LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Two operations in the Pico-Robertson area were ordered Friday by the Calif. Department of Food and Agriculture to shut down a traditional Jewish ritual involving slaughtering chickens. Bait Aaron, a Sephardic Orthodox outreach group, and Ohel Moshe, a synagogue, were performing kaparot, which is practiced by a small group of Orthodox Jews on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Kaparot is an ancient ritual in which a person swings a live chicken overhead three times and recites a prayer. The bird is then slaughtered and given to the poor. “It’s not meant...
