Flying fowl in posh Jerusalem

Jerusalem’s trendy Emek Refaim street is the last place you might expect to find people swinging chickens over their heads to absolve themselves of sin. But on Wednesday, there was rabbinical student Yisrael Cohen, offering passersby a chance to do just that.

While Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi, David Lau, recently called for better treatment of the chickens used in the pre-Yom Kippur kapparot ritual, Cohen, a follower of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, set up shop with a table and two chickens in a straw box in the capital on Wednesday.

“I’ll be doing this until Yom Kippur, although I may switch neighborhoods,” said Cohen, who carefully swung the hen around the head of a customer, while reciting the prayer that seeks to transfer the person’s sins to the chicken.

“I do this as a mitzva, it’s my custom to do this as a service for people before Yom Kippur,” said Cohen, who lives in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood on the other side of the capital.

Cohen said he picks up a hen and rooster each morning, usually setting out for a different neighborhood in the city. At the end of the day, the chickens are slaughtered by a ritual slaughterer, who then gives the meat to poor families for dinner. The money collected by Cohen also goes to charity, he said.

The chickens, pointed out Cohen, could sip from a cup of water perched inside the basket, and were cared for properly throughout the day, he said.

He said he wasn’t concerned about Lau’s letter addressed to ritual organizers and participants, reminding them to be careful with the chickens, which often get crammed into airless cages without food and water.

“Rabbi Lau isn’t my rabbi,” said Cohen. “My rabbi is Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and I identify myself with him. And his tradition is to do kapparot with chickens before Yom Kippur.”