By, Jonathan Korn, Editor

The Reform Synagogue Youth Movement (RSY) have released a strongly worded statement attacking the traditional eating of cheesecake on Shavuot, on the grounds that it perpetuates cruelty to animals.

The vegan group accused “Orthodox bigots” of “torturing our precious cows in order to stuff their planet-destroying, animal-hating faces”. 

RSY have caused controversy in the past after members walked out of a Rosh Hashanah shofar blowing last autumn and held a rival event, which “Did not require the brutal murder of a ram in the prime of his life”.

It isn’t just the cheesecake eating that has aroused the hostility of elements of the Reform and Liberal communities. Accusations have also been levelled at the 10 Commandments, believed to have been given by God to the Jewish people on Shavuot. 

One Reform youth leader, for example, claimed that the commandment to “honour thy mother and thy father” was “worryingly heteronormative”. Harry Speedwell, 19, argued in a Facebook post that this sort of language was “really problematic”, and that his youth group had no alternative but to no-platform God for his offensive comments. 

“It’s the only way to show people that Reform Judaism doesn’t tolerate prejudice in any form”, Speedwell told Oy Vey Magazine.