Our Mission

The mission of CHAI and Hakol Chai is to prevent and relieve animal suffering in Israel and to elevate consciousness about animals through education. We strive to foster empathy, respect, and responsibility toward all living beings, and to inspire and empower people, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian, to recognize the interconnectedness of all life and to make compassionate choices for the good of all.

We believe that animals do not exist to serve human needs, and we are opposed to the exploitation of animals in all its forms. CHAI and Hakol Chai approach the challenge of reducing animal suffering with concurrent initiatives. Some of these efforts result in abolishing a particular form of abuse, while others result in regulations that reduce abuse through incremental changes. Nevertheless, we believe that all animal exploitation must ultimately be abolished and not merely regulated.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

— Alice Walker (in her Foreword to The Dreaded Comparison, by Marjorie Spiegel)

It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of anything else.

— Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), Guide for the Perplexed

CHAI's Advisory Board

CHAI's Israel-American Advisory Board includes:

Eva Berriman, BVSc (Veterinarian, author, teacher and developer of horse welfare courses)

Holly Cheever, DVM (Vice President of the New York State Humane Association, Vice President of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, humane educator and award-winning animal-cruelty investigator)

Murry Cohen, MD (Co-Chair of the Medical Research Modernization Committee)

Paula Kislak, DVM (President of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights)

Rabbi David Rosen (International Director of  Interreligious Relations, American Jewish Committee, former Chief Rabbi of Ireland and former Dean of the Pinchas Sapir Center for Jewish Education and Culture, Jerusalem)

Jessica Sandler (Director, Regulatory Testing Division, Research and Investigations Department, PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)

Richard H. Schwartz, PhD (Professor Emeritus, Mathematics, The City University of New York, author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, Judaism and Global Survival, Mathematics and Global Survival)

Sheila Schwartz, EdD (Chairperson, NYC United Federation of Teachers' Humane Education Committee)

Advisory Board members until their deaths:
Cleveland Amory, Rabbi Sidney Jacobs, Congressman Tom Lantos, and Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer

CHAI's Founding Director is Nina Natelson.