Thousands of chickens designated for the pre–Yom Kippur kapparot ritual died in New York due to unseasonable heat.
An estimated 2,000 chickens died in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park on Sept. 11 when temperatures climbed into the mid-90s, the New York Daily News reported.
Chaim Singer, 32, told the newspaper that water and shade were provided for the animals. But activists have long claimed that thousands of chickens suffer and die unnecessarily during the kapparot ritual, in which a chicken is swung over the head in a symbolic transference of a person’s sins.
Meanwhile, California regulators ordered two Orthodox groups in Los Angeles to halt their kapparot on the eve of Yom Kippur.
The state’s Department of Food and Agriculture on Sept. 13 shut down kapparot at the Ohel Moshe synagogue and the Beit Aaron outreach organization. They were accused of operating unlicensed slaughterhouses, according to reports.
Animal rights activists had protested the act in the days before the closure orders. — jta