Brooklyn, NY – Lawyers for a group opposing the Jewish ritual of Kaporos were in a Manhattan court today, asking that a Superior Court judge put an end to the annual event not only because of they find it offensive, but due to the fact that it violates some 15 laws.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
NYDAILYNEWS.com (http://nydn.us/1UbEFwG) reports that speaking on behalf of her clients who have brought suits against several rabbis and Yeshivas in Borough Park and Crown Heights over the makeshift Kaporos slaughterhouses, Attorney Nora Marino told Justice Debra James that her clients “are confronted with this horror every year, the stench, the litter, the filth, the flood, the feces, the feathers…”
Marino argued that Brooklyn residents face a potential health crisis of “epidemic proportions” if the 10-day event leading up to Yom Kippur is not nixed, while adding that event “violates 15 laws” health and otherwise.
David Jaroslwaski, who’s representing one the rabbis sued, Rabbi Shea Hecht, rejected Marino’s assertions, stating, “You don’t get sick from inhaling chickens.”
“This is make-believe mass hysteria about something that doesn’t exist,” Jaroslawski said.
James said she’ll rule Sept. 10.
It is Jaroslawicz, not Jaroslwaski
All this is happening because 250 thousand chareidim are not registered to vote. So you have liberal anti religious politicians and judges flooding the system. If we all voted we could boot out every liberal in Brooklyn as well as upstate and control our political system.
Its time to end this annual public health hazard and tzar baalei chayim. Many rabbunim have paskind that there is NO chiyuv to use a live chicken for shluggin kaporos and this is simply a carryover from the alte heim. Once can be yotzeh the mitzvah using silver coins or even using a live fish. It would be a big Kiddush hashem to once and for all end the gross smells, dirt, chicken waste and the suffering of the birds themselves.
I have no problem with shlugging kaporos with chickens (I use money myself, always have – my zaidy in Boro Park did too) but the neglectful, careless way that these grubyans do it ruins it for everyone else.
She should be asked to adjourn the case until Sept 23rd.
Many of the greatest Rabbanim throughout history strongly opposed kapparos. Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham Aderet considered kapparos with chickens a primitive goyish superstition. The Ramban and Rav Joseph Caro agreed with him. Rav Yosef Caro called kapparos with chickens “a foolish custom” that Jews should avoid. They felt that it was a pagan custom that mistakenly made its way into Jewish practice, perhaps because when Jews lived among pagans this rite seemed like a korban (sacrifice). The main deterrent to this barbaric custom in our days should be the tremendous chilul Hashem we make when goyim see how we inflict such terrible cruelty on helpless animals. The chickens are Hashem’s creatures. How can we, rachmanim bnei rachmanim, watch these creatures suffer while they are kept tightly squashed in cages without food or water for days? How can any thinking and feeling Torah Jew believe that he can get mechila for his sins by torturing animals? How can anyone think that this is what Hashem wants from us?
If it is so important let each family buy chickens,take them home and shlug kaporus with them and take the chicken to the shoichet individually .There wont be the circus that goes on every year ,when the crates of live chickens are stacked up all over
Rabosai, if you want to use chickens, take the time and do it right. Drive out to a farm or an area zoned for these animals and their slaughter. It isn’t that far from NYC.
I would be upset if my block was turned into a slaughterhouse.