Alliance
to End Chickens as Kaporos
August 2010
Watch Kapparot - Chicken-Swinging Ritual
A Wing & A Prayer The Kapparot Chicken-Swinging Ritual
“Kapparot is not consistent with Jewish teachings and law. Repentance
and charity can be better accomplished by using money instead of a
slaughtered chicken.” - Former Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren quoted in
“Jewish chicken killing ritual of Kapparot,”
- Los Angeles press release by Nazila Mahgerefteh, September 28, 2006
“Our intention is not to dismay. Our intention is to save life.”
- Roberta Kalechofsky, Jews for Animal Rights
What is kapparot?
Kapparot or kaparos, meaning “atonements,” is a custom in which a chicken or
money may be used. Kapparot using chickens is practiced by some Jews shortly
before Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. First, selections from
Isaiah 11:9, Psalms 107:10, 14, and 17-21, and Job 33:23-24 are recited.
Then a rooster (for a man) or a hen (for a woman) is held above the person’s
head and swung in a circle three times, while the following is spoken: “This
is my exchange, my substitute, my atonement; this rooster (or hen) shall go
to its death, but I shall go to a good, long life, and to peace.” The
chicken is then slaughtered and may or may not be given to the poor for
food.
History of kapparot
Kapparot is not mentioned in the Torah or the Talmud. It was first discussed
by certain Jewish scholars in the ninth century who claimed that since the
Hebrew word gever meant both “man” and “rooster,” punishment of the bird
could be substituted for that of a human. According to the Encyclopedia
Judaica, other Jewish scholars strongly opposed kapparot. The 13th-century
scholar Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham Aderet considered kapparot a heathen
superstition. Rabbi Joseph Caro called it a “foolish custom.” Others have
pointed out that kapparot does not remove sins, and if it could, what would
be the need for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement?
More recent objections to kapparot
“Anyone who walks through the markets can see that the manner in which the
chickens are held before the Kapparot is insufferable. There is no
veterinary supervision and no concern for the feelings of these poor
creatures.” -Rabbi Gilad Kariv quoted in ynetnews.com 09/28/2006
The chickens are treated poorly in the days leading up to, during, and after
the kapparot ceremony. In the U.S., Israel and elsewhere where the ritual is
performed, the birds are crammed in crates, where they are typically kept in
their own excrement, without food, water or shelter, for six days before the
“shlug kaparos” (“swinging of the chickens”) is performed on the eve of Yom
Kippur. In 2005 and 2006, the ASPCA in New York City confiscated hundreds of
starving chickens abandoned in crates in a garage and a parking lot when the
ceremony was over. Chedva Vanderbrook, a board member of the Jerusalem SPCA,
described a typical scene in Jerusalem: “The chickens are brought to the
slaughter in cramped cages without water in the broiling sun. Half of them
die on the way.”
In 2006, Nazila Mahgerefteh described the events she watched take place in
Los Angeles: “For 6 days until Oct. 1, morning to night, in front of adults,
children and babies, these pitiful birds are swung around the practitioner’s
head. Then the vocal chords are slit so the chicken cannot scream in pain,
and then, still alive, the writhing birds are thrown into a plastic trash
bag while still walking and looking for a way out of the bag with the head
clinging to a cut throat.”
How can kapparot be carried out without using chickens?
“It is absurd that people are asking for life by taking the life of another
creature, especially when Kapparot can be done with money.” - Chedva
Vanderbrook, Jerusalem Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
quoted in ynetnews.com
In kapparot ceremonies practiced by many Torah-observant Jews, money is put
into a handkerchief which the person swings three times around his or her
head while reciting: “This money shall go to charity, and I shall go to a
good, long life, and to peace.” This ceremony, which is mentioned in many
prayer books including the highly regarded Artscroll Siddur, preserves, even
enhances, the sense of repentance and the tradition of charity, since no
innocent creature has to suffer and die for a person’s misdeeds.
While the Jewish tradition is filled with concepts, prayers and actions
during the Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur period that stress the importance of
rachamim (compassion and sensitivity), the message of kapparot using
chickens to those who take part and view it, including children, is a lesson
of insensitivity to the feelings of other living creatures. Respected Jewish
author & educator, Dr. Richard Schwartz, has pointed out that using chickens
for kapparot is inconsistent with the Torah prohibition of tsa’ar ba’alei
chayim, which forbids the causing of unnecessary pain to living creatures.
He states that “using money rather than chickens is consistent with
Judaism’s powerful teachings on compassion to animals” and that “at a season
when we ask for God’s compassion, we should have compassion on God’s
defenseless creatures.”
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