Brooklyn, NY – PETA, ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ has launched aggressively an anti-Kapporos campaign.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Flyers are set for mass distributing and posting in Brooklyn today in Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Borough Park. 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). Said a PETA spokesperson.
Philip Schein A PETA undercover investigator told VIN News: “Rabbi Yosef Karo, who composed the Sulchan Aruch, called kapporos a “foolish custom” and a cruel, animal sacrifice in this modern age is even more foolish and intolerable. We are encouraging that the ritual be performed symbolically, only with money, so as not create more sin in the process and there is much rabbinical support for this. We can’t ask for mercy and forgiveness or achieve transformation with blood on our hands.”
Mr. Schein also took aim at one specific [which VIN News will not name] Kapparos center in Brooklyn, who he claims rejected PETA’s invitation last month to meet to discuss making even minimal humane improvements to his kapporos operation such as providing the chickens with water.
Schein also addressed to VIN News: “It’s delusional and foolish for those who think that the egregious cruelty to animals that was documented in the past few years in lengthy PETA undercover videos, as fabricated in some sort of a conspiracy against Jewish rituals including shechita and kapporos.”
I mean it, they come near me & I’ll bash them with my chicken. THEN they can cry “fowl”!!
well, peta missed the Rema, and the Ari Zal in their investigative research. And to cal it animal sacrifice shows their lack of understanding. Though they are right that money is acceptable, its no different today than it was 100 years ago.
And so, the Circus begins
I wish hatzlacha to PETA in this one narrow endeavor they have undertaken. Given that many rabbonim also have paskin that the minhag of kaporos with a live chicken is not obligatory and one can be makayem the mitzvah using a live fish or even a sock with a few shekels, the is no longer any reason for this cruel practice to be continued, especially when it casts yiddin in such a negative light. Otherwise, I have little use for the PETA agenda.
If not a conspiracy against our halacha, what would the desired result then be? An end to brit mila, and taharat ha mishpacha perhaps? (G-d forbid!). Hannukkah is coming soon, we see the Yevanim (ym”s) already waging war against us. Would that our Corban Pesach be restored byamera byamenu, would this drecht have us eat a tofu sheep? Kapparot is an important minhag, and ones custom should follow that of his father, and not deviate.
Shame on PETA! The rama writes in shulchan aruch that one MUST do kaporos with chickens. In addition, who even cares what peta has to say. They are the laughter of this country. are the memo that USDA wrote against them. In any event, we will continue to do this holy mitzvah with a real chicken.
shame on anyone who calls a jewish custom cruel
Perhaps the Yidden should be careful how they treat the chickens. In past years lets be honest there was unnecessary cruelty with chickens being slaughtered in an unkosher manner and left out to die in the hot sun.
The chicken always does her business on my wife. Every year. Spooky, no?
What would they say to to shoeir hamishlach L’azozel, or other korbunos, they also have a say in those? let them just shot up and go to goyim only
How do they know if the chicken is afraid? maybe it feels like a normal bird flies. perhaps they have tried one of themselves being circled overhead in a broken helicopter? or maybe they have tried being shechted? now we go to fish next year they claim the same concerning fish? I think whoever attended this meeting didn’t do it with the pledge of trying to stop this minhag rather to just get these rats, mice, cockeroach out of their shirts. GO TO HELL MR SCHEIN. you are no yid. you are a kofer. FACT: judaism was the first religion to be against tsaar balei chayim. imagine, lo sachsom shor b’disho, in my opinion is much more sensitive to animals rights than to say you can’t shecht an animal. and that’s a lav. sh’luach haken, if not being sensitive to birds feelings, I don’t know what is. Tomorrow we’ll be told that we can’t rock a baby, imagine me doing it to you, cruelty to babies, animals living in a stall with no bed, biggest cruelty against animals, living creatures, peta animals (they probably know the feeling).
How in the world is tuning a chicken around my head animal cruelty? and yes thank you PETA for the money I have 12 children + me and wife I’ll get 15 bucks, that covers my kaporos including the shchita.
What does PETA have to say about tefillin made from leather straps of animal skin, and a Sefer Torah written on parchment made from animal hide? Do they claim we shouldn’t make tefillin or sifrei Torah?
How is swinging the chicken “humiliating”? Chickens are incapable of feeling “humiliation” and a range of other uniquely human emotions that PETA routinely assigns to animals.
I am in Yerushalayim now, I think I will go to Mahane Yehuda to shlug kappores.
Hitler was for animal rights too those who have to much pity for animals are the most cruel to human biengs
I used to be cheap and only use 2 chickens 1 male and 1 female for the whole family this year iy”h i will use 1 for each member of the family. P.S. I am all for PETA People Eating Tasty Animals. If G-d did not want people to eat animals he would not have made them out of meat.
Unfortunately I believe that they are 100% right!
I believe that had this commercialization of the Minhag Kappurois happened a few hundred years ago it would have been banned with the biggest fervor!!!!!!!!!!
#1 Tzaar Balie Chaim!! In the olden times everyone had their few Hens in the backyard and no one was harmed as well as no one made any profit off it etc.
#2 In today’s Frum society when everyone tries to out-do one another with Chumrois Asher Loi Sheurim Avoisienu! One day its the Eiruv the next day its Gepasteh Klieder the third its Tziyoinois, …………….wait a second these chickens are Nevieleh Ut’riefeh! The lowest quality Hechsher wouldnt permit the conditions that these Shoichtim Uboidkim handle the process with the chickens, and this is the Hachuneh to Yoim Kudoish???????????????
The Teritz is that the Kol Koireh writers and signers make obscene profits off it they they bury thier faces in the sand!!!!
On the other hand PETA is not the one to tell us what to do! They are Koifrim and up to no good, and since its still a Minhag Yisruel I will take my Kinderlach and Shlug kappurois with them, Kemeekadmaas Denuh!!!
Gmar Tov to all
“How do they know if the chicken is afraid? maybe it feels like a normal bird flies?”
I guess you don’t know very much about chickens, they don’t fly! They just flap around on the ground. If anything they idea of a non flying creature being picked up and swung around could be panic inducing and frightening. Imagine, just imagine, if the same was done to you, would you enjoy it? Especially if it was done by a giant of a creature who you couldn’t communicate with, and kept you living in a small crowded, box filled with your own feces. You wouldn’t like that very much would you?
look, I really can’t stand PETA either…but unfortunately, in the past years chickens WERE (allegedly) found left in their crates for many days in the hot sun and rain, basically left to die…(one year, I myself saw a chicken running around loose, looking very sick–I believe this was on Yom Kippur, so the thing must’ve gotten out of its crate during Yom Kippur–I guess since people do kapporos right up to YOm Tov, they were going to clean things up motzei Yom Tov)–maybe to a certain extent our behavior wasn’t perfect and we had this coming to us…and anyway, there is no problem doing Kaporos with money…
There are a lot of conflicting views. For those of you who practice this minhag, can you explain whether this moves you to do teshuva and if so, why prayer and learning are not sufficient? Do you think that kapparot makes you a kinder, holier and more generous person in the new year and that this is the only way to accomplish those objectives?
Because of PETA’s campaign we all must go out and do Kappores with chickens. Even those that normally do it with money, should do it with chickens this year. But we should not support the businesses that cause tzar to the chickens.
Today it’s kaporos, tomorrow it’ll be shechita. I feel like doing kaporos with a chicken just to spite PETA.and their ridiculous agenda.
by shouting Animal rights.. one is lowering the Dignity of Human life.
to say that a human may not kill or use a animal, is actually lowering the Human status closer to the one of an animal.
that works well if one believes that humans are gene mutated apes. (or pigs, since they are closer to humans.. their lungs, heart, skin and arteries..) then its understandable that humans have to uphold animal rights. (intresting, why dont other animals have to uphold animal rights??).
but if one believes that Hashem created animals for the use of humans, then he has no sad feelings when his kaparah is being slaughtered..
The whole PETA organazation is a Opikorsos movement.. dignity to animals. who ever heard of such a thing? as long as your not hurting it, whats the problem?
I’ll have stake for supper tonight..
I just shlugged kapparos in Mahane Yehuda. It wasn’t crowded at all and didn’t even smell much. I petted the chicken while saying “Bnei adam” and it didn’t complain when I swung it around my head. Then, chick chack, it was all over. I am sure the chicken has had a tikkun and maybe is zoche to be megalgel into a more choshuve form, maybe even a yiddishe neshoma.
PETA ken geyn faifen.
As much as I detest PETA, I’ll continue using money for kapporos as my family and my wife’s family have for a great many years.
Its Ohver Bale Tashchis, if you can do the kapora with a dollar why spend $10
While I agree on better handling of the chickens, still, i don’t want to hear fabricated facts or halucha from PITA, let alone giving out flayers!
After all this is our m’sorah, halucha & minhug!
by the way, do some research online about PITA, & you’ll see their true face.
I for one think the Kapparos ceremony, the way it is done today in a big tumult and balagon with chickens piled up on boxes, as if this is a factory operation, is disgusting. I think it makes the Jews look terrible and I am ashamed and embarressed on this when I see it on the videos. Go ahead, call me a “goy”. Call me a “MO”. Call me from the Yevonim, etc etc. I do not believe it helps with teshuva in any meaningful way. It is time to stop this massive demonstration and if you want to shlug it should be done privately.
I think the only alternative to using chickens for kapores, we should shlug kapores with PETA instead and you would mekayem a mitzvah of a korben.
I wish it was someone other than peta to make this point.
Peta has no moral standing. They trivialize the Holocaust. They stand by when innocent people in Eretz Yisroel were R”L murdered and terrorized and only complained when the murderers used a donkey because it was harmful to the ferd
They are disgusting, amoral people who raise animals to the level of humans, and even higher than humans. Who are they to tell Torah yidden what to do?
That said, I have felt for some time that it may be better to use money for Kapporos, and there are ample poskim that are matir using money. Real tshuva comes from the heart regardless of what you shlugg.
They sell the chickens to be eaten on yom tov or whatever, its not like they go to waste!!! They sell them to eat! So its not a big deal!! We happen to be using them before they are shechted, they would be shechted anyway to be sold for food…..yoish!
There is a lot of tzar bal chai on these chickens. I’ve seen it myself many times over the years. Se past nisht far ins. Don’t give the PETA meshigoim more reason to come after us… we have more than enough tzuris as it is… my 2 cents
Animal sacrifice? Does chickens would have been slaughtered anyway for there meet. So what’s the big deal if we “Shlug Koporus” before.
And by the way, how about hunting animals for pleasure and sport? Is this understandable because its fun?
why not slog with peta kapparos
where are they handing out the dollars?
March 15th is eat an animal for PETA day, to protest their comparison of killing chickens for food in factories (nothing to do with Kaporos) to the Holocaust. Lets keep them in mind and have a nice Rosh Chodesh dinner.
To those objecting to the conditions of the chickens in terms of boxes and transportation, this is how they are brought to every slaughterhouse. It is very nice to live an insulated life and pretend that the chicken you are going to eat for your Seudas Hamafsekes was any differently handled, but it wasn’t.
how does anyone know what a chicken feels like when it is being swung? those that are saying its frightened…and they should imagine themself being swung in the air like that….well…maybe its like comparing it to a roller coaster that many enjoy… and about the shechting…..that would be done regardless…so peta…STOP THIS B.S.!
Nothing PETA says is worth even one second my time. Don’t even ask what their own employees did to animals that they had no use for. Whatever my opinion of Kapparos is, PETA is a nothing and nobody in my book and will never be.
There’s a place on earth for all of G-d’s creatures- Right next to the mashed potatos!
the Beis Josef in the Shilchan Aruch,agrees with PETA and categoricaly forbids doing KAPOREHS with live chickens and he claims it is CHUKAS HUAKUM.
in my opinion it is high time we should cut this out ,because it causes a tremendous
CHILUL HASHEM [yes, i know it is a MINHAG YISROEL for hundreds of years] but
a MINHAG does not supercede a CHILUL HASHEM,
we can always use fish or money
I say, roll them in my secret blend of 11 delicious herbs and spices, batter and fry them for 15 minutes until tender. The PETA people, that is.
Peta is a fraudulant organization with a euphomistic phony agenda. While claiming to be truly concerned about animal cruelty, they have never uttered one word against abortion. Humans do not matter to them and until they start caring about the unborn, nothing they say or do should concern any of us humans.
If the way Kappores are done today in the cities constitutes excessive cruelty to the chicken it’s tzaar balei chaim which is an issur d’oraisah. I can’t imagine that a minhag would supersede an issur d’oraisah.
I can’t understand why everybody is so angry about what PETA (People Eating and Torturing Animals) has to say they are all a bunch of anti-religious anti-G-d anti-humanity bozos who have specifically been targeting Jews lately. Forget about it you can’t change or exchange them they’re all defective. בברכת א גמר חתימה טובה. אידן גייטס שלאגטס כפרות און זאלען די פיטא בהמות זיין אונזער כפרות.
I stopped doing kaporos with chickens decades ago. It may have been fine in the alte shtetel, when people had chickens in their own back yards, but it has no place in today’s times and circumstances. It is unquestionably very cruel to the poor creatures. That’s even when done as carefully as possible, and how much more so the way it’s done by so many who are clueless as to how to handle an animal. It’s also dirty, bloody, and completely gross. I agree totally with those calling for an end to this practice.
Philip Schein says:
“We can’t ask for mercy and forgiveness or achieve transformation with blood on our hands.”
Well, Philip Schein has blood on his own hands!!!!! He helped to begin the whole war against Rubashkin by going undercover at their plant and then he mossered on them all over the place.
Mr Schein-you shold heed your own advice and somehow find a way to do Teshuva before Yom haDin!!!!!!!!!!!!
KAPURAS ‘the way we do it nowadays’ is real Tzar Baalei Chaim – Its an outright issur. I head from R’ Wosner that it is Tzar Ballaei Chaim to handle chickens solely on its wings. A chicken must be handled by its feet and wings simultaneously. Too much upward pressure on the wings of the chicken, even for only a very short period of time, causes it to become 100% treif. So in addition to being oiver ‘Tzar balei chaim’ we are also perpertrating treife meat. I watched a few establishments today, it was mind boggling to see the tzar baalei chaim going on as young 7 year old kids run around helping shlep 2 kapuras at a time to anxious families who are disgusted touching the chickens themselves. Shlepping them by their wings only. 100% Tzar baalei Chaim L’chol hadeias….
PETA is the biggest bunch of hypocrites on the planet. You and I cannot kill animals for or clothing. We cannot even “exploit” sheep by shearing their wool, but PETA can kill 2000 animals a year because it’s inconvenient to feed, clean up after, and care for them. Those figures are from the forms that PETA submits to the Virgina dept of agriculture and consumer services (VDACS). Copies of the paperwork are on petakillsanimals.com. This does not address the PETA’s financials which involve a string of shadow corporations that syphon off 20% of PETA’s gross annually (FSAP, FSAP Foundation) IRS 990s are available on guidestar.org. I think I’ll use two kaporos this year.
1) The posuk says, zovchai adam agalah yishakun, paraphrased as, “They kiss calves while they kill humans.” A passuk needs no proof to its accuracy, yet the Nazis and Peta have done so anyway.
2) The mere fact that goyim attack a Yiddish practice is reason to firmly reject (or ignore) what they say.
3) Contrary to popular misconception, halacha becomes binding when klal Yisroel accept it. For example, Mordechai and Esther wanted Purim to be assur bimlacha like Yom Tov, but the Yidden did not accept it. A certain type of Chupa is invalid according to the Rambam, and no Yidden accept that psak–including those Sefardim who pasken like the Rambam in every other matter. Conversely, the Shulchan Aruch is binding BECAUSE it gained such universal acceptance amongst klal Yisroel. Listening to music in spite of the halachos of zecher lechurban is acceptable because klal Yisroel behaves this way (ayin b’shuchon oruch). Therefore, the fact that Yidden have been doing Kapporos as stated even in the Kitzur means that it is part of Yiddishkeit–no matter what your lomdishe view or social view or cruelty-to-animal view is.
So, to all of you who wish to be matzdik the goyim in Peta, make sure you are not disagreeing with Yiddishkeit in your doing so.
All jews should stand strong in this minhag,if peta wins this one,they will move on to teffilin and sifrei totah.
We find the Chazal becoming concerned regarding angering non Jews when it comes to bedikas chometz in that we do not search holes in shared walls at night using candles so as not to be suspected of using black magic against our neighbors . This suspicion is completely ridiculous, ignorant and hateful however that did not stop Chazal having regard to the possibility that stupidity may lead to anger and violence so as to limit the performance of the bedika (which is a halacho and not a questionable minhag like kapparos). It is one thing if our halacos and minhagim bring ridicule on us. It is another thing if they bring anger and danger to us.
Two hundred years ago, the non-Jews did not care about animal welfare. They slaughtered using poleaxes and partook in cock fighting. A 18th century non Jew in Hungary might laugh at the practice of kapparos but he would not get angry. Things have changed. A significant minority of people today in the western world however stupidly take animal welfare issues fanatically seriously. We who live amongst them cannot ignore this must adapt our behavior not to unnecessarily anger these people as fanatics have a tendency to get violent. In the UK an organization called the Animal Liberation Front terrorizes medical researchers (who only wish to cure the sick) and those who it regards as their enemies. One of their leaders even starved to death in prison in an attempt to blackmail the government. If it is not worth getting into a fight with crazies over bedikas chometz then it is not worth getting into a fight with crazies over kapparos. Indeed I foresee the day when we may have to decide to limit our diet to fish and oyphos as it may not be worth getting into a fight with crazies just for the pleasure (not even a minhag) of eating behaimos should shecita become controversial.