Animal-activists confront orthodox Jewish sin-offering ritual - but lacking any Halal protests, how much is anti-Semitism?

JooTube takes you inside the Yom Kippur protest which got California Department of Food and Agriculture to close-down the traditional atonement ritual in Los Angeles before Yom Kippur, 2013.

Police attempt to stop animal-rights protestors stealing a chicken

Jewish chicken-slaughtering operations ordered to shut down Animal rights activists and some liberal Jews protest the practice of kaparot, in which sins are transferred to sacrificial chickens. (L.A. Times Sept 13, 2013) by Martha Groves and Matt Stevens

The California Department of Food and Agriculture said Friday that it has ordered the shutdown of two Pico-Robertson operations that were participating in a traditional Orthodox Jewish ritual that involves the slaughtering of chickens.



"I told them what they're doing is against state law," said Rhett Dunn, a Food and Agriculture investigator. "They have to be properly registered."


 
Beit Aaron, a Sephardic Orthodox outreach organization, and Ohel Moshe, a synagogue, were performing the ritual -- known as kaparot (or kaparos)-- this week in the lead-up to Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.




Beit Aaron's operation was in a makeshift tent behind a building it rents on Pico Boulevard. Ohel Moshe's practitioners were operating out of a temporary plywood structure in the synagogue's parking lot, also on Pico. 

 

The ancient ritual, practiced by a relatively small group of very observant Orthodox Jews, aims to provide believers an opportunity to atone for their sins. A practitioner holds a chicken under the wings and circles it over the penitent's head or nearby, reciting an appropriate prayer. He then kills the chicken with a sharp blade and drains its blood. The chickens typically are then dressed and donated to charities such as the Midnight Mission.



Organizer, Rabbi Jonathan Klein of Faith Action for Animals says that more than 100 people attended and that some stayed to demonstrate late into the night.



Since the ceremony, activists including several staunch vegans and alarmed residents have taken to Pico Boulevard each evening, handing out fliers, setting up candlelight vigils and even bargaining with one kaparot manager to rescue chickens on the chopping block in exchange for protesting more peacefully.

 
 The demonstrations have sometimes gotten testy. Protesters and kaparot managers alike contend they've been peppered with anti-Semitic slurs. In one instance, police were called after a woman refused to exit a parking lot where she heard the screeching of fowl. By the time police arrived, she had walked down the block. No one was injured, and no arrests were made.

  

Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jewish people, begins Friday evening and ends Saturday evening.

How does the symbolism of the four Sukkot species fit you?

“You will take for yourselves on the first day [of Sukkot] the fruit of a citron tree, date-palm branches, twigs of a plaited tree, and willows of the stream; and you will rejoice before Hashem your God for seven days” (Leviticus 23:40).  

What do the lulav and esrog you see Jews carrying on Sukkot mean? JooTube visited the 613 Mitzvah store in Pico-Robertson where Rabbi Shimon Kraft sells etrogs and lulavs for $40 a pair. Moshe Klein and Jonathan Eyshi, 10th-grade Yeshiva students at Mesivta Birkas Yitzchok in Los Angeles explain the lulav and esrog used in prayer during the Jewish holiday of the Tabernacles (Booths), the holiday of Sukkot which runs for a week, commencing Sept 20, 2013.

British scholar, Daniel Pinner writes: 

The Midrash explains the Four Species to represent four different kinds of Jews: “Just as the etrog has both pleasant taste and pleasant fragrance, so there are Jews who have both Torah-learning and good deeds… The date-palm has a pleasant taste but no fragrance, representing Jews who have Torah-learning but have no good deeds…The myrtle has a pleasant fragrance but no taste, representing Jews who have good deeds but no Torah-learning… And the willow which has neither fragrance nor taste represents Jews who have neither Torah-learning nor good deeds” (Vayikra Rabbah 30:12). All four species have to bepresent in order to fulfil the mitzvah; if any one of them is missing, then the Jew has not carried out the mitzvah at all (Rambam, Laws of Shofar, Sukkah and Lulav 7:5; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 651:12); if, for whatever reason, one or more of the species is unavailable, then one shakes the others without saying the Brachah, in memory of the mitzvah which should have been  (Shulchan Aruch ibid.).  Read more of Be an Etrog on Arutz Sheva.

Rabbi Aaron Parry ("Complete Talmud for Dummies") explains the symbolism of the willow branches used in the Sukkot Hoshana Raba worship, originated in Israel's original, sovereign incarnation.



To get more of your questions about Judaism and Jewish ritual answered, purchase a copy of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Talmud" direct from Rabbi Parry here. 

Daniel Pinner concludes in Be An Etrog:

The myrtle with its pleasant fragrance but no taste, representing the Jew who has good deeds but no Torah-learning, survives for appreciably longer than the lulav with its pleasant taste but no fragrance, representing the Jew who has Torah-learning but no good deeds.  And finally we come to the etrog, with its pleasant taste and pleasant fragrance, representing the Jew who has both Torah-learning and good deeds.  The etrog remains fresh and fragrant and yellow (or green) for weeks.  Study and internalise the lesson of the Four Species.  Be an etrog-Jew! Contribute both pleasant taste and pleasant fragrance to the bundle of the Four Species, contribute both Torah-learning and good deeds to the community. The etrog-Jew is the Jew who survives, the Jew who endures.

P.E.T.A. activists chase chickens, vilifying Jewish kaparot atonement-ritual in orthodox L.A. neighborhood

Killing of chickens in Jewish ritual draws protests in L.A.

Animal rights activists and some liberal Jews have protested the practice of kaparot, in which chickens are slain. (L.A. Times Sept 11, 2013)   By Martha Groves and Matt Stevens

In a parking lot behind a Pico Boulevard building, inside a makeshift tent made of metal poles and tarps, a man in a white coat and black skullcap grabs a white-feathered hen under the wings and performs an ancient ritual.

He circles the chicken in the air several times and recites a prayer for a woman standing nearby whose aim is to symbolically transfer her sins to the bird. The young man then uses a sharp blade to cut the hen's throat.

In the days before Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, this ritual will be repeated untold times in hastily built plywood rooms and other structures in traditional Orthodox Jewish communities from Pico-Robertson to Brooklyn. Promotional fliers on lampposts in this neighborhood advertise the kaparot service at $18 per chicken or $13 apiece for five or more.

But the practice is increasingly drawing the ire of animal rights activists, and some liberal Jews, who say the custom is inhumane, paganistic and out of step with modern times.

This year, activists have launched one of the largest, most organized efforts ever in the Southland to protest the practice, known variously as kaparot, kapparot or kaparos.

Over the weekend, a coalition of faith leaders and animal rights proponents held a "compassionate kaparot ceremony" during which rabbis used money rather than chickens for the ritual, an accepted alternative. Organizers say that more than 100 people attended and that some stayed to demonstrate late into the night.

Since the ceremony, activists including several staunch vegans and alarmed residents have taken to Pico Boulevard each evening, handing out fliers, setting up candlelight vigils and even bargaining with one kaparot manager to rescue chickens on the chopping block in exchange for protesting more peacefully.

The demonstrations have sometimes gotten testy. Protesters and kaparot managers alike contend they've been peppered with anti-Semitic slurs.

In one instance Monday night, police were called after a woman refused to exit a parking lot where she heard the screeching of fowl. By the time police arrived, she had walked down the block. No one was injured, and no arrests were made.

But activists said they were expecting business at kaparot sites to soar as Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jewish people, draws near. The holiday begins Friday evening.

Watch The Kaparot Chronicles- Uncut (no pun intended) in 9 segments