FIRST REPORT 8:15PM EST: PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has officially launched their anti-chicken for Kapparos campaign, targeting the highly populated Orthodox communities of Crown Heights, Williamsburg, and Boro Park.
The campaign slogan is “Gelt, not Guilt”, and three different flyer’s have been designed, and will be distributed and posted in the above mentioned neighborhoods tomorrow (Wednesday September 23). All three fliers say “For a cruelty-free Kaparos, please use money, not chickens”.
One flyer quotes Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum from the Jewish Press: “Reviewing the entire current Kapparos situation, using alternatives to chickens such as money to tzedakah, might be a desirable option”.
PETA then quotes ‘Issues In Practical Halacha (22)’: “In the same vein concludes the Mishna Berura, that he who does [kapparos] with money has done a righteous act”.
In a short statement released to YWN by PETA they said “We are encouraging people to use money instead of live chickens when performing the ritual. We will also be distributing hundreds of origami chickens made from actual money (similar to the origami money chicken in the flyer photo).”
The flyer’s can be see on YWN by clicking on the following link http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/photos.php?albumid=5384448695996991841
(Yehuda Drudgestein – YWN)
19 Responses
Here are some excerpts about the problem in Monsey. I believe if this minhag would be done in a clean fashion and ” b’tzin-ah”,not in a public area,it would not draw the attention of the criticizers.
MONSEY – County health inspectors have found violations after visiting a makeshift chicken pen providing animals used by Jews seeking to repent before Yom Kippur observances.
Hundreds of Jews circled chickens above their heads three times before returning the chickens to handlers.
The tradition calls for slaughtering the fowl, which is considered an integral and deeply moving part of the introspections that take place days before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Dozens of white chickens were inside two large enclosures set up under white tents, and several participants said the chickens would be slaughtered at the ritual’s end, their meat donated to the poor.
A Rockland County Health Department inspector visited Monday and found violations of the county sanitary code, including a strong, bad odor; a small amount of chicken feces and feathers on the ground; trash on the ground; and a trash bin without a cover, said Kevin Mackey, a health inspector supervisor.
Mackey said the Health Department plans to reinspect the site daily until the ceremony ends and to make sure the organizer corrects violations.
Kapparot ceremonies were going on at two other sites in Monsey yesterday: along Monsey Boulevard and Maple Avenue. The county Health Department plans to inspect those, as well, officials said.
This marks the third consecutive year the Health Department has visited the chicken pens
Last year, they set up pens at the Route 306 location; the year before, he set them up in front of the former Rockland Drive-In movie theater on Route 59.
In both previous cases, health inspectors found violations. The status of fines levied for the violations could not be determined late Monday. Previous violations included leaving the site of the 2007 Kapparot ceremony strewn with blood, feces, feathers and other garbage that attracted flies and maggots and caused the potential for disease.
Thomas Micelli, the county’s director of environmental health, outlined seven steps for organizers to follow.
The steps included providing a trash bin to be replaced as it filled up; sawdust to make the cleanup of feces and liquids easier; disposable tarps to avoid the need for excessive cleaning; platforms so chickens in bottom cages don’t drown if it rains heavily; 30-inch-high wire fences for a secondary enclosure to help avoid chicken escapes; and daily cleanup.
The Kapparot ceremony was first mentioned in Jewish writings as early as 800 A.D.
The controversy over the ritual also is old. As early as the 1400s, Jewish authorities opposed the ceremony, maintaining that it was a pagan rite that had mistakenly made its way into Jewish custom.
The county sanitary code does not prohibit a large number of chickens from being kept in a residential area.No permit is needed to keep chickens
peta does this every year.
they’re really up against any and all forms of shechita
PETA’s “advice” would be all well and good if it wasn’t coming from PETA. (Having emigrated from New York for “out of town”, I haven’t shlugged Kaporos with a chicken since I left “Ihr haKodesh” 32 years ago.)
The problem is that PETA has a well known agenda which is anti-human (forget about anti-Semitic).
Gmar Tov to all.
RISHUIM! THEY ARE THE ONES THAT CLOSED RUBASHKINS, THEY ARE THE ONES THAT ARE CAUSING LOTS OF TROUBLE GET THEM AWAY.
Hmmm…let’s see a lefty group…partial quotes..misquotes….Nothing new here!
BTW – the quote from Rabbi Tenenbaum is true – but taken out of context.
He was talking about how there are Kappros centers that had “unacceptable handling of the chickens before and after shechitah…. not provided enough room, not fed properly, if at all, were being schechted by unqualified and unsupervised shochtim and improperly disposed of.”
He was saying how halchicaly you may not be yotzeh and that mistreatment of animals is not mutar.
He never said that Kapparos itself is inhumane. While PETA never said that either, if they were truly concerned about the same issues that Rabbi Tennenbaum was, they’re campaign would be to stop the abuse at the factories, not stop kapporos all together.
Rabbi Tenenbaum wasn’t saying not to do kapparos with chickens in general – just “Reviewing the entire current kapparos situation…”
See the article at http://www.jewishpress.com/content.cfm?contentid=23267
If the people conducting the Kapparot did so in a proper manner, PETA would have nothing to complain about.
#7, then they would focus on “child labor” or less than minimum wages paid to the workers… they’ll find something.
;
Its the same people who want to ban drinking on purim!
Peta people are a bunch of chickens.
7, you are completely ignorant as to the leftist agenda of peta yemach sh’mom v’zichrom! they hate anything having to do with people eating anything that was alive. this is their terrible religion and our treating chickens the way THEY want has NOTHING to do with anything.
They should all go to g’henim & drop dead on the way!
#9:
And when not done responsibly; that should be banned too!
(underage drinking, irresponsible baalei batim, driving, etc. – you get the picture)
For every hen produced in America there is a chick that goes live into a meat grinder. Kaparot are slaughtered ritually which is without question more humane than the way they kill their animals. Additionally the meat is eaten. So what is their complaint other than that these chickens are slaughtered in the public eye? Because it is so blatant it scares them and they just want to look like they are actively defending animal rights. They are worried that naïve activists will begin to question why PETA hasn’t gotten involved. Meanwhile chickens are being killed in the millions away from the public eye. Our minhagim are of utmost importance. We have to expose PETA for their anti-semitism. And for their irony.
ימח שמם וזכרם
I’ve used money for kapparos for many years now. However, if I was in America right now I’d be switching to chickens. PETA – IF you go left, I’ll go right…
I’ve always used money, that was my father’s and husband’s minhag. But, for many people using chickens is their minhag, and one treats a minhag Yisroel as a din, so they shouldn’t change from using chickens to using money. PETA should not be telling us what minhagim we should follow.
We did both, we shlugged kapores with money and with a chicken. When I was a kid we went to the chicken market and we shlugged kapores there. The only difference is that in the market there was blood all over, and no body blinked an eye.
I think the commercialization of kapores, bringing it to the public eye is to blame. It would serve us better if we found a solution away from the public eye, and made sure that the place looks like it never was used. PETA has their agenda, but much of the problem is because of some people’s stupidity, which could have been avoided.
don’t take them so seriously- they are ruthless lowlifes- making a lot of $$ off donations for a cause they don’t even believe in, many of the heads have been caught eating & wearing animals….
they allow/require their activist to dress inappropriately in public places- just for the good of the cause!
LOWLIFES!
The way you put your logo across the bottom of the flyers it looks like YWN is printed these posters.