egproductions
Veteran
These are some of the pictures I took a couple of weeks ago in Monsey, NY. For those of you that have never heard of this town, it is an ultra orthodox and chassidic Jewish community. There is a custom still held by some to swing chickens around ones head three times and say a prayer to try to atone for ones sins before yom kippur or the day of atonement (the biggest jewish "holiday" of the year) The backstory to these photographs is that the prior year there were a lot of PETA activists protesting in front of the local pathmark (the pathmark is parking lot is where this custom has usually taken place in the past. This year more people were on edge, especially the adults when they saw I was taking pictures. THey didn't kick me out or anything but a lot of them had asked me what newspaper these were for. THe kids were very happy to have there pictures taken and help me out. This was at 5:30 in the morning and it was raining. There are two separate locations. The photos have been color corrected and sharpened only. Although the custom sounds cruel it was surprisingly not. THe chickens are held behind there wings to calm them down. THey are then lifted over there head three times (not really swung) Then the chickens are sheckted (slaughtered in acordance to Jewish law) and either eaten before the fast of yom kippur or given to charity. The money spent to buy the chickens are also given to charity. The idea is not to put ones sins into the chicken and kill the chicken but to kill the chicken as a replacement for oneself being killed on the day of judgement. There are other sects of Judaism that practice this using money instead. I don't really want this to turn into a political discussion wether its cruel or not because honestly there are cases for both sides and even within religious Jewish circles there is debate wether this custom should be done. This is just one set of photos that are going to be included in a photobook I am putting together of Jewry in America (different types of Jews from chassidic to non observant and different Jewish activities from Jewish rituals to Jewish motorcycle clubs - A mishmash of Jewry if you will) Enjoy!
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