GOODY TWO SHOES: PETA Is Just Fine With Ritualistic Animal Sacrifices - Just Not When Jews Do It
Rabbi Shea Hecht of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said he was inundated with threatening E-mails - as well as a tsunami of phone calls, faxes and letters – inveighing against kaparot, the ritualistic slaughter of chickens to atone for sins before Yom Kippur. Hecht also says some people added threatening and anti-Semitic comments to an online PETA form letter criticizing the ritual as abusive. The ritual requires Orthodox Jews to swing live chickens over their heads to symbolically transfer their sins to the birds. The chickens are then slaughtered on the eve of the Jewish day of atonement.
PETA has produced a 10-minute video depicting the kaparot (also spelled kapparos) ritual, which some rabbis believe dates back to the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Nonetheless, other rabbis believe it is “either a pagan ritual or violates Jewish teaching about the humane treatment of animals,” according to The Times. Some congregations encourage charitable donations in place of kaparot.
The Times notes that “tens of thousands” of chickens and roosters are slaughtered each year in Brooklyn during the ritual, which Rabbi Hecht says is “100 percent within the right of my religious freedom within the country.”
It is also true that it is within the religious rights of Muslims to slaughter goats, sheep and calves during their holy festivals – and that PETA has not made any videos or waged any campaigns against the practice (second item). What’s sauce for the chicken should be sauce for the goat. The intrepid animal rights activists at PETA are no doubt unwilling to “outrage” Muslims, because they know all too well what happens next.
I was thinking the same thing. Like the question about why anti-fur activists are more concerned with fur than with leather. Because it is safer to pick on rich old ladies than it is to pick on bikers. Besides which, PETA has a lot of gall pretending to stick up for animals. Their "shelter" at their headquarters has a kill rate, last I heard of over 90%. See http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
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Great point, lemonfemale and excellant commentary by the blog owner. Some PETA people would be sacrificed if they protested outside a biker bar and all the cowhide being worn inside and the muslims would flat out stone them to deah on the spot if they protested they ritual slaughter - pretty easy to pick on peaceful Jews.
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How hypocritical can PETA get? Sheesh! Well I'll tell you:
Another example is how they "neglected" to protest the SF Gay Pride parade for the inhumane treatment given to the multitude of birds plucked to make all those feather boas. They know how dangerous a group of really pissed off drag queens can be. That's just PETA, playing it safe again.
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