Some are family; others are food

I was fascinated by the review of Jonathan Safran Foer’s book “Eating Animals” [“What’s Wrong With How We Eat,” Nov. 8]. As a Holocaust survivor myself, I have been unable to countenance the eating of animals since the war and often reflect on the parallels between the Germans and Poles ignoring the reality of extermination camps in their midst and our own blissful ignorance of the animal Treblinkas in our communities.

As Susan Salter Reynolds points out, the forthcoming Thanksgiving observance offers an uncommon opportunity to take a personal stand against our collective cognitive dissonance about the animals we call family and the animals we call food.

Alex Hershaft

Bethesda, Md.