Surely The Most Intense Outreach Event So Far!

On October 2nd, exactly a year ago, at the end of a long and intense day of an animal rights and veganism seminar to mark World day for Farm Animals, I experienced the most intense outreach event I have ever had!
We finished after midnight, and that was only because I had no other way to get home if I stayed.

The great Assaf and I were so busy talking that we only managed to take one picture, but it is certainly reflective of what went on there. Throughout most of the evening, there were conversations with a large number of participants at the same time. People who don’t know each other simply gathered around us and had a long and in-depth discussion, on the street, about procreation, and about suffering in the world and how to deal with it. There were quite a few people who stayed at the outreach for over an hour, and at least three that I remember stayed for over two hours!
I’m so sorry that since we were both so busy talking non-stop, we weren’t able to film any of this on video.

The highlight for me was that at a certain point someone told me something like, “Okay, that’s all well and good, but who are you going to convince with this message?” Then a guy who was standing in this circle, and up until that point hadn’t said or asked anything but simply listened, said to her: “Me!” Everyone got really quiet. Then he continued, “He just convinced me right now.” Others insisted that it couldn’t be that in a few minutes he had been convinced of something like that. The guy replied something like, “It was in my mind, and I had thought about the issue in the past, but not in a sufficiently organized and orderly way, and now this discussion has put things in order, and I am convinced.” He also added that he couldn’t know what he would think in five years, but that right now it sounds to him like the only thing that makes sense in this world!

And the guy didn’t just say it, he did it. Because a lot of people had gathered in our area, at a certain point he simply started talking to other people who were on the edge of the central circle and also helped inside the circle.
To this day, I’m kicking myself for not recording anything from that crazy evening. On the other hand, if something like this were on video, it would seem staged.

During the Tel Aviv Food Festival, towards the ending of each evening, large circles also form around us and a large-scale conversation takes place. But this is different. During the Food Festival, this is more due to the fact that many people are gathered in one place, and that they encounter an unusual message, and most of them come from an opposing place that I try to neutralize. In contrast, what happened at the outreach event I am telling about was a spontaneous meeting, on a regular evening, without any special event taking place in the area, and yet quite a few people decided to dedicate their time and energy to talking about suffering in the world and what can be done about it. It was really moving. I really hope that I can tell about more days like this in the future.