participants. But more on that in a later post.

One of the planned activities for today is taking place in the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo right now as I write this. Instead I am in the hotel. Yesterday I mentioned to one of the staff members that I didn't feel comfortable going to the Zoo. He told me that at the Zoo we wouldn't see the animals, we would just be going to use the space for our activities.

The Zoo is less than a mile from our hotel. I joined the group for the walk to the Zoo, but when I got close to the entry gates, I simply couldn't enter. There were banners in the front of the Zoo with pictures of nonhuman animals' faces. I couldn't go in.

Entry gates to the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem

I found a staff member and she tried to assure me that a lot of the animals are either in the process of being rehabilitated before being reintroduced to the wild, or, they are on the brink of becoming extinct. I haven't decided how I feel about human animals intervening in the existence of other animals- BUT I do know that I don't believe nonhuman animals should be forced to exist to serve as a form of entertainment for human animals. Perhaps if they were able to give consent then I would not be opposed ... but who knows if we will ever be able to communicate with nonhuman animals in the same way that we communicate with human animals.

The point is: I would not want someone to take me away from everything I know as normal and then put me in a confined area where I can't leave, with little-to-no privacy. I'd feel like I was living in a glass house. What kind of life is that?

So alone, I walked back to the hotel and, silently, I protested.

And though my protest is silent in decibels, it will be heard with more strength than a loud revolt. I am getting inside people's brains. Other participants at this convention are are probably wondering, where is Rebecca? And when they ask me later tonight where I was, I will have the opportunity to explain to them why I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to enter into a this type of 'prison.' And so the seed is planted.

The seeds in their heads will grow. They will ask more and more questions. We will have a dialogue, and not because I brought it up in conversation (I will never bring up my views on this subject out of the blue), but because they did - they want to know. People are intrigued by other people who break from the norm - especially when the norm is their norm.

Later in the week or the month I imagine that at least one person from this convention will in their own time look more into veganism and the movement for recognizing the inalienable rights of nonhuman animals. And to me, if I can just spark a little interest in one person, I, along with others who are doing the same, can change the world. We may be small, but we are mighty. Rome wasn't built in a day ... right?

It would have been easier for me to turn a blind eye and say, I am just one person - what does it matter if I go in there? But that is the problem, I would know. And I would not be able to forgive myself. And I am not just one person, I am my person, and so I have to do right by me.

So I didn't go to the Zoo.