#kaparot

Does anyone actually use a chicken?

Yom Kippur eve

As the sun set on Sept. 28, 2017, Jewish worshipers in Israel took part in the Tashlich ritual during which "sins are cast into the water to the fish" and the Kaparot ritual, swinging a live chicken above one's head to transfer the sins of the past year to the chicken, which is then slaughtered and traditionally given to the poor. Both are performed on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most important day in the Jewish calendar, which this year will start at sunset on Sept. 29. (Getty Images)

Photos from top: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images, Ariel Schalit/AP, Ronen Zvulun, Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images, Oded Balilty/AP

1. M. Friedman electrician and Yiddish poet, with his wife. Paris, France. October 1981.

2. First Worldwide meeting of Holocaust survivors. Jerusalem, Israel. June 1981.

3. Kaparot. A young Hasid, praying before the slaughtering of the chicken by a 'cacher' butcher. The chicken is then offered to the poor. October 1981.

Paris, suburb of Genevilliers, France. 2016.

A hen is swung over one's head as a substitute for atonement for the year’s sins. The Lubavitch movement provides the hens for a fee and then send them to be slaughtered, the meat distributed to charity. An Orthodox Jew prays before performing kaparot.

Ne forgasd a kakast!

A tel-avivi városháza az alábbi bejegyzést posztolta a Facebook-oldalán: Ahalan kaparot (barátságos üdvözlet – héber szleng), csak emlékeztetni szeretnénk arra, hogy ebben az évben sem engedjük, hogy állatokat bántsanak a városban. Jom Kippur szent és fontos nap, de nem szabad, hogy annak megtartása ártatlan lények rovására történjen (utalás a kaparot nevű fej feletti kakasforgatásra). Sok…