Jewish chicken-slaughtering operations ordered to shut down

[The Straight Story]

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."

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

Faith leaders and animal rights activists have for several days staged protests of the practice, calling it inhumane. They contend that many of the dead chickens have ended up in trash bins.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-jewish-chicken-slaughtering-operations-ordered-to-shut-down-20130913,0,7481456.story

[gopiscrap]

1. OMG

[leveymg]

2. Would it be less objectionable to the State if the congregants just opened up with AR-15s?

Did anyone see Anthony Bordaine last night as he made Coq au Vin for dinner on a Congo steamer? I am so glad he gave the lamb away to the King.

[pangaia]

4. Didn't see it last night but..

did see it on Youtube...
love No Reservations....

[leveymg]

6. This is his new CNN show - "Parts Unknown". Harder edges, but still fascinating and quirky.

More documentary and less food. Better, in some ways.

[pangaia]

8. I have also seen a bunch of his CNN Parts Unknown on Youtube.

So are the ones on CNN now repeats?

Also.. Layover..

[Egalitarian Thug]

3. It's usually amusing when crazy and stupid collide. n/t

[flvegan]

5. Jewish chickens?

Why the hate for Jewish chickens?

[Dr. Strange]

13. Antihennite bastards!

[mainer]

7. The slaughter itself doesn't sound unusually inhumane. The wastage is a crime.

If an animals is to be sacrificed, then it should be for a purpose.

Cutting a chicken's throat is how chickens are usually slaughtered.

[FarCenter]

9. I thought that the heads were severed?

We used to chop them off with an ax.

Hence the expression "run around like a chicken with its head cut off".

[mainer]

10. Have been to a chicken slaughter

Done with a slit to the arteries -- heads not severed until just after scalding.
So this method isn't out of the ordinary.

What I object to is the fact these animals gave their lives for no purpose, except to satisfy some religious need. That's abominable.

[FarCenter]

11. But God commanded the sacrifice of animals

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.

God is not a vegetarian.

[LuvNewcastle]

12. That sounds more humane than what my grandparents did.

They would pick the chicken up by the neck and wring it with the body going around in circles. The head would pop off, and the chicken's body would land on the ground and walk around the yard headless for a while. It was something for the kids to watch when they didn't have a tv.

[REP]

14. This ancient folk custom has been condemned by most Jews for centuries

The chicken is a scapegoat, with the sins being transferred to the chicken, which is then slaughtered and either eaten by the human who s/he was standing in for or given to a charity. Jewish rabbis and scholars, however, have condemned this practice as unnecessarily cruel since, well, forever; most Jews who practice kaparot substitute money wrapped in white paper for the chicken, and once the ceremony is performed, the money is donated to charity. There is nothing in any form of Judaism - ultra-orthodox, orthodox, conservative, etc, that requires a chicken to be killed during Yom Kippur - in fact, most Jews would look at you as though you'd grown a second head if you suggested such a thing.