By COLlive reporter
Anti Kapparos activists, opposing the age-old Jewish ritual before Yom Kippur, are planning to hold a Yizkor memorial service for the chickens.
The “candlelight vigil” is scheduled to take place in the predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park in sympathy of “the 60,000 chickens killed during the Kaparos ritual.”
Organizers said that want to “acknowledge the suffering of the 60,000 baby chickens tortured and killed in the streets of New York City every year during the ritual of Kaporos.”
Organizers claim that young chickens are stacked in transport crates on city streets, often for days leading up to the ritual, without food, water, or protection from the weather.
They also accuse those following the practice of swinging the chickens “cruelly and painfully by their wings,” while practitioners recite the verses transferring their sins and punishment symbolically onto the birds, who are then slaughtered.
The vigil is being organized by the group “Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos,” an association of groups and individuals battling the use of chickens in Kaporos ceremonies with money or other non-animal symbols of atonement.
“Most people who practice Kaporos swing a sack of money and donate the money to charity. While practitioners claim the chickens’ flesh is donated to ‘the poor,’ it is well-documented that the majority of the birds go directly into garbage bags and landfills,” said Rina Deych, RN, and Founding Member of the Alliance.
“Using chickens not only violates 15 laws and regulations including public health codes, sanitation laws, child labor laws, slaughterhouse regulations, and animal cruelty laws, but also several mandates and imperatives from the Torah and Talmud,” Deych said.
A recent article on COLlive by Rabbi Sruli Schochet of Los Angeles asserts that Orthodox Jews should be aware that these protests are “not just about kaparos.”
“When a Jewish custom is under attack, even something as innocuous as the color of our shoelaces – if challenged on a religious level – one needs to even give up one’s life defending it (Sanhedrin 74a),” Schochet wrote.
“The same people that want to do away with kaparos, want to do away with shechita, with circumcision, with anything that they feel offends their concept of ‘humane.’
“If we don’t take prophylactic measures now to fight this, unify in a mass showing of attending kaparos, ensuring that our holy traditions will not be pushed aside, we may G-d forbid be sitting around in twenty years wondering how we let things get this far,” he wrote.
that is 100 percent true. The way they handle these chickens in crown heights is an absolute chilul Hashem to such a high degree. all that said, I don’t understand why doing Yizkor helps. at all.
and “child labor”? what the heck…
Usually I see the people in Crown Heights who handle the chickens know what they’re doing, but this year I was in a different place and I was shocked at how they were being handled. Not by the people who came to use them, but by the person taking them out of the cage and handing them to people. I saw him holding chickens by one leg while they were flapping their wings, I saw him holding chickens by one wing while they were flapping the other, and I was afraid they could become treif, chas vesholom. If a chicken… Read more »
There is NO SOURCE for using money. The whole point of kaporos is the exchange of a life for a life, so how can that happen with money? What do you do, burn the money?! Kaporos is NOT about tzedokoh. It is about the shechitoh and nothing else. Tzedokoh is something that happens afterwards. You have a dead chicken, what should you do with it? The minhog is either to give it to the poor, or to exchange it with money and give that to the poor. But that has nothing to do with the kaporoh, which is already over.… Read more »
You got that exactly 100% correct!
These are the same people pro choice/….are chickens more important than human life??
I honestly believe animal activists care more for animals than they do for people.
Money is a perfectly acceptable halahkic alternative to using chickens. This is not an attack on the practice of Kapparot.
There are some that are asking about the meat going to the poor. The Alter Rebbe in shulchan aruch writes that besides doing kapporos there’s also a custom to shecht it and give it to the poor, which means that it’s not necessarily a part of the original kapporos! Not only that, but he actually writes that it’s better to give the money for the chicken to the poor person, but not the actual chicken (because it’s embarrassing for the poor person to accept it). I have to admit that I’m not sure if we’re supposed to eat it or… Read more »
I want all these chickens to end up as kosher meat that poor people can actually eat. Wasted treif chickens don’t help anyone
Which train do I take?
While your doing yizkor might as well do the whole thing
This is hysterical
You’re correct and also wholesale slaughter of cockroaches, rodents, etc. with no regard as to how. These ‘compassionate’ individuals should be doing perpetual vigils to no end!
They are a bunch of boring people
A video is a great idea! I’m sure a lot of people support the idea of holding and treating the chickens properly but just don’t know how. (I once tried, and the chicken got away!) Maybe someone who has yedios in these things can post a video and a list of clear guidelines on COL?
When is the Kapparos in Crown Heights?
Good points. I stand corrected, I had forgotten that.
and to #20…that sounds like a good compromise
In all the truth it would only be right thing to do to treat chickens as “humanly” as possible, to cause least harm, to keep streets clean, and to make sure that chickens do go to poor.
Otherwise these so called “protestors” are for sure just against Jews, against us, against our freedom.
You got your finger on the button!!
Please keep us posted for the Thanksgiving Turkey Vigil, although I live overseas, I’d definitely fly in for it!
Torah scrolls come from animals that were slaughtered. Vegetarianism can do away with the entire Torah!
That a video be created that instructs people on the holding of the chicken (with two hands) and also big posters and video monitors be placed at the kapporos areas so people can use both hands, and how to treat the birds with care and avoid any suffering. These videos should play in those areas in a loop and only those who have viewed it can buy chickens and do the kapporos. If the birds are dying on our behalf at the very least be sensitive to their suffering. I always use both hands never swing on the wings with… Read more »
Seriously!!! These people have no lives!!
give them free publicity , no one would even know they came
I do not support these people. However, I am curious about the accusation that many of the kappores chickens are not actually going to poor people. Is this true? I do kappores on chickens even though I’d rather do it on money but I am comforted in knowing that the chickens ultimately go to feed poor people. Can someone clarify if, in fact, few of the chickens actually get eaten? Thanks.
According to veganism Sifrei Torah, Tefillin, and Mezuzos are also not allowed, so how is this not against them as well? If there is no shechitah then there can’t be any of the above tashmishei kedushah either. And if you think it’s not about Yiddishkeit then where are all these people during the end of Ramadan when many more animals are slaughtered in the streets?
“Those who sacrifice people kiss calves.” Don’t think for a moment that they’re doing this out of a sense of morality; it’s simply hatred of humanity, and of Judaism in particular.
These are the same people that film in slaughterhouses, promote veganism, etc. Its not about Yiddishkeit (of course those antisemites exist!), its about cruety to animals. Let’s be a light onto the nations and do Kapparos with respect.
It is true they can treat the chickens better than they do currently, also maybe people should think about holding the chicken like the Rebbe did. However, you can’t change your customs to make the non-Jews think we are normal and like them, it didn’t help when the German Jews abandoned their religious practices to fit into German secular society, they were carted off to camps with the rest of them. Did you ever listen to Country Yossi’s song about the ridiculous things Jews do, it’s just what we do and how we are, besides for the fact you can… Read more »
do chickens get thrown away in the garbage or not?
Jews are held to a higher standard; always being watched!
being. Their purpose is to go against Hashem and his laws. Corrupt individuals with resemblance to Nazi regulations (may their name be erased)!
I hold a vigil every night for the millions of mosquitos being killed every single day across the world. I can’t understand why they’re standing up for a few chickens. There’s a mosquito genocide going on and nobody says a word.
Doing Kapparos can be done with much more respect! They treat the chickens inhumane and it makes people think religious Jews are crazy!
No sefer Torah, no mezuza, no tefilin. Imagine Yiddishkeit without them. That is what they really want
all shchita and bris mila will be next. They have to go after this first
They had such respect for human beings!
and even better they should go help the humans in NYC who would love an extra volunteering hand
and this does not take away from being careful with tzar baalei chaim
but HAshem decides the chain of his creations
according to these people we should maybe never have had karbonos either
There is a Hashem who decides things, not our human logic
That’s ridiculous. When you treat animals that way you end up degrading human beings or worse, for the sake of the animal… Upside down values
maybe they should try to care more about human life than something that is meant to be for dinner
That won’t do it, bring a grill!