Kalechofsky, Roberta

Roberta Kalechofsky, Ph.D., born May 11, 1931, is an American writer, feminist, speaker, essayist, and animal rights activist, focusing on the issue of animal rights within Judaism and the promotion of vegetarianism within the Jewish community.

Kalechofksy attended Brooklyn College, receiving her B.A. in 1952, followed by an M.A. and a Ph.D. both in English literature from New York University in 1956 and 1970. She has taught at the University of Connecticut and Brooklyn College.

In 1975, she founded Micah Publications or Micah Books, which specializes in the publication of animal-rights, Jewish vegetarian, and Holocaust literature, including The Jewish Vegetarian Year Cookbook and Judaism and Animal Rights: Classical and Contemporary Responses . In 1985, she founded Jews for Animal Rights.

She is the author of Animal Suffering and the Holocaust: The Problem with Comparisons (2003), as well as seven works of fiction, poetry, two collections of essays, and a monograph on George Orwell. Micah Publications has published two haggadot for a vegetarian seder, one of which, Haggadah for the Liberated Lamb, has been exhibited at Harvard University in an exhibit on food and politics, and at the Jewish Museum in New York.

She is married to Dr. Robert Kalechofsky, a retired mathematics professor from Salem State University. They appear together representing Micah Books at publisher, writer, vegetarian, and animal rights events around North America.

From the guide to the Roberta Kalechofsky Papers, 1896-2009, (Special Collections Research Center)