Activists Feed Chickens Used For Controversial Kaporos Ritual

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Animal rights activists armed with watermelon and water came to Crown Heights to feed hoards of crated chickens facing slaughter during Kaporos, an Orthodox Jewish ritual slaying in the days before Yom Kippur.

Dozens of advocates with The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos and allied groups came to President Street between Albany and Kingston avenues Monday night to nurture the birds and ask practitioners to modify a ritual they argue is unsanitary and cruel.

"You need to bring attention to these situations and the way to do that is to be loud and aggressive," said activist Liz Argibay, 50. "But at the end of the day, it’s really about the chickens and bringing some comfort, so we chose in the past two years to feed them."

Activists have been waging war for nearly a decade against those who practice Kaporos, an atonement ritual for Yom Kippur that involves swinging chickens over a person's head three times while reciting a prayer then butchering it.

An estimated 50,000 chickens are slaughtered yearly in pockets of Brooklyn, activists said.

The fight has landed activists in courtrooms and even behind bars, but several New York City courts have ruled Kaporos is protected as a religious freedom.

The activists' fierce opposition and "angry, loud protests" earned them such criticism that the groups decided to change their tactics to focus on nurturing, said Rina Deych, an Alliance To End Chickens As Kaporos member from Borough Park.

"We were called nazis, self-hating Jews," Deych told Patch. "Now we’re doing chicken care in the hopes of planting seeds of compassion in people."

United Poultry Concerns strategist Jill Carnegie, 36, added that the creatures who ended up being punished for their raucous protests were the ones they hoped to protect.

“Practitioners were actually more aggressive with the birds as an act of retaliation, and that was the furthest thing from our goal," said Carnegie.

"We do believe that nonviolence is the most powerful way that these animals deserve care and regard in our circle of compassion.”

The group hopes to raise awareness about the conditions chickens are kept in before their death, reporting the birds are kept in cages without food or drink and stacked on top of one another, said Keith Sanders, 39, a Midwood resident who has been protesting Kaporos for nine years.

Opponents of Kaporos also argue the practice the practice violates several city and state health codes, thought the city's Health Department has constantly maintained that the practice does not present a health risk.

Some of the Chasidic Jews targeted by the Monday evening intervention were still miffed by the activists.

Sam Albukerk, a Chasidic Crown Heights resident, said the anti-Kaporos protestors were "good-hearted people" but that is was "obnoxious" to target practitioners instead of transporters he blamed for the birds' bad conditions.

“I think they really want the right thing and they’re ready to take their time, energy and money and spend it trying to educate people on how to do things better," Albukerk, 31, said. "My problem is that that they're not focused on the right things."

Yechi, a 21-year-old Californian who gave only his first name, had harsh words for those attempting to sway fellow Chasidic Jews not to use chickens for Kaporos.

“I think it’s pathetic, and they’e never going to get their way, so they might as well just leave," he said.

"It’s a tradition that’s been done for thousands of years. There’s no way we’re going to stop now."