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Click HERE to watch a video taken by PETA at Kaparos in 2006.

PETA and other humane organizations receive many complaints from local community members about the treatment of animals and the unsanitary conditions during kapporos. We are attempting to work with regulatory and enforcement agencies to ensure that those organizing kapporos events in 2007 are in compliance with all relevant health and animal cruelty laws.

PETA Documents Cruelty To Chickens At Kaparos

Click HERE to watch a video taken by PETA at Kaparos in 2006.

PETA and other humane organizations receive many complaints from local community members about the treatment of animals and the unsanitary conditions during kapporos. We are attempting to work with regulatory and enforcement agencies to ensure that those organizing kapporos events in 2007 are in compliance with all relevant health and animal cruelty laws.

PETA has written the following letter to the NYC Health Commissioner, and various other NYC officials:

July 30, 2007

Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., Commissioner
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
125 Worth St.
New York, NY 10013

RE: Cruelty-to-Animals and Health Violations During the Kapporos Ritual in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Frieden:

Kapporos is a religious slaughter ritual performed in the ultra-Orthodox/Hasidic Jewish community the week before Yom Kippur. Thousands of chickens are roughly handled in the largest kapporos ceremony in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and then sacrificed in a makeshift slaughter area on a public street. The slaughtered chickens are later trucked back to a processing facility to be prepared as food. These massive slaughters have been taking place without any apparent regulation or enforcement.

Because of the mounting incidents of cruelty to animals recorded on video and published in media reports as well as the public health hazards involved in operating a de facto slaughterhouse on a busy urban street, the issuing and conditions of any permits for the kapporos ritual must be examined. It is a serious health concern that children handle live, feces-covered, and possibly diseased chickens and wade through the blood of slaughtered poultry. The risk of communicable avian diseases and bacterial contamination is alarming, and the inhumane treatment and mishandling of animals at every stage of the process must be prevented. Below is a full description of violations and concerns pertaining to sanitation (regarding human health and food safety) as well as cruelty to animals during transportation, handling, and ritual slaughter.

Note: The next kapporos slaughter period is scheduled for the week between Monday, September 17, and Friday, September 21, 2007. The largest kapporos event takes place near the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

We are writing to you in advance to request that measures be taken to ensure that any communities or congregations participating in poultry slaughter for kapporos are in full compliance with all municipal, state, and federal laws. We also request that a methodical enforcement plan be developed.

It is important to note that there is no religious requirement for slaughtering chickens on kapporos and that most Modern Orthodox Jewish congregations do not practice this form of the ritual. Even Chabad Lubavitch—the organization behind the largest kapporos street slaughter event—sanctions, on its Web site, alternatives to chicken slaughter for kapporos, including symbolic sacrifices, such as donating money to charity. Although PETA would prefer that chickens not be slaughtered, we do request that authorities insist that basic animal welfare laws be strictly observed and health codes be strictly enforced during the practice of this ritual.

To this end, we urge you to consult with Dr. Joe Regenstein from Cornell University, who is a specialist on kosher and halal foods, and Dr. Temple Grandin, who is a world-renowned expert on animal welfare and slaughter methods in particular. Both have written extensively about kosher slaughter and serve on the Animal Welfare Technical Committee of the Food Marketing Institute and the National Council of Chain Restaurants. Through this process, we hope that clear standards and increased scrutiny and enforcement along with education will minimize the negligence and egregious conduct seen in previous years. We have already been in contact with Dr. Regenstein on this matter, and he is eager to help your departments develop clear guidelines for kapporos that will ensure that organizers are in legal compliance without conflicting with the religious components of this ritual. He commented that, at this point, the practices that he observed in the enclosed video are not even up to the basic standards of the National Chicken Council, the United Egg Producers, and the American Meat Institute.

In 2006, Dr. Regenstein attempted to set up a private discussion with Yossi Fraenkel, the organizer of the large kapporos ceremony in Crown Heights, in an effort to discuss Dr. Regenstein’s plan to improve practices and ensure that the event is in full compliance. However, Mr. Fraenkel declined.

Please also note that the Community Council of Brooklyn representative we spoke with cited that, in her long tenure at the office, the only permits required for kapporos organizers (that she is aware of) have been for Dumpster disposal. During the 2005 and 2006 kapporos ceremonies in Crown Heights, there was no visible presence of any enforcement/inspection officials—city, state or federal—to oversee transportation, handling, slaughter, and sanitation, and the only police activity was to block off intersections.

Below is a comprehensive list of health concerns and cruelty violations filmed at the 2005 and 2006 kapporos events in Crown Heights. A videotape of this footage is also enclosed for your review.

Alleged Cruelty Violations

Chickens-while still conscious in the bleeding-out cones, where they are placed immediately following the ritual-cut slaughter—had their heads pulled off by teenagers who were working in the slaughter area.

Bleeding-out cones (i.e., cut-off traffic cones) were too small, and many chickens jumped out of the cones onto the ground following shechita (ritual slaughter). Because of the rapid slaughter rate, many birds were removed from the cones prematurely while they were still conscious and tossed to the ground onto piles of dead and other dying chickens.

Many chickens-while still conscious and struggling following shechita (religious slaughter-were shoved into garbage bags. The bags were then tied up, leaving the chickens to suffocate.
Birds crammed into extremely crowded cages were left exposed to the elements and unattended without any food or water. In other locations in Brooklyn, the ASPCA had to respond to multiple similar incidents of neglect and abandonment, which sometimes continued for days before and after the ceremony. In one highly publicized notorious incident in October 2005, “surplus” birds (chickens who were not slaughtered during the ceremony) were abandoned in a parking lot. The chickens were crammed into crates, stacked on top of one another, and left out in the rain for days. These birds were encrusted with dried feces, urine, and blood. Many suffered from severed toes, plucked-out eyes, and severe dehydration. ASPCA agents had to sift through the pile of discarded chickens in order to rescue the remaining live ones.

Volunteers and hired workers crammed injured and sick chickens into reject crates along with chickens who had already perished.

Participants, including children, were given no training or instruction on how to handle birds. Birds were teased and violently handled and exhibited distress as a result. Participants who had no training awkwardly grabbed chickens and swung them over people’s heads during the ceremony, causing the chickens to vocalize in pain and fear.

Volunteers and hired workers threw crates containing live chickens several feet to the ground—without any regard for the safety of the animals.

Health Risks and Violations

Thousands of chickens were trucked in and parked on major public streets. Cages were piled high on the crowded transport trucks, causing chickens to be covered in feces and urine that had seeped and fallen through from the cages above. These included sick, dying, and dead birds—some of whom were filmed arriving in an advanced state of decomposition. The public was exposed to the birds in this dangerous and debilitated condition.

Dead chickens who perished during transport were thrown aside onto the public streets and sidewalks. Flies swarmed over the rotting carcasses as pedestrians walked by and children examined the corpses. Volunteers and hired workers—many of whom are children and teens—separated the obviously sick and dying chickens from other birds. Most workers didn’t wear any protective gear (e.g., gloves, smocks, masks, hair/beard nets).

Individuals and families that participated in the ceremony (which consists of waving chickens over their heads) handled live, feces-covered chickens. Most did not wear gloves.

Children also handled the live chickens during this ceremony, mostly without gloves.

There were no wash stations or sanitary wipes of any kind.

There was only a token separation between the makeshift slaughter area and the public ceremony area. Participants stood by the slaughter area, passed chickens to the slaughterer, and stood only a few feet away while they watched the slaughter. Participants were regularly splashed with blood, feces, and body parts from the slaughter and walked through the residue on the ground.

Shochetim (kosher slaughterers), paid workers, and volunteers were splashed with chickens’ blood and body parts with little protective gear, and the slaughter rate was so fast that the shochetim and the workers stood in piles of carcasses four to five chickens deep.

Slaughtered chickens sat out in the heat in the slaughter area for as long as several hours. The garbage bags with carcasses—which were destined for poultry processing—contained either no ice at all or only nominal amounts of ice. Only after hours of sitting in the heat were the birds’ bodies loaded into the back of a van. The projected length of time between slaughter and processing when the birds’ carcasses and flesh weren’t refrigerated was alarming.
Following the slaughter, blood, liquid residue, and some body parts littered the ground—sometimes for days.

We respectfully request that all these cruelty and public health issues be resolved before the September 2007 kapporos ceremonies. We have submitted this in advance of the kapporos ceremonies in the hope that positive measures will be taken that will prevent the worst abuses. PETA will again have a presence at the 2007 event to investigate any egregious behavior, but we hope that by addressing this matter now, it will avoid any public exposé that could cause embarrassment to the Hasidic community and the enforcement and administrative agencies responsible. We look forward to your response.

Thank you for your attention to this issue.

cc: Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney, Kings County District Attorney’s Office

Pearl R. Miles, District Manager, Community Board No. 9

Patrick J. Brennan, Commissioner, Mayor’s Community Assistance Unit

John Huntley, D.V.M., Director, Division of Animal Industry

Rabbi Weiss, Kosher Law Enforcement, New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets Brooklyn Office

Haroon Mian, District Manager, Food Safety and Inspection Service

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46 Comments

  • Chicken Little

    I have to admit it but it does look cruel and bizarre! I was always told the chickens feel nothing after the shechita – but how do you know that! Did you ever ask them!!

  • Mr. Abe Foxman

    Let theses anti semites burn in you know where, WHO let theses guys takje this video?
    Shouldn’t have let them, should have sent them flying, let them go to chinatown and watch the way they treat animals, for some reason, half the “violations” that they write, i have NEVER seen done by Kapores, sounds like commuist russia…

  • tamar

    Wonderful! I think this will be very positive. I agree 100%, and feel that the letter was very well thought out and respectful.

  • L.C.

    They do have a point regarding public health. But under no circumstance are they correct in their assessment in regards to the chickens being manhandled whilst still conscious.
    It is scientifically proven that as soon as the trachea is cut (according to the laws of Shchita) all blood flow to the brain terminates , thereby causing complete un-conciseness instantly and remains so until death. It is in fact the most painless and humane way to slaughter animals. (Unlike Halal who gouge at the neck with a rugged knife, causing immense pain to the animal or bird in question).

    The entire Shchita debate has already been discussed and proven at the European High Court.

  • Get the Facts Straight!

    There are some very real Kashrus concerns associated with pulling heads off chickens whilst they still show signs of life.

    It is well-known that it is not ideal to eat “Geshossene Fleish” (meat from an animal which was shot immediately after Shechita), and there are Yidden who are stringent about eat such meat, even in countries where shooting is mandated by local law. (For example, in Australia.) See Yoreh Deah 67:3 for an in depth discussion. Furthermore, see Sharei Halocho Uminhag (Chelek 3 Page 29) where the Rebbe strongly objects to the institution of such practice in the first place. (Obviously, from this letter one can draw conclusions only regarding the institution of such practice in the first place, but not necessarily about how one should conduct himself in a country where this is already the law.)

    Now, pulling off the chicken’s head is far worse than shooting the animal in the head, because the Shidrah (the spinal column) is severed. The reasons for this is beyond the scope of this comment, but can be found in Yoreh Deah 67:3.

    It would be advisable that all Kapporos volunteers go through some basic crash course in:
    1. Menshlechkeit.
    2. Tzar Balei Chayim.
    3. Kashrus.

  • mmmmmm

    “PETA will again have a presence at the 2007 event to investigate any egregious behavior, but we hope that by addressing this matter now, it will avoid any public exposé that could cause embarrassment to the Hasidic community and the enforcement and administrative agencies responsible.”

    Wow, that definitely sounds like a threaat!

  • Feivush

    Sooner or later the unsupervised minhagim will lead to government contro, largely due to the “hands off” attitudes taken by many Crown Heights leaders who consider themselves untouchable.
    Simchas Beis Hashoevah is another example where city streets are abused.

    People always complain about the Carribbean Day parade. Does anybody realize how frustrated non-Jews are over
    What goes on in the Jewish community?

    I do not like PETA, but they are doing their legal homework.

  • mendel

    whoever knows these people should tell them not to start up with CH that MO do this and MO do that

  • dovid

    what shotim! all they really want is for us to stop kapporos. what type of garbage is this that they are upset that we arn’t holding up to the standards of the law. they said themselves “…PETA would prefer that chickens not be slaughtered…”
    PETA – we can take care of ourselves. Thank you for your concern, but go use your brains on something useful, like helping people instead of animals.
    The Rebbe once said, that in regard to all of these people who are so concerned about animal health rights, don’t even realize that by the holocust when millions r’l were being killed, they were worried about the animals! worry about people first, not animals!!!

  • Yehuda

    This is so Void!!!!
    animals are meant to be eaten, face it! the whole world was made to serve G-d by people, and the animals are there to help us serve G-d!

  • mina glasser

    dear friends:
    once again we need achdus,the observance of torah and mitzvoth.without compromise, in the community to stave off these attacks. in last weeks parsha eikev and this weeks parsha re’eh . Hashem is telling us if we keep the Torah Hashem will take care of us.
    its in our hands
    we can do it

  • Boruch ben Tzvi (A H) haKohaine Hoffinge

    PETA said: “Thousands of chickens are roughly handled in the largest kapporos ceremony in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and then sacrificed in a makeshift slaughter area on a public street.”
    There was at least one clear video of the chicken being carefully, swung around one man’s head and the chicken was quiet. There are probably hundreds like this.
    PETA is a suspect organization due to their stupid reporting of Rubashkin’s processing plant where, dead, jerking steer (which were dead) were deemed to be suffering.
    There may be some truth to the fact that the birds’ crates are stacked one over the other enabling the lower ones to get dirty.
    Probably many Jews in PETA.

  • moshe P

    I some what agree, that we need to make kaporos more chicken friendly..hwile its an important minhag….we still have make sure there is no bacteria spreading from chickens ect…we need bigger cones,,,,and perhaps a closed schita zone,,,as to keep bacteria from spreading,,,to maintain a clean enviroment and to keep troublmakers out…

  • Resident

    Dont blame PETA. Blame the Union of Reform Judaism for pointing it out to them…as the URJ is very close to PETA.

    Trust me from personal experience, that is how they work. It is all their fault. Someone needs to put them on the spot for leaking this to PETA and violating our human rights.

    Meanwhile, we bask in the “compliments” of Yoffie’s article.

    Shame on us, for letting our guard down

  • S. Traiff

    Chickens, as animals incapable of extended flight, are traiff as “nefilos” if dropped more than a short distance while alive. So I have been told by a shochet. I have seen chickens thrown or dropped by the untrained and inexperienced workers and then sold for (kosher) kapporos. I routinely refused to accept these chickens, but what about those who ate them?

  • BrookAve

    The traife frog spends its life in clean waters and the kosher chicken lies in its own waste. Go figure.

  • Old Timer

    i have always been shocked at the tzzar baalei chayim at kapporos. you want to know how it shohteduld be done: look how the Rebbe did it. He held the chicken so carefully almost like a baby, and turned away as it was being shechted almost wincing.
    About time something was done

  • o.t. bahchur 73-75. w.c.s

    the noeh feldman case in the ny times is also to blame .

  • nemo

    The chickens being stacked in large crates is really a non-issue, at least not pertaining to Kappores. That is a standard and approved method of shipping chickens which is used by commercial slaughter houses.

  • Devorah

    addressed to Tamar who said “Wonderful! I think this will be very positive. I agree 100%, and feel that the letter was very well thought out and respectful.”

    With all due respect, you are a complete Shoteh (if you know what that means!)
    use your brains and realize who these people really are.

  • out-of-towner

    i am by no means a fan of PETA, but the letter brings up some valid points.

    as a veteran of kapores in CH and out, i have seen many things which i personally consider tsaar baalei chayim.

    i think we definitely need to clean up our act in this department. what’s the harm in doing so? it’ll make life easier for the birdies, cleaner and safer for us yidden, and PETA will be mollified. it’s a win-win for everybody!

    what i *don’t* understand is what’s up with PETA and lubavitch. aren’t yidden shluggen kapores in williamsburg? why does PETA target lubavitch?

    p.s. the little comment about “…we hope that by addressing this matter now, it will avoid any public exposé that could cause embarrassment to the Hasidic community…” sounds like blackmail to me.

  • madd

    wow if only peta were around in the germany and would have sent a letter like this to hitler, it would have brought him to tears, and 6,000000 jews wouldnt have been murdered

  • Resident

    I will also point out that Crown Heights is not the only neighborhood where kapporos takes place, but yet PETA is going after Crown Heights. At the same time the URJ is seeing Chabad as a threat.

    Why shouldnt the URJ be at least asked by our Chabad leaders if they were the ones who ratted us out, because after all URJ is not threatened by Satmar, and in Williamsburg they do kapporos also….and PETA is quiet about them

  • no biggie

    its not a bad thing. crown heigts will hopefully fix a few things up and kapporos will happen albeit in a bit of a nicer manner. big deal.

  • Pinchus

    True PETA is acting in reaction to the reform councils intentions and some things may be a little exaggerated and it is true that the animal is unconscious after slaughter etc etc
    However there is a mitzvah to treat animals properly and the video does show animal cruelty something not accepted by the torah (Noah s ark etc… the rebbes handling of chickens etc.

    G-D wants us to do kapporas but with complete kindness to the animals and no cruelty.(Ex: Dead with living, head pulling, throwing crates etc)

  • SPIRIT vs. the SYSTEM

    Truely.
    If there is a DOUBT of tzar baalei Chayim we should all be swinging crisp tzedaka over our heads.

    Minhagim are deeply important, but the risk of causing pain to something living should far out-way the kapora it should be.

    We should all make a mind-ful and moral choice this time around on how we want to start out New Year, as opposed to “doing what everyone else does” or “doing what we’ve always done”.

    The QUESTION of PAIN or unSANITARY CONDITIONS or of TRAINING OUR CHILDREN TO BE CALLOUS ch”v to the treatment of Hashem’s gentle creations should be enough.

    PETA may be harsh or anti-semitic but perhaps there is some positive to be taken from their observations.

    Chaval we should need a kappora for our kapporos.

  • Menachem

    We ask that Hanina, the leader of Anash in the eyes of the goyishe politicians, will take this up with his close friend Mayor Bloomberg. Hanina must have the Mayor’s cell phone number and he can clean this up.

  • Admit when you do something unwise

    Uch! I don’t like PETA. I know have their agenda and are extreme but I do know that some of the things i’ve witnessed at kaporos is nauseating. I went to kaporos out of town and was very impressed at how neat clean and humane it all looked.

    People need to use their good sense. I am sure they can find a more aesthetically pleasing way of processing those chickens if your going to do it in public on Eastern Parkway. Doing what they do is a big chillul hashem when many gentile passersby don’t understand what’s going on, what do you expect them to think? they don’t know the chickens are dead. flinging a bunch of dead bloody flapping chickens into a big heap? in public? This should be done in doors, chickens shouldnt be flung into a bloody heap. Look at the way other communities in boro park for example do it.

    I know, it’s too much to expect people to admit when they do something unwise. We all like to think we are perfect but it’s all just wishfull thinking.

  • Anonymous

    The video reminds me of the video the mishichistim came out with depickting the so called Violence of the Shluchim/Shomrim that took place (by the M’s) in 770 by the Kinnush Hashluchim.

  • Ariela

    My parents whipped me the time I pulled our cat’s tail. I don’t even want to imagine what they would have done if I had treated my grandmother’s chickens that way. They may be “only” animals but they are alive. A society is always judged on how it treats women, children, old people, and animals.

  • mottel

    guys stop assuming everyone hates us and listen to the message. peta are mamzrim butr the way those chicens are kept overnight by ncfje is shameful what is the whole point of kapaoros, only a mimhag, if you are over doraysos?

  • Lipa S.

    Who let these jerks take a video at kappores? They probably edited plenty of it to make it look worse than it really is.

    We need to do things the way they do them in KJ or Willy, where if these vantzen showed up, a few shtarkers would take them and shlug them azoy vi a kappoooore, a kappoooore, a kappoooore!

  • chabad gal

    people, when you respond emotionally rather then rationally to a perfectly rational- albeit unpleasant- argument, you lose.
    anyway they do have some valid points. taking into account the tzaar baalei chaim, and the the chillul hashem- we’ve got nothing to lose by cleaning up our act a little, both literally and figuratively.

  • I prefer to use real chickens

    Many of you may not remember, but 35 years ago Lubavitchers were practically the only ones who “bothered” to use chickens for Kapporas. Out of town it was a bi-i-ig deal. We were the only ones getting up at 5:00 am erev Yom Kippur to shlep to some chicken farm in Yehupitz to use real chickens. Even in CHts. it wasn’t always so easy to arrange. I believe it was only due to our desire to comply with the minhag that has created the huge supply and use of real chickens. Another case of we care and we make it happen and the rest of the frum world imitates us. Unfortunately, we do need to “clean up our act” and do it in a way that is a Kiddush Hashem and does not negate all of the good that it does accomplish – both in its mitzvah and the positive PR and kiruv effect. Another case of something that we, as Lubavitchers, do and that has spread throughout the Jewish world.

  • Bernie Goetz

    Actually, if the PETA description is true (yeah, right), it is a good description of what we should do to the shoplifters, car thieves, muggers and assorted lowlives who plague the shchuna. Shecht’em (but oon a brooche), cut off their heads, and let ’em rot in public!

  • The Guy with the Dog

    They’re wrong about the chickens being conscious after shechita, but other than that…

    I agree 100%. It’s disgusting. Everything from the way they’re brought in to the inhumane way people hold them (by the wings instead of the body) to the bio-hazard that our streets become. This should be regulated by the health dept.

    For the record, I also happen to be disgusted at the “modern orthodox” way of life, playing itself off to the world as one of yiras shemayim while the goyim don’t know the difference. The sad thing is that they end up making a chillul HaShem out of us.

  • Yakov Khanin

    One of nazi’s and commie’s arguments against Jewish practices always was antisanitary and cruelty and so on. Notwithstanding that nobody ever got any medical problem because of kapporos or mivah or whatever.
    Regarding cruelty. My friend by accident once got a cut by a shochet’s knife. The cut was terrible, but he did not feel anything so sharp the knife is.
    Come on, you guys want to argue with these PETA nazis? You think they really care about the animals?

  • Anonymous

    I’m sorry, I volunteer with an animal shelter and am as anti-cruelty as the next person. 95% of that video was completely unoffensive. If PETA thinks that’s bad they should check out a typical slaughterhouse to see how pleasant this is by comparison. My only concern is from a kosher perspective: the few chickens who obviously did not have a clean cut and/or fell on the ground should not be kept for food.