Kapparot, or why are there so many chickens?

My friend Emily lives in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. It's an up and coming neighborhood (there are now a few decent restaurants in the area); however, it still has it's moments. One particular moment happened while I was staying at Em's last time around. Emily's roommate Corey came upstairs and announced that there were chickens downstairs. Em and I were going out to dinner, so we decided to leave a little early to see what was going on.

Sure enough. There were chickens. Crates and crates and crates of them. One by one they were being taken out of the crates and carried around and then put back in the crates. I have never seen more scared chickens in all my life.

Thanks to Wikipedia, we were able to figure out what all this nonsense was. It was Kapparot. The chicken whirling holiday.

I was so mystified, I had to take pictures.



I was so traumatized, I needed fried corn on the cob.



Delish.


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