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Humor: The Most Bizarre Kapores Story Yet!

The following is a press release from an animal shelter claiming to have ‘rescued’ a poor chicken named ‘chesed’ from sacrificial slaughter during Kapores in a Crown Heights seminary. Yes its real, a quick skim through the pages of the shelters website has a saved duck named Mishka, and cow named Nikki.

Today, as millions of Jews observe Yom Kippur, Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, rescued a chicken, named Chesed, meaning mercy or loving-kindness in Hebrew, from sacrificial slaughter during the Jewish ritual of kapparot in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. This chicken will join the more than 200 other chickens the organization has rescued from kapparot rituals in New York City and the surrounding boroughs over the past three years.

The chicken was rescued by Brooklyn resident Wayne Johnson, who witnessed a massive kapparot gathering at a seminary in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn on Saturday night. At 9:30 p.m., a large truck transporting approximately 2,000 chickens, packed four to a crate, arrived at the seminary. A long line of people waited to purchase chickens for $13 apiece, which they then swung over their heads while reciting a prayer before taking them over to a table where a butcher slit their throats with a knife. Around 11 p.m., a man shoved a chicken into the arms of Johnson, who had made it known he did not approve of the inhumane ritual, and told him he could have the bird. Johnson gladly accepted the frightened chicken and took him to his Brooklyn Heights home to await safe transport to Farm Sanctuary’s shelter in upstate New York. Halfway through the subway ride home, Johnson says the chicken began to relax and nestled into his arms.

“Saving Chesed is in keeping with the true spirit of Yom Kippur,” said Farm Sanctuary Executive Director Allan Kornberg. “Chesed’s life will serve as a reminder to the thousands of visitors who come to our sanctuary that all life is deserving of mercy and loving-kindness.”

The rescue comes just days after Dr. Allan Kornberg, Executive Director for Farm Sanctuary, issued the following statement regarding the sacrificial slaughter of chickens during the Jewish ritual of kapparot:
“Sadly, some members of the Jewish faith who observe the kapparot ritual still commit animal cruelty during this ceremony by swinging chickens over their heads and then slicing their throats with razors. Those who participate in this form of kapparot believe that their sins will be transferred into the chicken’s body and extinguished along with the bird’s life, but many distinguished rabbis throughout history have argued that treating chickens in this manner violates both kosher food standards and the Torah’s teachings on cultivating compassion for animals. In fact, an Israeli court ruled in 2007 that killing chickens for kapparot violates the country’s animal welfare laws, codifying in modern law what these sages have been saying for centuries.

“To fully grasp the ethical objections to using chickens for kapparot, it is crucial to understand that swinging and slaughtering is not the beginning but merely the end of the birds’ suffering. First, most of these chickens are born and raised in dark, crowded warehouses on factory farms. Then, after being packed tightly together on trucks and driven long distances to large cities, chickens may wait for days in cramped cages before kapparot even begins, often lacking food, water and shelter from inclement weather. Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, has firsthand experience with the traumatic suffering caused by kapparot, having rescued hundreds of chickens from rituals in New York City over the years and lovingly cared for them at our shelter for abused and neglected farm animals in upstate New York.

“Fortunately, celebrating kapparot need not involve animals at all, because Rabbinical law stipulates that there are humane ways to partake of this sacrament. That is, even the most orthodox among us can spare a chicken’s suffering by making a monetary donation to a worthy cause instead of sacrificing a bird, and those wanting to experience an authentic kapparot ceremony can put their material offering in a bag and use it as part of the ritual in the same way they would a live chicken. In contrast to slaughtering innocent animals, practicing kapparot humanely is consistent with the prayers offered up during the high holy days to rachamim (compassion and sensitivity), and is in keeping with the true spirit of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.”

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18 Comments

  • pock-pock . or is it quack quack ??

    this is the best one so far!! but what does he mean, this guy, wen he says, that many distinguished rabbis throughout history have argued that treating chickens in this manner violates both kosher food standards and the Torah’s teachings. hello??? conservativa rabbis or the reform??

  • tickled pink

    riiiight….so the rebbe and the most kind, well respected rabbis and jews from so many generattions have been mass murderers of chickens.

  • thebomb

    “It began to calm and nestle in his arms”, in which part in this story did the author mention that the chicken was excited and not nestling in his arms!??!?!

  • disgusted

    Aren’t those the same people that put rabashkin in prison. Those people are like communists. If it was up to them we would be banned from eating chicken

  • woohoo!

    hahhahaahahahahah!

    reminds me of the Nazis – they cared more about dogs than humans

    get a life, weirdos!

    keep posting these things; they put a laugh in my day.

  • nos

    boo hoo poor animals the only reason they were created was for the purpose of food and kapparos

  • Rabbi M.H.Sufrin

    How long is it going to take for these people to realise that chickens were made for men and not the reverse. It is a great merit for the chicken to be used in such a manner as it can be the cause for man to repent and return to G-d. In this way the chicken can have an everlasting existence. Placing the chicken in a home for chickens to preserve its life will eventually come to an end. Then what purpose will the chicked have served?

  • Hurry Mr. Johnson

    2006
    More than a billion of the Colonel’s “finger lickin’ good” chicken dinners at KFC’s are served annually in more than 80 countries and territories around the world.

    Mr. Johnson has a lot more stops to make.

  • Eat Money!

    So, you don’t like Kapporos
    because of schechting(“slitting
    the throat”). In that case,
    when you sit down for dinner,
    instead of chicken, EAT MONEY!
    Tell me how it tastes, and if
    its nourishing enough.

  • Yehuda

    I wonder, do these people have the same pity for unborn fetuses. I get the feeling that these same people are pro abortion. Can anyone shed some light on this please.

  • Avi

    “Kabbalah, in its entirety, is a collection of pagan superstitions which have penetrated into the world of Jewish faith, and which cannot be reconciled with ‘…the Lord our God, the Lord is One.’ The Zohar (the most fundamental Kabbalistic work) was fabricated and written by a certain Moshe DeLeon in Spain in the late thirteenth century… hence, the idea that the Zohar is a ‘holy’ Tannaic work is nothing but foolishness. The Tannaic Sage, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai (who lived about nineteen hundred years ago) had no connection with the Zohar whatsoever!” yehoshua leibowitz

  • Karen Cohen

    By the way, I don’t think it’s the fact that we eat chickens that bothers people – it’s the fact that they are swung above the head in a painful and frightening manner. Animals are sentient beings which means that they have neural pathways in their brains that feel fear and pain, etc, just like we do. If one is going to kill and animal and eat it, rather do it in a less cruel manner. Anyway, that’s my opinion.
    Karen Cohen, South Africa