Tell Rabbi to Stop Abusing Chickens in Kapporos Ritual Sacrifices
Please watch PETA’s new video about ritual sacrifice horrors during annual religious ceremonies.
The footage is from PETA’s investigations of the Jewish atonement and sacrifice ritual kapporos, which is performed in Hasidic communities in the days before Yom Kippur.
In Brooklyn alone, more than 50,000 chickens are trucked in for kapporos ceremonies, in which chickens are roughly waved over people’s heads and then slaughtered. The chickens languish without food and water and are stacked in cramped, filthy transport crates on public streets for hours. Many don’t even survive until slaughter.
Many Jewish communities use money for kapporos instead of live chickens—the money is then donated to tzedakah (charity).
Rabbi Shea Hecht of the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE) runs the largest—and arguably the most inhumane—kapporos operation in Brooklyn. PETA has filmed some of the worst abuses and cruelest conditions at Rabbi Hecht’s location. For more information on this practice and what you can do to help, click here.
Please write to Rabbi Hecht, the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE), and representatives of Beis Din of Crown Heights—the kosher agency that certifies this kapporos operation—to demand that Rabbi Hecht no longer use live chickens for this ritual.
Please also forward this important information to your friends and family.
Thank you for all that you do for animals!
Sincerely,
Philip Schein
Senior Researcher
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals .