I would like to begin with an apology to all of my Substack subscribers who read my last post, which was a little less than a year ago. I had prematurely announced that I was going to be releasing the findings of an important new investigation and that this was not something you’d want to miss out on reading. However, the project I was working on is far more complicated than I had imagined and it has involved vastly more time, money, and travel than I initially invested up to that point. The journey has taken some very interesting and unexpected twists and turns, but on top of that I’ve been plagued by being overwhelmed and dealing with other things that have led to on and off periods of focus towards getting this work finished and ready for release. So yes, this thing I had announced in 2025 is still coming, but I will no longer be commenting about when this or almost anything else I ever do in the future will be getting released. Because I had announced that this particular investigation would be the next thing I’d post on here, I’ve held back writing other articles because that would be contradicting my past statement. However, I no longer care about contradicting myself based on a past mistake.
I found out about Kaporos in 2015, but it’s been happening all my life and well before I was born (I’ll explain what it is soon). Awareness of kaporos still isn’t commonplace by any means, even among people who live in major cities where it happens such as New York. With that being said, I doubt that most people would be interested to know about it in the first place.
While in Texas eleven years ago I saw that there were activists in Brooklyn, NY boldly protesting the abuses that a sect of Jewish people were inflicting onto helpless chickens out in the open for a dumbfounding tradition called kaporos.
I wasn’t able to afford the trip to NY, but I was able to locate a Chabad synagogue in Houston, TX that confirmed over the phone that their members would be doing the kaporos with chickens. It was a long drive, but I made my way to Houston and entered the synagogue, hoping to be granted permission to observe them doing kaporos and to gather footage. Upon entering the synagogue I was met with some of the pushiest personalities and hands I’ve ever experienced. I had a cover story for why I was visiting the synagogue and hoping to see kaporos, but was surprised at how they wasted absolutely no time trying to convert me to their religion as if their life depended on it. This was a tricky situation, but things were going fairly well at first in terms of being convincing and climbing the ladder to obtaining permission to document, which I did end up getting.
The practitioners were all going to be meeting at a nearby Asian-owned live animal and produce market that had all kinds of animals living in deplorable conditions, including a large structure packed tightly wall to wall with chickens and another overfull area that essentially had goats and sheeps living on top of one another. At the Asian market there were a bunch of new ultra-orthodox Jewish faces and I had to explain to some of them why I was there and wanted to take pictures.
Just before the prayers and killing commenced I received some bad news. I was told that I could stick around and observe, but I’d have to go put my camera equipment in my car. Permission got revoked despite the claim that this was a good deed that they were doing. I had no choice but to play it cool if I wanted to bear witness to kaporos. When I returned they were now saying their silly little foolish prayers and slitting the throats of terrorized screaming chickens. Just several feet away from where I stood I watched an estimated 75 chickens get killed before I chose to leave empty-handed.
All I have is my story from that day, I didn’t obtain any footage and I didn’t write down any notes or a journal entry about the experience. I vaguely remember the man who slit the chickens throats tossing them onto the floor while they were still alive and bleeding out, but that’s really it. In New York City they typically toss the dying chickens into upside down orange street cones between NYPD-marked metal street barriers thanks to taxpayer dollars and the New York Police Department who knows how to serve the Hasidic and ultra-orthodox community really well.
What Is Kaporos?
Kaporos is an antiquated custom that is sometimes referred to as kapparot or kaparot, all of which can mean ‘atonement,’ or ‘scapegoat’ or ‘sacrifice.’ This is a “sin-transferring” custom in which a purchased live animal (usually nowadays a mass-produced domesticated chicken) is used, or alternatively money intended for charity can be used. Either way, both choices are purported to be charitable because the people who use chickens claim that the dead birds get donated and fed to the poor (or that the money from selling their flesh gets donated).
Kaporos is practiced by some Haredi (ultra-orthdox) and Hasidic Jewish practitioners in the days and evenings after the holiday Rosh Hashanah leading up to the holiday of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. The heaviest participation takes place on the last night and very early the following morning. Neither the Torah nor the Talmud (the two most holy Jewish texts) mandate or even mention kaporos, plus it isn’t part of Jewish law to partake in kaporos or anything remotely resembling it. Suffice it to say that most Jewish people aren’t even aware of its existence.
Locations where chickens are used and killed for kaporos in even just the New York City area alone are too great in number to have a clue as to exactly how many there are. Sometimes it takes place in very accessible areas like on public streets and sidewalks and sometimes it happens in secret in backyards. I’ve witnessed thousands of chickens killed out in the open, but there are also a bunch of spots where the birds are brought into businesses and killed out of sight.
Every photo in this article, unless otherwise stated, is from kaporos in New York. I have been to New York 6 times since 2016 to document kaporos and some years I also managed to help rescue chickens. Several chickens I got were abandoned in boxes and crates because they were considered unkosher, but under the law they were still considered someone else’s property and would have been deemed illegal to rescue if I had gotten caught. One time I rescued a chicken when a woman let me demonstrate how to hold a chicken in a way that wouldn’t cause them extra physical pain. After she handed me her chicken and I showed her how they could be held properly I walked away with the chicken and she didn’t try to chase me down or anything. Another time I was photographing a woman doing the ritual and she was becoming angry at me for taking photos. I told her I’d stop and not use the photos if she gave me her chicken, which she did almost right away.
If there is just one positive thing I can mention that happens with kaporos in New York City its that there are a lot of people on the ground saving chickens and providing essential post-rescue care, plus there are sanctuaries all over the country welcoming in liberated kaporos birds. All of this requires significant manpower, donations, specialized knowledge and skills, and of course a willingness to want to help. A good place to start with how you can help is by following and donating to United Poultry Concerns for updates and donating to other rescuers and sanctuaries. For specific sanctuaries and organizations that people can donate to for the kaporos chickens please mention anything you know in the comment section below. I personally know sanctuary owners who have had chickens rescued from kaporos that survived up to the age of 8, which is incredible.
According to a book I purchased after first documenting kaporos, Zeh Kaporosi: The Custom of Kaporos by Avrohom Reit, certain Jewish scholars first discussed kaporos in the ninth century. These scholars claimed that since the Hebrew word ‘gever’ meant both ‘man’ and ‘rooster,’ punishment for the bird could be substituted for punishment of the sinful human. The ritual is most commonly practiced in Israel, but it also takes place in countless other areas of the world–the epicenter being Brooklyn, New York and the second most popular location in the United States probably being Lakewood, New Jersey and then Los Angeles on the west coast. I have a friend who attempted to document and did successfully save some abandoned chickens from a kaporos spot in Miami, FL last year.
There is essentially no data available in regards to kaporos and I’m guessing that’s how things will remain. I personally believe that well over 100,000 chickens are used for kaporos annually in just New York City, but from what I’ve seen people who raise awareness about kaporos in NYC will usually say “tens of thousands” or “up to 100,000.” We also don’t know exactly how old the birds are. The age can range since the chickens are transported in from different facilities, but the cornish cross chickens (the predominant breed used for kaporos and for flesh consumption in general) are normally slaughtered at just six weeks of age. The kaporos chickens are usually smaller in size than their ‘market-ready’ counterparts so they could be just around a month old. Either way, no matter how old the birds are when they’re used and destroyed, they are just [massively overgrown] babies.
For those who do practice kaporos, roosters are supposed to be sacrificed for males and hens are supposed to be sacrificed for females, but the chickens are usually too young to be able to properly distinguish. The practitioner typically holds a chicken above their head or someone else’s head and swings the chicken(s), usually with their wings pinned backward or with their wings raised completely upwards, in a circle three or more times while staring down at their phone or paper and reciting the following: “This is my exchange, my substitute, my atonement; this rooster (or hen) shall go to its death, but I shall go to a good, long life, and to peace.”
One chicken is purchased and used per human–not just for adults and the youth–but even for babies and unborn babies. If a woman is pregnant (which is very commonly the case) and unaware of the sex of her baby, then two opposite sex chickens are supposed to be purchased and killed for her unborn sinner.
According to chabad.org just one chicken for the undetermined sex baby will suffice if the chickens cost too much money:
A pregnant woman should perform kaparot with three chickens—two hens and a rooster. One hen for herself, and the other hen and rooster for the unborn child (if the gender is undetermined). If this is too expensive, one hen and one rooster will suffice (and if the fetus is female, she shares the hen with her mother).
Prayer instructions for a pregnant woman from the book Zeh Kaporosi: The Custom of Kaporos by Avrohom Reit:
If it is possible, take two or three chickens together and say:
These are your exchange, these are your replacement, these are your atonement. The death of these chickens will substitute for your death and you will be preserved for a good, long life and to peace.
Although chickens are shipped in and killed in enormous quantities for kaporos, there are also many people who practice the ritual with money instead. Some rabbis encourage their adherents to swing around chickens while others tell their followers to swing around money and recite: “This money shall go to charity, and I shall go to a good, long life, and to peace.” The chicken locations can generate massive revenue thanks to being able to capitalize off of human gullibility.
Kaporos with animals is inconsistent with the Torah prohibition of ‘tza’ar ba’alei chayim,’ which forbids the causing of unnecessary pain to living beings.
Before I Move On…
“He’s an anti-semite!”
I’m sure that’s been said of me a lot, but only because of my dedication to Kaporos. If someone wants to call me an anti-semite then that’s perfectly fine and they can believe whatever they want to believe, but I know that it’s a mischaracterization. I have no qualms about admitting that I am not a fan of the human species at all, which includes people of every religion known to man and those who are atheist and agnostic and vegan too. The investigations I go on are always based primarily on what the victims are forced to endure. Suffice it to say that it would be far more accurate to call me anti-human than anti-semite, but neither one is particularly fitting.
I have documented an enormous range of atrocities happening to animals. As far as chickens go I have documented way more than just the most extreme of Jewish people torturing chickens. Kaporos is not the only religion-based animal sacrifice I’ve documented. I’ve also accessed the annual Muslim Eid al-Adha sacrificial festival, which I believe is just as asinine and sickening as kaporos.
People will say there are much bigger things happening to chickens than kaporos so why bother. I agree that there are much bigger things happening to chickens but that doesn’t make kaporos insignificant or less legitimate of an issue to shed a light on and try to do something about. The chickens involved are just as worthy of respect and rescue as chickens being harmed for anything else anywhere else and their abusers are equally as deserving of pushback.
I Made It To New York
In 2016 I did it, I made it out to the kaporos epicenter. For the first part of the week I was staying in a house on a street in a neighborhood that had been overtaken by Hasidic Jews. I was told that the woman next door had over 220 grandchildren. The Hasidic Jews tend to think they are god’s chosen people and that they ought to multiply like crazy, whether they can financially afford to have more children or not. Numerous Hasidic Jews over the years have told me that they believe those who aren’t like them are less than dust mites.
I investigated kaporos throughout the day and night all week long in 2016 and 2017. My cover story was consistent at every kaporos location and it worked amazingly well. How I presented myself, that I kept my opposition private, and because I generally didn’t take photos of people who didn’t want to appear in photos–I was able to get incredible access that had never been achieved before. I didn’t pretend that I was in favor of what they were doing–instead I feigned neutrality.
There were protests against kaporos up through 2018. After much failed outreach to the kaporos practitioners, a failed pressure campaign against the New York City Health Department, and a failed legal campaign to get New York to enforce it’s own laws and regulations in regards to health, sanitation, and animal cruelty–the protests and campaigns were no more (as far as I’m currently aware). When protestors used their voices and signs to speak up for the chickens many of the practitioners would oftentimes torture and belittle the chickens more intensely to taunt the activists, so it was inevitable that the protests would not last long.
A common tactic by the Haredi and Hasidic jews is to label anyone who has a problem with anything they do (at least in this case using chickens for kaporos) as an “anti-semite,” a “Hitler lover,” or a “Jew hater.” Perhaps even just the prospect of being labeled an anti-semite, whether by the kaporos practitioners or anyone else, has greatly weakened the cause of helping the chickens and the future of this nonsense ritual. When I used to document kaporos undercover I had practitioners who’d converse with me telling me that all the protestors are PETA, that all the female protestors have had abortions, and that all of the protestors are anti-semites.
I initially wanted to give my all to documenting kaporos because I knew I could show the suffering of the chickens and the mess and absurdity of the whole thing possibly better than anyone else. The hope was that my documentation could be used to help end the ritual, at least in New York City. For a while my documentation did appear widely used within activist materials, shared online, and was used in the courts where the case to stop kaporos with chickens was ultimately dismissed by the New York State Court of Appeals.
The following section is copied from a website page that I used to have about kaporos years ago:
In late 2018, the State of New York Court of Appeals dismissed the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos case, which also involved nineteen Brooklyn residents. In this case, these individuals sued the city of New York for not enforcing any of the fifteen laws that Kaporos practitioners are violating. From the United Poultry Concerns website AECK attorney, Nora Constance Marino, states about the court’s incompetent decision:
“The Court of Appeals decision says that the laws cited by the plaintiffs allow for decisions involving discretion by the police. “Mandamus” -- meaning a court order to compel the police to act in a certain way -- would apply only if the laws involved no discretion whatsoever. We disagree with the court’s decision, because the laws involved in our case -- specifically, the animal cruelty statute and the health codes -- are in fact mandatory laws, meaning that the New York State legislature used words like “must” and “shall” when speaking of enforcement of these laws.
Thus, it is my opinion that the Court of Appeals was entirely incorrect in this decision. The judges ignored the clear “mandate,” or direction, of the state legislature, by allowing New York City and the New York City Police (the executive branch of government) to fail to enforce laws that are “mandated” to be enforced.”
From the United Poultry Concerns website, a short history of battling Kaporos from a legal standpoint:
The [2018] case involved 19 Brooklyn residents and the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, who sued the city of New York for failure to enforce fifteen laws that are violated by practitioners of an annual religious ritual called Kaporos, in which chickens are punished as surrogates for human sinners. These acts violate multiple health codes, sanitation codes, and the state animal cruelty statute.
The case was started in New York State’s lowest court, the Supreme Court. A Supreme Court judge dismissed the case. Alliance attorney Nora Constance Marino appealed to the Appellate Division, the next judicial level. There, from a panel of five judges, we received a split decision – three judges agreed with the lower court, and two did not. Those two dissenting votes were what was required to have our case heard in the state’s highest court – the Court of Appeals.
This was exciting. Very few cases make it to the Court of Appeals. The case received press coverage in mainstream media and in law journals. Oral arguments were presented to the Court on October 17, 2018, as outlined above, and were broadcast live stream. Our case was viewed by many, and many held their breath, waiting for the six Court of Appeals judges to rule.
Regrettably, after just four short weeks, the judges rendered their decision, affirming the lower courts; thus, the case remains dismissed.”
Sin transferring? Yeah right…
I’ve asked tons of kaporos people, from very young to very old, how they can possibly transfer their sins into a completely different being (not that its even possible to make this work with other humans). Nobody has been able to give me a straight answer. Some go silent. Some change the subject. And others have actually told me that its symbolic or that god makes it magically happen. So all these chickens are getting massacred for allegedly carrying someone else’s sins, but almost nobody actually believes that this is what is really going on or in the cases where they do believe it they can’t begin to explain it.
I’ve heard kaporos practitioners state that the birds are calm, relaxed, and even happy. Some chickens won’t make a peep when they are being handled as it’s their instinct to play dead when their lives are threatened. Others make unmistakable sounds like crying out and screaming, yet some practitioners will claim that they are actually singing with joy. The chickens typically get held up and swung around as their wings are pinned back or held up, the most painful ways anyone could hold a chicken. I’ve seen people swing the chickens around 3 times and I’ve seen other people swinging the chickens around more times than I can count. The painful handling and swinging all too often leads to severe injuries or the exacerbation of pre-existing injuries. In the case of chickens who get rescued, wing amputations are unfortunately oftentimes something that needs to be performed (of course with pain management).
Pinning a human’s arms back and then holding them up and swinging them by their elbows would be similar to what these people do to the chickens. Not only are chickens held this way during the prayer reading and the swinging, but they are often held for a long time during the lead up to the prayer, while in line waiting to be slaughtered, while being used for family pictures, and much more.
It’s typical for chickens to have to share living space with dead chickens who were transported in their same crate. Given that the vast majority of chickens for kaporos are never fed or watered, some resort to eating their own kind after days of prolonged hunger.
The chickens view other chickens being killed before they are killed themselves. I’ve never seen anyone attempt to block chickens from the sight of their impending doom, but this is certainly not something that is at all unique to kaporos.
“They Die INSTANTLY”
I’ve had countless kaporos practitioners make preposterous claims that the chickens die instantly. It’s not that the people really believe the chickens die instantly, after all they can see the slaughter happening right in front of their eyes, it’s just that they want to control the narrative and humanewash the horrifying realities of what this custom really entails. I’ve witnessed and documented a lot of chicken slaughter over the last decade and the chickens killed for kaporos always take the longest to die and have the greatest occurrence of botched killings.
After having their throats slit, a lot of the chickens take an extremely long time to die and will thrash around, fly out of repurposed street cones, pop their heads in and out of the base of the cones, or jump out of chicken crates if that’s what they get dumped into. I’ve seen some stand up and walk to nowhere as blood drains out from their body. None of these events stops the practitioners from having the audacity to claim that the chickens die painlessly, instantly, and of course humanely.
Given To The Poor Landfill
Another bold lie the people spew is that the chickens get donated to the poor. At the two biggest kaporos locations in New York, both of which are just a few minutes walk apart from each other, none of the chickens are ever consumed by anyone. Everyone can see with their own eyes that all of the dying and dead chickens are thrown into black garbage bags or simply thrown on the ground. Towards the end the chickens are just left dead inside the cones. There is absolutely no refrigeration or chicken processing on site. Even if you get the opportunity to show anyone at kaporos video footage of the trash bags full of chickens getting picked up they just say that you can edit a video to make it whatever you want (I’m talking about before AI took off).
Rabbis and many Jewish people who criticize kaporos say the chickens killed for the custom can’t be considered kosher, therefore they are considered inedible. Killing and discarding chickens for kaporos is a violation of ba’al tashchit, the principle that we should not waste or needlessly destroy.
In 2018 while I was waiting for the sanitation department truck to arrive on the final morning so that I could document the trash bags of chickens getting picked up and loaded into the truck, I had noticed movement inside of a nearby bag. The minimum amount of time the still alive chicken could’ve been in there was a half hour, but they were probably trapped for much longer than that. When the bag was opened, a bloodied chicken who had a slit throat and major breathing complications, was taken out, given veterinary care, and later on some emergency surgeries hours away from the city. That rooster was named Robin and he miraculously recovered, physically and psychologically, and got to go live at a sanctuary for special needs chickens that’s called Penelopes Place. Robin got to live until November of 2025. You can watch a short documentary I made about him here.
Where Do You Get Your Protein?
The question every vegan on earth has been asked. Maybe if you aren’t swayed by the solid ethical reasons to live vegan the following photos may help you understand why some people have literally no desire to eat animal flesh beyond morality.
At certain kaporos locations they do process the dead chickens, although there are still plenty that get thrown away. What happens with the chicken flesh at each location is not something I can 100% be in the know about. Maybe the flesh at some locations gets donated, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe at some locations the money from selling the flesh gets donated, maybe it doesn’t. There is no transparency. Either way, it’s a completely unsanitary process and I’d hope that many people who are eating it wouldn’t have an appetite to do so if they saw the behind the scenes.
All the kaporos images below are by flesh shops, so the dead chicken bodies could very well be getting sold at these establishments for all I know. I’ll go caption-free for the next series of photos and let the images speak for themselves.
Child Abuse Is Awful Too
Up to this point I’ve focused on the injustices directed towards chickens, but there is also plenty of child abuse on public display. Aside from the obvious indoctrination and brainwashing all these children grow up with, they are also taught that treating other animals like objects is perfectly normal and they are exposed to gruesome violence and even encouraged to participate from very early on. Some children are clearly scared and upset by what their parents and others around them are doing to small harmless animals.
With all the children I’ve had trying to block my camera and my own eyes from seeing what’s going on with the chickens, I have reason to believe that they know that this is wrong…or why would they bother following me around everywhere I move and doing all they possibly can to try to hide reality from an outsider like me?
To sum up the bullshit from the people who keep this beyond sickening tradition alive, this is the text from the Kaparot and Kindness to Animal section on the kaporos page of chabad.org:
It is of utmost importance to treat the chickens humanely, and not to, G‑d forbid, cause them any pain or discomfort. Jewish law very clearly forbids causing any unnecessary pain to any of G‑d's creations. An unkind act like that would certainly be amplified on this day, the eve of the day when we beseech G‑d for—perhaps undeserved—kindness and mercy.
As of publishing this on Friday, September 18th, 2026 this is pretty much a photography-only article because I haven’t had the time to create new videos specifically for this project, but as time goes on I will be updating this with video content and any other relevant updates.
In the meantime I will include a kaporos video I posted last year to my Instagram that got an enormous amount of views and shares:
I wish I could have put much more work into this project, but this is all I have time for right now in order to get this out while kaporos is still taking place this year. I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to any kaporos locations this year with my work schedule and everything else, but thank you to those who are actively involved.
Thank you for documenting Kaporos so extensively and for bearing witness to what these chickens endure. We’re grateful for your dedication to exposing their suffering and helping others see what happens to these vulnerable birds. Your documentation is an important contribution to the effort to bring an end to the use of chickens in Kaporos.
Wow. These are some of the most haunting and horrifying images I've ever seen, especially because of the delight and unabashed celebration of such cruelty and sadism, and the fear in the animals' eyes. Your writing too, so powerful.l
Thank you (that's not enough) for bearing your soul, your determination to speak for the most precious and forgotten individuals, and to expose the abominable truth. You are a rare talent and activist, a true champion, the world is lucky to have you.