13 municipalities to bar use of live chickens in pre-Yom Kippur ‘kapparot’ ritual, NGO says

Thirteen Israeli municipalities have said they will not allow the use of live chickens in the traditional kapparot ritual on Yom Kippur eve, after an animal rights group called on municipal leaders to restrict the practice.

According to Let the Animals Live, those prohibiting the practice include some of Israel’s largest cities, such as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Rishon Lezion, Petah Tikva, Beersheba and Ashkelon.

New additions this year are the towns of Tel Mond, Yeruham, Mevaseret Zion and Yavne. They join the large cities, along with Kiryat Bialik, Kfar Saba, Ra’anana and Ramle.

The ritual involves reciting a brief prayer while swinging a live chicken above one’s head three times in the belief that this transfers one’s sins to the chicken ahead of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. The chicken is then slaughtered and given to the poor.

Those who prefer not to use a live chicken have long swung money above their heads, and then donated it to charity, an alternative many, including Let the Animals Live, see as more humane and hygienic.

The Environmental Protection Ministry has also made similar requests in the past.

Conducting the kapparot service in public in Israel requires receiving a permit from the local veterinary department, whether or not slaughter takes place on site. Local authorities have the right to prohibit the use of live chickens for the ritual, Let the Animals Live says.

“Yom Kippur embodies introspection, compassion and mercy,” said Yael Arkin, the organization’s CEO. “There is no justification for marking it through a practice involving fear and severe suffering to animals.”

On Tuesday, the state-operated Chief Rabbinate said in a statement that Sephardic Chief Rabbi David Yosef and his Ashkenazi counterpart, Chief Rabbi Kalman Ber, had determined that the appropriate sum to be donated to charity for Kapparot, per person, is NIS 30 ($9.90).