Kapparot Can Continue In NY, Appeals Court Rules
Image by getty images
(JTA) — The pre-Yom Kippur ritual of kapparot can continue in New York, a New York appeals court found.
The Appellate Division First Department in Manhattan on Tuesday upheld a lower court decision that declined to block the pre-Yom Kippur slaughter of chickens in 2015, when the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos and 19 Brooklyn residents living near where the ritual was performed sued to stop it, the New York Daily News reported.
Kapparot involves swinging a live chicken over one’s head three times and reciting a prayer to transfer sins to the bird. The chicken is then slaughtered and donated to the poor. In recent years, money has replaced the chicken in the rite for many Jewish groups.
The lawsuit, which named several rabbis, synagogues, the New York Police Department and the City of New York, accused the police and health departments of assisting the ritual by blocking off streets and sidewalks, and not enforcing city and state laws that regulate health and prevent animal cruelty.
“Although they may be upsetting to nonadherents of such practice, the United States Supreme Court has recognized animal sacrifice as a religious sacrament and decided that it is protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment,” the appellate court ruling said.
The Alliance said it would appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
