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Tell the Rabbinical Council of America That Tradition is no Excuse for Cruelty
Karina came to our New York Shelter in 2006, thought to be a refugee from the cruel Jewish ritual called "kapparot." Found as one of over 900 chickens crammed into crates inside a filthy Brooklyn garage, Karina is believed to have been slated for slaughter in an impending ritual.
Kapparot is a ritual performed during Yom Kippur by a small and isolated number of the Jewish sect in which the sins of a person are symbolically transferred to a bird—a rooster if the sinner is a man and a hen if the sinner is a woman. Presumably, the punishment of the birds can be substituted for punishment of the persons in the ceremony.
During the ceremony, the bird is held above the head of the sinner and then swung in a circle three times while a passage is spoken signifying that the person's sins are transferred to the animal.
The unfortunate bird is then slaughtered, and may be donated to a poor person.
Aside from the gratuitous cruelty involved in the actual ceremony and slaughter, many birds slated for kapparot suffer terribly prior to their slaughter. They are stuffed into cages, where—as we discovered with Karina and her fellow refugees—they linger for days without food or water, a common practice prior to the ceremony.
Sadly, kapparot is a widespread religious ritual among some Jewish groups, and every year during the Yom Kippur period, humane agents and animal control officers find hundreds of discarded, suffering or dying bird in alleys, ditches or dirty warehouses. Some chickens are still alive, with their necks only partially severed, abandoned to suffer and die after the completion of the ritual. Others, like Karina, may die slowly from neglect.
However, there is a humane option. Many Torah laws involve compassionate treatment of animals. Many who take part in the ceremony of kapparot have chosen to substitute money for the live animal, a practice that is acceptable in the Jewish tradition. After the ceremony, the money is donated to charity. There is a growing movement among both humane advocates and religious participants to opt for this more compassionate, charitable option.
What You Can Do
Most state slaughter and anti-cruelty laws exempt religious-oriented killing techniques; therefore it is imperative that we focus energy on the religious community. Fortunately, the Jewish tradition is filled with many concepts, prayers and actions during the Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur period that relate to compassion and sensitivity. Please contact Rabbi Shlomo Hochberg, President of the Rabbinical Council of America, and politely urge him to encourage members who take part in kapporot to substitute money for live animals. Urge him to support the spiritual and truly ethical choice and remove live animals from kapporot.
Rabbi Shlomo Hochberg, President
Rabbinical Council of America
305 Seventh Avenue, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10001
Email: office@rabbis.org
Please forward this on to as many people as you know and ask them to take action as well. Thanks for your help to protect animals!
Click here for more information.
Special thanks to United Poultry Concerns for their work on this issue!
In The News
Court rules 'kapparot' ritual violates animal slaughter laws
Haaretz.com - Sept. 18th, 2007