NYC Residents and Visitors to Hold Candlelight Vigil to Honor 60,000 Tortured, Discarded Kaporos Chickens
NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On September 28, 2017, a candlelight vigil will be held to acknowledge the suffering of the 60,000 baby chickens tortured and killed in the streets of New York City every year during the ritual of Kaporos. Five-week old chickens are stacked in transport crates on city streets, often for days leading up to the ritual, without food, water, or protection from the weather. During the ritual, they are yanked from the crates and swung cruelly and painfully by their wings while practitioners chant about transferring their sins and punishment symbolically onto the birds, who are then slaughtered. Many are cruelly left on the street, while still alive, writhing and crying in pain.
Most people who practice Kaporos swing a sack of money and donate the money to charity. While practitioners claim the chickens' flesh is donated to "the poor," it is well-documented that the majority of the birds go directly into garbage bags and landfills.
"Using chickens not only violates 15 laws and regulations including public health codes, sanitation laws, child labor laws, slaughterhouse regulations, and animal cruelty laws, but also several mandates and imperatives from the Torah and Talmud," said Rina Deych, RN, and Founding Member of the Alliance. This use of chickens has been condemned as unethical and contrary to the spirit of Jewish tradition by dozens of orthodox rabbis all over the world. It has been deemed a health hazard by a well-respected toxicologist for putting New York residents and visitors at risk of contracting E. coli, Salmonella, and other transmittable diseases.
WHO: Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, Animal Cruelty Exposure Fund, Their Turn, NYCLASS, Long Island Orchestrating for Nature, New York Farm Animal Save, New York Animal Defenders, NYC residents.
WHEN: September 28th, 2017, 7:30pm-8:15pm. The vigil will begin moving at about 8:15pm.
WHERE: 48th Street and 14th Avenue in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
WHY: To urge practitioners to use money instead of chickens and demand that the NYPD enforce the 15 laws being broken by Kaporos practitioners.
The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos is a project of United Poultry Concerns. Formed in New York City in June 2010, the Alliance is an association of groups and individuals who seek to replace the use of chickens in Kaporos ceremonies with money or other non-animal symbols of atonement. The Alliance does not oppose Kaporos per se, only the cruel and unnecessary use of chickens in the ceremony.
SOURCE Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos
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