This should be a moment of opportunity for the animal rights movement. The case against eating animals — for ethical, environmental and health reasons — has never been stronger. Covid-19 may have begun at a live animal market in Wuhan and, so far, the virus has infected more than 41,000 workers at US meat and poultry slaughterhouses, according to the Food and Environmental Reporting Network,

All of that and more could have been fodder for this year’s Animal Rights National Conference, which was going to be held, virtually, in July.

Then it was cancelled — largely because of the behavior of Alex Hershaft, who started the event nearly four decades ago.

Hershaft, who is 86, is a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and a pioneer of the animal rights movement. He has a powerful personal story to tell. The Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), which he started in 1976, says it is the US’s first organization dedicated to protecting animals raised, abused and killed for food. When VegNews imagined a vegan Mount Rushmore, Hershaft’s face was carved into rock. This summer, Hershaft created his own Animal Rights Hall of Fame and installed himself as a member. Humble, he is not.

Unhappily, Hershaft failed to adapt to the times or listen to multiple warnings about his behavior. He ran FARM out of his home, repeatedly exposing staff members to pornography (and occasionally to his half-clothed torso). He has been hostile to feminists and supported men credibly accused of sexual harassment. He was slow to showcase women and people of color at the conference, and to respond to allegations of sexual harassment at the event.

You can read the rest of this story on Medium.

My wife Karen Schneider and I gave away about nine percent of our pretax income in 2019. Like most people, I delayed my charitable giving until the end of the year--a bad practice, because nonprofits have needs all year--so I’m just now writing my annual blogpost about where the money went. The Life You Can Save, a nonprofit inspired by the moral philosopher Peter Singer, has a calculator that recommends the percentage of your income that you should give, as well as an excellent list of top charities.*

My biggest gift went to GiveDirectly, which makes unconditional cash grants to people living in extreme poverty. Give Directly is my favorite charity. In 2018, I traveled to Rwanda to see how the organization operates and talk to recipients of its grants. I could say a lot about GiveDirectly but my biggest takeaway from the trip was this: The money that well-to-do Americans spend on a few restaurant meals, or for a single night in a nice hotel, is enough to make a meaningful difference to the life of a poor person in Africa. If you care about inequality--and it seems that more and more people do--there’s no better charity than GiveDirectly.

Next on the list is GiveWell, a donation platform that identifies and analyzes effective charities in depth. If you want to do the most good you can for each dollar that you spend on charity, GiveWell is essential. Most of the money it raises flows to charity that improve global health, in particular by helping poor people protect themselves against malaria.