Free Republic

Rabbi Aviner sends SPCA Israel letter, video explaining why according to halacha it is wrong to use chickens in pre-Kippur atonement rite. The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Israel has received a significant halachic backing for this year’s annual campaign against the cruel use of chickens in the kapparot (atonement) ritual. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of the capital’s Yeshivat Ateret Cohanim and rabbi of Beit El, not only provided SPCA Israel with a letter last week showing the faultiness of the rite, basing his arguments on some of the greatest arbitrators, but went on video to expound...

Swinging Chicken Ritual Divides Orthodox Jewsby BARBARA BRADLEY HAGERTY September 26, 2009 Rabbi Shea Hecht in Brooklyn, N.Y., demonstrates how Orthodox Jews wave a chicken three times over their heads and say the prayer of Kapparot (or Kapparos, depending on heritage) in the days leading up to Yom Kippur.Rabbi Shea Hecht plucks a chicken off a truck parked behind a synagogue in Queens, N.Y., and demonstrates how to swing a chicken. "You take it by the wing," says the white-haired Hecht, careful not to get the chicken's feathers or anything else on his black suit and tall black hat. "You...