A Sacred Duty

A Sacred Duty, subtitled Applying Jewish values to help heal the world, is a 2007 60minute documentary from Jewish Vegetarians of North America JVNA, written and produced by Lionel Friedberg. The film focuses on Jewish teachings about caring for the earth, treatment of animals, and the environment, with a focus on vegetarianism. Interviews with rabbis, activists, and scholars are interspersed with footage and stills illustrating the points being discussed.

The scene shifts once again to the Earth from space, as the camera moves in to focus on Israel. The narrator then uses that country as a microcosm of current global problems related to air and water pollution, overpopulation, climate change, health concerns, etc. The film moves on to look at problems globally, with scenes shot all over the world. The focus then shifts to the United States where all the relevant issues are discussed in detail.Reference is made to the United Nations FAO 2006 report, Livestocks Long Shadow, which makes the claim that livestock agriculture produces more greenhouse gasses than all the worlds vehicles combined. Next comes a brief presentation, illustrated with simple animated charts, on how meat production is an inefficient way to produce food for a hungry world. This moves into footage of animal abuses on feedlots and factory farms and the pollution produced by these facilities. The film then focuses on the advantages of vegetarianism for reducing pollution and solving world hunger. With a change of diet toward vegetarianism, the film asserts, many of these environmental and health problems can be solved. After some fastmoving images of people and nature accompanied by music, the film ends with the same statement from Deuteronomy about life and death, voiced over a sunrise. ........

Source: Wikipedia