Monsey, NY – The organizer of a religious ritual involving live chickens told the Rockland Board of Health yesterday that he was proud of the way the ceremony was conducted this year and he felt he should not face any fines, despite leaving the site strewn with feces, feathers, trash and blood.
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“This year I don’t think I should be fined even one cent,” Moshe Lefkowitz told the board.
Lefkowitz and the Monsey school where the kapparot ceremony was held in October faced up to $10,000 in fines involving the county sanitary code by creating unsanitary conditions in the school’s parking lot.
A hearing officer for the board recommended a penalty of $6,500. Dr. Joan Facelle, the county’s health commissioner, said she supported the recommendation, but because not enough members of the board attended yesterday’s meeting, she put off a decision until next month.
Lefkowitz said he tried his best to keep the parking lot clean and free of feathers and droppings during the five days that as many as 13,000 chickens were kept there for the kapparot ceremony.
The ancient ritual is performed by some Jews in the days before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. During the ceremony, a live chicken is held over a person’s head and moved in a circle three times before the bird is slaughtered.
Inspectors with the Rockland Department of Health told the board that they met with Lefkowitz and his son, Shmuel, before and during the ceremony to tell them what they needed to do to keep the area clean.
They were dismayed to find that the site of this year’s ceremony, a yeshiva off Route 306, was strewn with feces, feathers, chicken feed and trash and had a bad smell each time they inspected.
“As the kapparot ceremony progressed, the situation got worse,” inspector Kevin Mackey told the board.
On Oct. 8, the last day the ceremony was held, inspectors found that large amounts of blood from the slaughtered chickens were being washed into a catch basin, which emptied into the Saddle River basin or the Pascack Brook, according to records. Lefkowitz was told to stop draining chicken blood into the catch basins.
The ceremony location, the former Monsey Jewish Center now owned by Congregation Birchos Yosef, was still littered with chicken droppings and trash Oct. 14, nearly a week after the ritual ended, inspectors said.
Both Lefkowitz and Congregation Birchos Yosef face fines.
A lawyer for the congregation told the board yesterday that the school should not be held responsible for the mess.
Attorney Joseph Churgin said his clients had no idea the ritual would violate the county’s sanitary code and incur fines.
Lefkowitz paid Congregation Birchos Yosef $1,000 to rent the parking lot to use for the kapparot ceremony, he said.
“This ordeal has put my clients in a bad position,” Churgin said. “This will not happen on this property ever again.”
Lefkowitz told the board that he kept the site as clean and litter-free as possible.
“I’m very proud of myself – I did it the best way that I could,” he said.
He acknowledged that the location of last year’s kapparot ceremony was left in worse shape. That ceremony was held on the site of the former Rockland Drive-In on Route 59.
County officials had mistakenly given Lefkowitz permission to use the land, which is privately owned.
The owner of the Route 59 property told Lefkowitz that he would not be allowed to use the land again for the ceremony.
“Last year there were problems,” he said. “But you can’t compare it to this year – this year was much better.”
Lefkowitz was fined $3,000 in January by the Rockland Health Department for leaving the site of last year’s kapparot ceremony strewn with blood, feces, feathers and other garbage that attracted flies and maggots and caused the potential for disease.
Department officials said yesterday that Lefkowitz has paid $1,400 of the $3,000 fine.
The sanitary code does not prohibit a large number of chickens from being kept in a residential area. No permit is needed to keep chickens, according to the county.
stop selling yiddishkeit bfarheishe and be coincerned with being a mentch–your intersted in the buck!!!! you dont have an erliche bone in your body
A Kapureh!
Sorry – you made the mess in the first place. Somebody had to know about the sanitary codes. Pay up. Do better next year.
Sorry Mr. Lefkowitz but you are not above the sanitary laws…obey the law, clean the property properly and all should be ok.
This is absurd and a chilul hashem to create such a mess. It threatens the future willingness of government agencies to authorize such events. We should simply forego such a bizarre ritual (as it was apparently conducted) and concentrate on meaningful mitzvos on erev yom tov such as helping the elderly prepare for rosh hoshana, or giving tzadakah to the poor
Those of you who were neither at the kaparos that Mr. Lefkowitz ran nor at the hearing, should reserve all critical comments. Considering that he processed 13,000 chickens in a short period of time, the amount of refuse was minimal; as was clearly demonstrated at the hearings. One of the perpetual complaints was “an odor.” Drive past the state-of-the-art Tyson chicken plant in Delaware and you will smell it for a mile before and a mile after. Chickens smell…..13,000 chickens on a hot day smell a lot. The inspectors commented about blood on Mr. Lefkowitz’s apron. There is no such thing as a bloodless chicken. If you had seen the pictures taken by the inspectors as I have, you would know how ludicrous the charges were. In fact, after the complaints last year about the “treatment of the chickens” by animal inspectors, Mr. Lefkowitz let the chickens run freely this year, which pleased the animal inspectors but resulted in more of a mess.
Dear Rabbi,
It seems that they are finding a mess or they are accusing you just to hurt you.
In EITHER case, please just hire someone for $150.00 per day for those five days. A hundred fifty times five is only a fraction of the fines they charge you and you can videotape a clean lot every day. If every customer gives you just one dollar extra, the seven fifty will be covered.
If anyone has these photos, it would be good to post them to this site – that might also encourage people to attend the next hearing to protest. Let’s stand together in this if there’ve really been exaggerated charges.
Where did the money and the dead chickins go??