May 11, 2008

Photo Illustration by Austin Vitt, Pet Pulse

WOODSTOCK, N.Y. –- An ancient ceremony called Kapparot, practiced by some Orthodox Jews leading up to their highest holy day, Yom Kippur, has many opposed to the ritual because it has been reported in some cases to cause the torture and slaughter of chickens.

Kapparot is a custom in which the sins of a person are symbolically transferred to a fowl. It is practiced by some Orthodox Jews shortly before Yom Kippur, called the Day of Atonement.

"The eve, or right before the holiday of Yom Kippur, Kapparot means atonement or a cleansing, and what we do is take either a rooster or a hen, and we say a prayer before, a prayer that asks God that we should let go of all the negativity that we had from the year before and that it should be transferred to the chicken," Rabbi Rigoberto Emmanuel Vinas said.

The rabbi of a synagogue in Yonkers, NY, went on to further explained the ritual.

"Then we place it over our heads and say, 'This is my atonement, this is should be instead of me.' And then he (the rabbi) makes the blessing over slaughtering," Vinas said. "The meat and the animal is then prepared in the Kosher way for eating and that food is given to the poor."

While many rabbis do not engage in the ritual, calling it inhumane, it prevails in many Orthodox communities. Many people, including Jews, are unaware of the animal cruelty that sometimes is inflicted on the chickens.

“Because the animals are being used in a sacrifice in which they are going to be killed, the people who are taking care of them aren’t really considering their welfare in any step of the process,” said Amber Plaut, an animal caretaker at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in upstate New York.

“So they are kept in really small boxes, they are not given food or water, and they are covered in their own excrement and they are miserable.”

Vinas says that this never happens in his community.

"If there was ever a condition where by the animals were not kept in decent condition before they were killed, it would be a direct violation of Jewish law," Vinas said.
While some see the ritual as the problem, the vendors who sell the chickens at live markets often spawn other issues of cruelty.

"In the event that they are not sold for this ritual -- if there are too many -- then they are left to die," Plaut said.

At Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, chickens named Avan, Cloud and Willow are some of the 39 chickens rescued by the ASPCA when they were found abandoned, packed in crates at the market in New York City over the past three years.

Now, the chickens not only have their lives back, "they get to do what chickens hardly ever get to do, dust bathe,” Plaut said.

“They also socialize with other members of their kind, which they love to do," Plaut said. "And they’re allowed to interact with other farm animals and humans, and they seem to enjoy it all.”

It is legal in the United States to sacrifice animals, if it is part of a religious ceremony. Kapparot has a substitute ceremony that is widely practiced by many Torah-observant Jews. Money, sometimes equal to the monetary value of the fowl, is substituted for the rooster or hen.

The money is put into a handkerchief which the person swings three times around his or her head while reciting the modified saying, "This money shall go to charity, and I shall go to a good, long life, and to peace."

Yom Kippur is celebrated on the tenth day of the seventh month in the Hebrew calendar, which usually is between the latter part of September and early October.

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