De Blasio Administration Uses Tax Dollars to Aid and Abet in Crimes Against Animals – and Defends it in Court
The News
On October 17th, in New York State’s highest court, lawyers for New York City Mayor Bill Blasio’s administration defended the City’s decision to ignore animal cruelty violations and to assist in crimes being committed against animals.
The case in front of the Court of Appeals centers around Kaporos, a ritual animal sacrifice during which ultra-Orthodox Jews swing an estimated 60,000 six-week old chickens around their heads, slice their throats in open-air slaughterhouses erected without permits, and dispose of them in garbage bags, sometimes while they’re still alive. In 2017 and 2018, thousands of chickens held in crates on the street died of hunger, thirst, disease and heat exhaustion before the ritual even began.
In 2015, an advocacy group called the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos and 19 NYC residents who live in neighborhoods that are contaminated by the mass slaughter sued the City of New York, the NYC Department of Health and the NYPD for failing to enforce the 15 public health, sanitation and anti-cruelty laws and regulations that are violated during Kaporos. Nora Constance Marino, the attorney for the plaintiffs, has been asking the judicial branch of government to issue a “Writ of Mandamus,” which would compel city agencies to enforce the laws.
During the arguments, the city’s attorney, Elina Druker, did not deny that the animal cruelty laws or health codes are violated; she merely argued that city agencies, not judges, have discretion over which laws they enforce. She also argued that the city should decide how to allocate its resources. Marino responded, “This is a farce. The resources are [already deployed] there. There’s police everywhere during this event, facilitating the event, assisting the event, aiding and abetting the event.” Marino continued, “crimes are being committed, and the public health is being put at risk here.”
After the oral arguments, advocates expressed their frustration with the city’s “ludicrous” claim. “The City wouldn’t have to invest any resources into enforcing the animal cruelty laws because the ritual wouldn’t be performed in the first place,” said Rina Deych, a plaintiff in the case against the city. “The NYPD would inform community leaders that, moving forward, they can no longer truck 60,000 chickens into Brooklyn and erect open-air slaughterhouses on the street due to the multiple city and state laws that are violated.”
When running for Mayor of NYC, Bill de Blasio said that animal rights would move into the mainstream if he was elected, yet his administration is using tax dollars to defend its decision to ignore an animal massacre that violates 15 city and state laws.
When asked by one of the Court of Appeals judges why the city was aiding and abetting in the crimes, Ms. Druker argued that, by providing a police presence, the city was merely maintaining order. The advocates say this response is also disingenuous.
“The NYPD provides massive flood lights and the orange traffic cones where the chickens are bled out onto the street after their throats are slit,” said Jill Carnegie with the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos. “If Druker was being honest with the judges, she would have acknowledged that our tax dollars are, in fact, being used to facilitate and partially underwrite this illegal massacre.”
Advocates who attended the oral arguments noted the irony of the city’s decision to defend crimes against animals. “When Bill de Blasio was running for Mayor of New York City in 2013, he publicly stated that animal rights would move into the mainstream if he was elected,” said Jessica Hollander, an animal rights activist in NYC. “Yet, five years later, he is defending animal torture in order to curry favor with the Orthodox Jewish voting bloc that commits it.”
A decision in the case is expected in forty to ninety days.
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Tevya
As a Jew you are aware the Torah gives us permission to eat meat and Hashem tells us there will be animal sacrifices during the 3rd Temple. Are you going to boycott Hashem?
M Leybra
Being against Kaparot is not Antisemitism. However Saying that Jews vote in a block and are in cahoots with elected officials is
M Leybra
Do you support the killing of Embryos?
Symcha, Saying it’s anti-semetic to care about cruelty to animals & cruelty is OK in the name of Jewish religion you are fostering hatred & damage against Judaism & Jewish people. You need to stop, shut up w/ such personal arrogance & misinformation!
Symcha, it is you, your haughty, arrogant attitude that fosters what you call hatred. There are more deeply committed Jewish people in the animal rights movement than can be counted so in no way do you ‘represent’ the Jewish people. You’re more likely just a vile little man devoid of any empathy for other than yourself which is the definition of a psychopathic sociopath. The last thing Jewish people need is someone like you trying to ‘represent’ them, speak for them. Would be much better if publicly, you just shut up.
I see no difference between the preferences given to barbaric Hasidic traditions to sharia law. Fox news should be enraged. Your crazy religious ritual does not supersede the public safety of others. I am Jewish. Not an anti Semite. I believe animals are sencient creatures. Slaughtering them is evil. What year is this? All this practice does is make Hasidic look like devil worshippers.
Hey Donny
How is a “you show no mercy neither did Hitler” a peaceful protest and not Anti-semetic?
https://mobile.twitter.com/Mottel/status/785631066480664580
Donny, No my family doesn’t make money off of it nor do I practice it every year. I understand you don’t like it because to you and your vegetable Gang think its torture even to eat an animal. just because you don’t like things others do with their lives doesn’t mean your ideas can be spread on everyone. I don’t like non-kosher food but doesn’t mean the whole country has to eat kosher. I don’t like they kill trees to make paper so should we stop paper making? As of this minute I found out the good news that you lost in court anyway so I guess we will see you next year at the festivities in your protest gear. Don’t kill too many trees for paper this time. Thank Hashem for the wonderful News. Shalom Alechem
Symcha: Freedom on religion doesn’t give anyone a free pass to terrorize animals, which is exactly what you do by starving them, depriving them of water, intensively confining them in crates, swinging them by their fragile wings and disposing of them in trash bags while they’re still alive after slicing their throats. The use of chickens as Kaporos is not mandated by Jewish laws. I have spoken to several Lubavitchers since Yom Kippur who said they are not going to use chickens next year. Do you and/or your family members make money off of Kaporos? I think you do, and that is why you are defending this atrocity and attempting to marginalize the protesters, Jewish and non-Jewish, as anti-Semites.
Jessica you can think what you want but practicing religion is allowed in the USA. You don’t have to live here nor do you have to like Jewish Customs; that’s part of your freedom too. People don’t like abortion but they happen every day and is legal. That’s how it works.,,,,,,,,Jews are allowed freedom and so are you. Maybe you want to try ISIS country I heard they love other peoples opinions.
Symcha thinks he is excused from morality because he is Jewish. Doesn’t work that way, sorry. Everyone (including chickens) deserves respect, not just your people.
Natasha,
There is no cruelty on following a religious ritual in the USA. Jews no matter what they do will be subject to hate crimes with or without rituals. What’s fueling fire is the ways Jews are being portrayed on “Fake News” sites like this. You are adding to the hatred of Jews in the media; not the other way around. If so the posts calling Jews “barbaric” would be blocked. This is a sham.
Simcha, you are comparing apples with oranges.
One cruelty does not excuse another.
God’s innocent creatures do not deserve this abomination.
At a time when Jews are the objects of the most hate crimes in this country, it fuels the fire to show them
in such a disgusting light.
Donny You still don’t get it do you? This is tradition and maybe it’s ugly to you but you don’t have to practice it if you don’t want to. Once a year this happens in Boro Park but every day women kill and slaughter unborn babies hooked up to a bleeding cord; slaughter houses kill all sorts of animals with no compassion on how they kill them; ISIS rapes and behead women and we are the bad guys? You have no clue what you are talking about. Why don’t you show a video of Jews doing community service? How come you never post any of that? You can’t because you aren’t looking for that. Because you come one year trying to help (but turns In to harassment; thank goodness for the NYPD may Hashem bless them) doesn’t do anything to all your years prior and the harassment you give Public Officials. Jews don’t have a free pass to anything and you don’t have a free pass to harass us every year. With the help of Hashem this will happen every year and your hatred will be exposed when your sitting in jail for trasspassing on our property. I will pray for your soul this Shabbat. You need it more than anyone else. May Hashem have mercy on your Soul.
Symcha – This year, we came to Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Boro Park not to “harass” but to provide water to the chickens who Kaporos practitioners left out on the streets for days. In the crates, we found hundreds of dead chickens mixed in with those who were still alive. And, in spite of their slow and painful death from hunger, thirst, starvation and exposure, those were the lucky ones because they weren’t yanked out of the crates by their fragile wings and swung in the air like inanimate objects. We (Jews) don’t get a free pass to torture animals, massacre them and and throw them in the trash (sometimes while still alive) because we ourselves are a persecuted group. If Jews are committing senseless crimes against tens of thousands of baby animals, then of course people (Jews and non-Jews) are going to expose it. After Yom Kippur this year, I spoke to several Hasidim who said that they did not use chickens this year or would not use chickens next year because of the videos. These terrified animals did nothing to deserve being intensively confined, starved, swung in the air, sliced by the throat and dumped in the trash. This year, we pulled several living birds whose throats had been sliced out of the garbage where they spent the night.
Donny all you are doing is making people dislike Jews. You come to our neighborhoods to harass us then put this nonsense on the internet so people have a reason to dislike Jews and never show anything negative your protestors do or say; only they feed chickens?. We need the NYPD there to protect us from you. You are a sham. People don’t see the difference between a Jew who uses coins and ones that don’t. We live in a climate of hate and by posting your videos and claims you give people a reason to hate….we are called barbaric, Nazis, etx by your protesters and members of the non-jewish community in your comment sections. The Nazis didn’t ask people when they sent Jews to die if they were Hasidic or Secular or if they used coins or chickens. Harassment on one Jew is harassment to all and it’s worse when it comes from a “so called Jew.” A Nazi wouldn’t care and the crazy people shooting up synagogues don’t either. You and the Jewish activists would be in the same line to the death camps as all Jews would. Your “I used coins and fed Chickens BS” won’t work. Stop adding to a climate of hate. The Pittsburgh shooter shot up a Conservative Synagogue not a Hasidic one where they were using Chickens. I can’t believe you haven’t learned anything in the last week.
Symcha – You are misinformed. The Jewish advocates who provide food and water to the chickens who Kaporos practitioners slowly starve to death in crates do not compare those who are abusing animals to Nazis. It is the Hasidim who call us Nazis for speaking out against the the carnival of violence and death. In fact, we have a lot of video footage of Hasidim calling us Nazis. See for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgDwR9y_18Y&t=172s
Natasha Brenner is anyone forcing you to be in the rituals? You don’t have to participate. Don’t rut over something you don’t understand. Go to abortion clinics and see what goes on there.
Danny Moss if you are “really” Jewish (which I doubt you are) you should be ashamed of yourself; spreading hatred against other Jews by comparing them to Nazis….we have seen the signs at your Protests in Brooklyn. You are sick and in need of some serious Jewish Guidance. You can try to shut us down in public; but we will still be able to practice what we want and will. When you enter our private property you will be arrested for trespassing. See you then.
It’s an abomination to kill Jews, but it’s not an abomination for Jews to kill innocent creatures?
Do you think that freedom of religion gives people a free pass to break 15 city and state laws? To intensively confine live animals in crates for several days and deprive them of food and water? To slice the throats of animals and stuff them into garbage bags while they’re still alive? Advocating to egregious abuses against animals (human or non-human) doesn’t make people anti-Semitic. It makes them anti-cruelty. As as aside, most of the advocates working to shut down this atrocity, including me, are Jewish.
Thanks for adding more hatred towards the Jewish People and what they practice; Freedom of religion is allowed in America; if you don’t like it you can move.
DeBlasio has been a huge spineless failure. A pox upon him.
Never should we abandon our morals to help those who are suffering cruelty and are victims of such horrors!!! I am outraged at this and will not support these crimes or the people who ignored them! Furthermore, the persons doing performing g these crulties must be held accountable, absolutely no excuses!!