By Julia Marsh and Frank Rosario – NY Post
All’s fair when it comes to slaughtering fowl on the streets of Brooklyn, a judge ruled Monday, clearing the way for thousands of chickens to be killed next week in a 2,000-year-old ritual.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Debra James ruled that the Orthodox practice of Kaporos, during which chickens are slaughtered before the high holy day of Yom Kippur to atone for sins, can proceed, knocking down a challenge by a Brooklyn animal-rights group.
The ruling came on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which starts the 10-day holy period leading up to Yom Kippur.
“No one has the right to change our religion, and this ruling proves we can’t be touched,” cheered Yossi Ibrahim, 27, in the Hasidic enclave of Crown Heights.
A group of residents calling themselves The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos had sued the city, the NYPD and local Jewish leaders in state Supreme Court, arguing that the ritual was inhumane and unsanitary.
According to court documents, “The Kaporos ritual . . . involves the practitioners’ grasping of live chickens by their wings and swinging them above their heads three times and reciting prayers.
“The purpose of this act is to transfer the practitioner’s sins to the birds. After swinging the bird, the adherents slit the chickens’ throats with a sharp knife. The meat is then donated to the poor,” papers state.
The alliance argued that the ritual had grown into a “carnival-like and chaotic public nuisance,” as more and more participants inhumanely kill the birds and then leave their bacteria-teeming carcasses in the street.
Critics also scoffed at the notion that the dead birds were distributed to the poor afterward.
But the defense argued that the case was about religious freedom — and allowing participants to carry on a ritual that “has been practiced for at least 2,000 years.’’
Justice Debra James sidestepped the religious argument, saying there just wasn’t enough proof that the ritual was a public nuisance.
Meanwhile, Nora Constance Marino, the activists’ lawyer, said she was “devastated.”
“I’m beside myself right now,’’ she said. “I’m devastated because this is an egregious event with respect to public-health issues, quality-of-life issues and animal-cruelty issues.
“To be forced to endure opening up your front door annually to a mass animal slaughter is just dumbfounding.”
maybe the protesters should stop wave their signs it’s hurting the paper
The Rebbe did not hold the chicken by the wings or feet. The Rebbe was careful to hold the chicken in a humane way. Holding by the wings (and swinging by the wings) is not humane.
Chickens are placed into individual boxes. That way there is no need to swing the chicken by the wings which can cause pain.
Last year here in Pittsburgh kaporos were done on an especially hot day. Every single man – in their hat and jackets no less – were slowly trying to get their chicken to drink some water. THIS is the way we should do kaporos. Shechting is the most humane way to kill animals but it doesn’t mean that we can do whatever we want before…
It would be appropriate to cite the source which you quote from, instead of passing if off as if it were your own knowledge, as that is an act of plagiarism.
The source you are both quoting from is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapparot
Who is “public” and what is “nuisance”?
if behaviour is considered a nuisance by most people (or by a judge) but it occurs on a block whose residents are predominantly in favor of the behaviour, woudl the behavior be legally a nuisance?
I wonder if the judge would have ruled this way had she actually been on a block during kaporos.
the rebbe did it .
end of argument.
So all the mekoros above are not for us.
It was accepted by the whole ashkenaI world and by a big part of the sefardi world.
Minhag yisrael torah!
Doesnt mean that we can swing it in a wild way and not try to be as compassionate as possible.
They don’t care about the chickens it’s really us & our traditions that they hate.
So don’t be fooled by their false claims.
now that this is an established issue in the green light,
lets bring up the issue of Labor Day. How do they allow that labor day parade when, consistently (has it been every year? I think so) there have been increased crime and murders.
So all the mekoros above are not for us.
It was accepted by the whole ashkenaI world and by a big part of the sefardi world.
Minhag yisrael torah!
Doesnt mean that we can swing it in a wild way and not try to be as compassionate as possible.
They have to learn its a two way street.
may I suggest that people be encouraged to handle the chickens with care.
Needless aggressive handling and wild swinging is unnecessary and may cause the animal pain and suffering, which is definitely against Halocho.
THE REBBE DID IT WE’LL ALWAYS CONTINUE TO DO IT! WHAT A DIDAN NOTZACH TO START THE NEW YEAR- AND MAY THIS LEAD FOR THROUGHOUT THIS COMING YEAR AS WELL!
Most of the issues have little to do with kapporos itself. Why not make the storage,distribution, shechting and processing etc a bit more ‘normal’ then they’d have little to say about it other than that its strange?
To #22 it’s not unnecessary pain,being that it goes to be eaten by families,don’t worry too much 😉
New York City gave us a choice. Minhag Yisroel (in addition to the Rema and kabbalists aforementioned) tell us we should. If you’re concerned, be as nice as you can to your chicken
Use money instead, a lot less messy!
Ours were recycled last year due to a shortage – in Israel.
why choose the chicken when you can give freely and atone using money?
I have always felt this practice forces us very close to causing unnecessary pain to an animal (whether we want to or not).
do you recall the feeling of your first experience with kapparos? probably not pleasant.
I am glad I have a choice whether or not to participate! but this year I will choose not to. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should! There are many things that are legal and protected that I don’t recommend doing.
Thank you to # 18, very clear and informative
So if the judge determined that there was not enough evidence that it is a public nuisance, most likely these people will be trying now to collect evidence to argue their piece again next year…
Why would you do kaporos right next to a subway entrance? You’re trying to get the thousands of people using it upset? (Imagine what a random guy thinks when on his way to work the whole area by the subway is noisy from chickens and full of garbage etc). I’m not saying we should go in hiding, but we shouldn’t do it in the most public place in the neighborhood…
I’m not familiar with the politics, but it seems to me better to hold kaporos on president street.
BH we won the case but we shouldn’t look for problems…
Kapparot was strongly opposed by some rabbis, among them Nahmanides, Solomon ben Adret, and Yosef Karo. They considered it a non-Jewish ritual that conflicted with the spirit of Judaism, which knows of no vicarious sacrifice outside of the Temple in Jerusalem. However, it was approved by Asher ben Jehiel (ROSH, c. 1250–1327 CE) and his son Jacob ben Asher (Baal ha-Turim’, c. 1269–1343 CE). The ritual appealed especially to Kabbalists, such as Isaiah Horowitz and Isaac Luria, who recommended the selection of a white rooster as a reference to Isaiah Isaiah 1:18 and who found other mystic allusions in the… Read more »
The practice of kapparot is mentioned for the first time by Natronai ben Hilai, Gaon of the Academy of Sura in Babylonia, in 853 C.E., who describes it as a custom of Babylonian and Persian Jewry, specifying that it was of non-Jewish origin. Jewish scholars in the ninth century explained that since the Hebrew word geber (gever, Hebrew: גבר)[6] means both “man” and “rooster” a rooster may substitute as a religious and spiritual vessel in place of a man.
How many ppl got sick from doing kaparos that it warranted a law suit? They claimed it was a health hazard. Can’t be a hazard if no one was injured.
What a victory for the new year. When we’re proud to follow our laws & customs we prevail!
It isn’t really a given right to slaughter them in residential areas. There’s nothing wrong with going to a commercial location to do this mitzvah. It’s sad that ppl need to rewrite history and play the entitlement issue to garner the right to host slaughterhouses on residential streets.
A big Yasher Koiach to the Hecht family and the NCFJE. Thank you for not only providing to us chickens for $5 but for standing up, investing countless hours and thousands of dollars to win the right for us to uphold our minahg of Kaporos. Now everyone reading this take the time to call/write and say thank you too!
give credit to the man that did it for all of us rabbi hecht from ncfje, we should all thank him and support him
We cut down trees and endanger the environment.
Maybe they will remember next year.
It’s in the headline of collive
a miracle!
Feel the pain of the chickens. OH THE PAIN
Why do you expect them to get things right? No, it’s not even 1000 years old; probably “only” 700 or 800.
“that the ritual was inhumane and unsanitary”
SOUNDS LIKE THEY ARE DESCRIBING LABOUR DAY!
OH AND THE FILTH AND GARBAGE MURDER AND MAYHEM ON LABOUR DAY ON OUR STREETS IS OK ???
I didn’t do Kaporas last year with a chicken, but this year Ill be doing Kaporos with a chicken thank to this ruling.
well if that is the case then let’s go for it thank you very much for sharing this update and it’s really a beautiful miracle
Im excited to go to eastern parkway and do kaporos!
I do kappores and all, with a chicken etc, but let’s not rewrite history and say it’s 2000 years old