Man's carnivorous nature is not taken for granted or praised in the fundamental teachings of Judaism. The rabbis of the Talmud told that men were vegetarians in earliest times, between Creation and the generation of Noah... Judaism as a religion offers the option of eating animal flesh, and most Jews do, but in our own country... a whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual leaders... has been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching. They have been proclaiming the autonomy of all living creatures as the value which our religious tradition must now teach to all of its believers...

Quoted in The Animals' Agenda, Volume 9, Animal Rights Network, 1989, p. 32