--- title: "Lifelong Vegetarians - IVU - International Vegetarian Union" description: "Lifelong Vegetarians: Pictures and Comments from the Cybercafe Lifetime vegetarian, married to Elizabeth Tepper (also a lifetime vegetarian); reared four children as vegetarians. A grandchild is a fourth generation vegetarian." url: "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews/4235-congress-wvc96-lifeveg.html" date: "2026-11-06T00:18:07+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- # Lifelong Vegetarians **Lifelong Vegetarians** Pictures and Comments from the Cybercafe ![[David D. Konviser]](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/congress/wvc96/david_konviser.jpg) Lifetime vegetarian, married to Elizabeth Tepper (also a lifetime vegetarian); reared four children as vegetarians. A grandchild is a fourth generation vegetarian. Co-founder and secretary treasurer of The Vegetarian Youth of New York. Member of the board of directors of the Vegetarian Society of New York during the post world war years. Family ran The Vegetarian Hotel in the Catskill Mountains for sixty seven years. **David D. Konviser** Greenbrook, New Jersey, USA ![[Elizabeth Tepper Konviser]](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/congress/wvc96/elizabeth_tepper_konviser.jpg)My father, Isaac Tepper, was born in the Ukraine in 1897. At the age of 8, he became a vegetarian on his own, against the pressure and bribes of his parents. They said he was crazy, and he actually believed it until he read about Tolstoy. I am a lifetime vegetarian, and so is my husband, David Konviser. We have four children who are third generation vegetarians on both sides of the family, and we have one grandchild, who is a fourth generation generation vegetarian. **Elizabeth Tepper Konviser** Green Brook, New Jersey ![[H. K. Shah]](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/congress/wvc96/h_k_shah.jpg)I was born in India as a Jain. Our local Jain community is about 50,000 Jains, and worldwide we are about 5,000,000 persons. My wife and I have been vegetarian all our lives. We hope to produce a vegetarian food fair in New York City, and a vegetarian restaurant and a vegetarian educational center. We have produced an organization named Vegetarian Vision to do this organization. We enjoy good vegetarian food, like we have found at this World Vegetarian Congress is quite good, and like we will have served at our vegetarian food festival in New York City on November 24. **H. K. Shah** Edgewater, New Jersey, USA ![[Malti Shah]](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/congress/wvc96/malti_shah.jpg)We are Jains and have been vegetarian all our lives. With my husband, I am involved in Vegetarian Vision, an organization that will produce a vegetarian food fair in New York City, and a vegetarian restaurant and a vegetarian educational center. This World Vegetarian Congress is quite good. We enjoyed the food immensely, but please attend our vegetarian food festival in New York City. **Malti Shah** Edgewater, New Jersey, USA ![[Vivien Bray]](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/congress/wvc96/vivien_bray.jpg)I am 21 years old, I was born and raised vegan. My grandparents were greatly involved with the UK Vegetarian and Vegan Societies. My parents also met through the Vegan and Vegetarian Societies. I have been living in Putnam County, New York State for the last year as an au pair. I look after 2 children ages 4 and 1 years who are vegetarian, as part of a cultural exchange. Over the last year I have also had the opportunity to visit my aunt and uncle, Freya and Jay Dinshah who run the American Vegan Society, in Malaga, NJ. I am helping them with the [NAVS](http://www.cyberveg.org/navs/) Bookstore this week at the conference. **Vivien Bray** Flitwick, Bedford, England A note on this archive. The history section of this website is drawn from a body of legacy content originally compiled by John Davis, former manager of the International Vegetarian Union. It represents his curation of historical material, and in places includes passages written by him directly. Over the years, the IVU website has migrated between several different hosting servers. In the course of these migrations, a number of PDF files were unfortunately lost, and **some links to PDF documents may no longer function**. Where this is the case, we have chosen to leave the original link text in place, as it may itself carry information of historical value. - Hits: 1232 ## Schema ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://ivu.org/hv-congress-main-congress-wvc96-index.html?view=article&id=4235:congress-wvc96-lifeveg&catid=203","url":"https://ivu.org/hv-congress-main-congress-wvc96-index.html?view=article&id=4235:congress-wvc96-lifeveg&catid=203","name":"Lifelong Vegetarians","inLanguage":"en","isPartOf":[{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#archive"},{"@id":"https://ivu.org/hv-congress-main-congress-wvc96-index.html"}],"publisher":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#organization"},"description":"Lifelong Vegetarians Pictures and Comments from the Cybercafe Lifetime vegetarian, married to Elizabeth Tepper (also a lifetime vegetarian); reared four children as vegetarians.","about":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#wvc-1996"}}]} ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://ivu.org" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "IVU", "item": "https://ivu.org/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Resources", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Interviews", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "name": "History of the Vegetarian Societies", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 6, "name": "congress", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 7, "name": "wvc96", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 8, "name": "Lifelong Vegetarians", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews/4235-congress-wvc96-lifeveg.html" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews/4235-congress-wvc96-lifeveg.html" }, "headline": "Lifelong Vegetarians", "description": "Lifelong Vegetarians: Pictures and Comments from the Cybercafe Lifetime vegetarian, married to Elizabeth Tepper (also a lifetime vegetarian); reared four children as vegetarians. 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