Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

6 Animal Rights Activists Hurt In Protest Against Chicken-Swinging Rite

(JTA) — Animal rights activists protesting the Jewish custom of swinging around a chicken were assaulted in the Israeli city of Hadera.

Six of the activists, one man and five women, were lightly wounded in the incident Thursday night, in which residents in Hadera began throwing stones and other objects at the protesters who came to demonstrate against the residents’ partaking in the custom of Kapparot, the pre-Yom Kippur folk custom of swinging a chicken around one’s head as a way of purging sin, which some believe is cruel.

Some of the attackers targeted the protesters from balconies of residential homes, the Israel Broadcasting Corporation reported Friday. A video of the incident shows that a fire extinguisher was also hurled at the protesters.

Police stood by and failed to interfere during the demonstration, which according to the corporation was conducting legally with permission.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.