Update: On May 5, 2005, PETA issued an apology for its "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign. In a letter to the Jewish community, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said she realized that the campaign had caused pain: "This was never our intention, and we are deeply sorry."  While ADL would have preferred that the apology had come earlier, it welcomed the letter and expressed hope that PETA would no longer engage in efforts to compare the slaughter of animals to human suffering in the Holocaust.

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New York, NY, October 14, 2003…The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) continued its denunciation of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for its "Holocaust on Your Plate" project for trivializing the murder of six million Jews and called its appeal for approval by the Jewish community "outrageous, offensive and taking chutzpah to new heights."  The PETA exhibit was unveiled in New York City's Duffy Square, the heart of the theater district.

Last February, when the PETA campaign began, Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, a Holocaust survivor and the author of Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism, issued the following statement:

The effort by PETA to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent. PETA's effort to seek "approval" for their "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign is outrageous, offensive and takes chutzpah to new heights.

Rather than deepen our revulsion against what the Nazis did to the Jews, the project will undermine the struggle to understand the Holocaust and to find ways to make sure such catastrophes never happen again.

Abusive treatment of animals should be opposed, but cannot and must not be compared to the Holocaust. The uniqueness of human life is the moral underpinning for those who resisted the hatred of Nazis and others ready to commit genocide even today.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.