On the eve Yom Kippur, many Orthodox Jewish communities take part in Kaporos, a ritual that calls for the sacrifice of chickens by swinging them over the heads of practitioners and publicly butchering them, saying “this is my substitute, this is my exchange, this is my atonement. This fowl will go to death, and I will enter upon a good and long life.”
A group called The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos is protesting the ceremony, holding demonstrations Sunday and today at 792 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. “The use of chickens in Kaporos rituals is cruel and contrary to Jewish teachings. It is not a mitzvah but a bizarre custom that originated in the middle ages,” writes the alliance in a press release, continuing, “chickens used in Kaporos rituals are trucked from factory farms to urban areas and held in transport crates for days without food, water or shelter.”
I’m all for demonstrating against animal cruelty, but those conditions sound an awful lot like the conditions regular, non-sacrificial chickens are subjected to on factory farms every day. Whoever the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos are, I hope they’re also thinking about the meat industry.
(Image: Martin de Witte/Flickr)
Actually, we are vegans, and we hope that drawing attention to this issue will open the door for thought and conversation regarding the meat, dairy, and egg industry. When most people show horror when they hear about this practice for the first time, I point out that the chicken on their plate didn't suffer any less. This particular practice, however, is not mandated in the Torah or Talmud, and is thought by great rabbis and sages throughout the centuries to be a foolish, superstitious custom, stolen from Pagan rituals in the Middle Ages. The concept of absolution of one’s sins by watching a chicken die for one’s sins is irrational. If that were possible, what would be the point of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which IS in the Torah. Furthermore, not feeding or giving water to the chickens for an entire week, not allowing them to spread their wings on the Sabbath, and swinging or waving them painfully and injuriously by their wings represents flagrant violations in the Torah, especially tsa’ar ba’alei chaim, the Jewish mandate not to cause suffering to an animal.__Rina Deych, RN_Founding Member_Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos_