Published: 2 August 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
AN ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUP has filed a lawsuit against a Jewish centre in Los Angeles to prevent it from holding kapparot, a pre-Yom Kippur religious ritual.
The lawsuit against the Woodland Hills Hebrew Discovery Centre was filed earlier this month in Los Angeles Superior Court by the Animal Protection and Rescue League and asks for an injunction to prevent the practice.
The centre performed the ritual last year in its parking lot. The lawsuit alleges that the chickens were killed and discarded without using them for food, violating an animal rights law that bars maliciously and intentionally mutilating, torturing or wounding animals, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In recent years, lawsuits against the practice have been filed in New York and California.
Earlier this month the centre was vandalised, with white paint being splashed all over the front of the building. Repairing the damage cost about US$10,000. Vandals also hit the synagogue also in 2016
FULL STORY Los Angeles Jewish centre sued to prevent ‘kapparot’ ritual (JTA/Times of Israel)
Photo: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man in a religious neighbourhood in Ashdod performing 'kapparot' ritual before Yom Kippur (Dima Vazinovich/Flash90)