Polish Parliament Heeds Paul McCartney’s Appeal Declaring ‘Isaac Bashevis Singer Day’

For Immediate Release:

22 November 2018

Contact:

Dan Mathews 917-403-4567; [email protected]

POLISH PARLIAMENT HEEDS PAUL MCCARTNEY’S APPEAL

DECLARING ‘ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER DAY’

Nobel Prize–Winning Jewish Author and Vegetarian Advocate Honored Decades After His Death

Warsaw, Poland – In advance of his December 3 concert in Kraków, Sir Paul McCartney sent a letter urging the Polish Parliament to honor Jewish icon Isaac Bashevis Singer on the late Polish writer and vegetarian campaigner’s birthday, November 21. Yesterday, Polish MP Paweł Kukiz granted the request in a public declaration read aloud by the Speaker at a parliamentary session in Warsaw.

McCartney’s appeal has created much buzz in Poland this week, as can be seen in this English news article.

Writing on behalf of PETA, McCartney aimed to bring Singer’s message of compassion to a new generation of Polish people: “An early outspoken vegetarian, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature 40 years ago, and although he died in 1991, his words of wisdom live on in a recent PETA video short hosted by Natalie Portman.”

The heroes Singer’s bestsellers championed women’s issues, gay rights, and especially animal rights. “I did not become a vegetarian for my health,” Singer once declared flatly. “I did it for the health of the chickens.”

In his autobiographical novel Shosha, the Jewish icon famously wrote, “We do to God’s creatures what the Nazis did to us.” In “The Slaughterer,” which he wrote for The New Yorker, he tells the story of a young man who loves animals but is appointed his town’s ritual slaughterer. Tormented by the cruelty of his actions, the man ponders the roots of violence. Singer wrote, “As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.”

McCartney’s letter can be found here. For more information on ways to help animals, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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