Somebody Think About the Chickens

In September, Orthodox Jewish communities again staged traditional kaparot, in which chickens are killed in a prescribed way for the purpose of “transferring” a believer’s latest sins over to the chicken (whose death banishes the sins). In many such ceremonies, the chickens are donated for food, but protesters in Los Angeles criticized rogue practitioners who simply tossed carcasses in the trash. In November, Miami-Dade County animal services found a severely injured chicken with a family’s 4-by-6 photograph protruding from its chest, having been haphazardly “implanted,” along with a note containing several hand-written names, apparently a casualty of local Santeria services.