Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

California Regulators Ordered a Stop to Kapparot on Eve of Yom Kippur

California regulators ordered two Orthodox Jewish groups in Los Angeles to stop performing the Yom Kippur ritual kapparot.

The state’s Department of Food and Agriculture on Friday shut down kapparot at the Ohel Moshe synagogue and the Beit Aaron outreach organization. They were accused of operating unlicensed slaughterhouses, according to reports.

Animal rights activists had protested the act in the days before the closure orders.

Kapparot involves swinging a live chicken over one’s head three times and reciting a prayer to cast sins to the bird. In recent years, money has replaced the chicken in the rite.

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.