During the winter of 2014, fur was everywhere, which made a bad winter even worse for people who care about animals. In urban areas, activists could easily cross paths with hundreds of fur wearers each day – leaving some of us feeling frustrated, helpless and hopeless.

So what do we say, if anything, to people wearing fur in 2015? Does saying nothing and turning a blind eye make us complicit? Author Jonathan Safran Foer once stated, “Not responding is a response – we are equally responsible for what we don’t do.”

But what is the most effective approach with fur wearers? Starting a dialog by asking if the fur is real? Shaming them with the hope that they’ll be skittish about wearing fur in the future? Any discomfort experienced by the people we address pales in comparison to the agony experienced by the animals who they are wearing.

Photo by Emily McCoy

I use several different approaches with the hope that one will emerge as the most effective. When I say, “I love your coat! I hate animals too,” some people respond by laughing nervously. One woman asked if I was being “nasty,” which opened the door to a dialog. She said she “couldn’t argue” with my points but that she also couldn’t give up her “vintage” fur. In the end, I used flattery with her in an attempt to effect change: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but a glamorous woman like you wearing fur encourages others to do the same.” (P.S. Nothing about her was glamorous).

Sometimes I say, “OH MY GOD. Your coat looks just like my dog” with a nonjudgmental, matter of fact tone. Invariably, people respond with a terrified “No” as if I actually thought that they were wearing my dog. By referencing a dog, my hope is to help people connect the dots between companion animals and those used for fur.

Last winter, I placed a few “I am an asshole. I wear fur” stickers on people after “accidentally” stumbling and falling into them. “I’m so sorry! I must have tripped on something.”  I need to get more of those.

PETA, which is still regarded by some as the red paint throwers, suggests a polite approach that could trigger a conversation. They’ve even created an instructional video:

What do you do, and do you think it’s effective?

Most animal rights organizations and activists refrain from comparing animal atrocities to the Holocaust because the analogy alienates people, which could compromise its intent to effect positive change for the animals.

Over the years, PETA has been attacked in the press and online for producing Holocaust imagery that compares concentration camps to factory farms.

PETA’s Holocaust Campaign

In mid-September, Australian artist Jo Frederiks produced an exhibit with Holocaust imagery called The Animal Holocaust, which, she said, was inspired by quotations from concentration camp survivors and philosophers, such as Theodor Adorno who wrote “Auschwitz begins whenever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they are only animals.” Like PETA, Ms. Frederiks was criticized.

But what happens when a survivor invokes the Holocaust to generate attention for the billions of farm animals who are slaughtered each year? Is he above reproach?

Before being smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, five year old Alex Hershaft saw Jews being beaten by Nazis in the streets. He lost most of his family during the war, but he gained empathy that helped him connect dots between the atrocities committed against humans and animals – and become one of the founders of the modern-day animal rights movement.

Holocaust Survivor Alex Hershaft

In 1976, Dr. Hershaft founded the organization that would eventually become the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM). In 1983, began an annual one-day fast on October 2nd as part of World Day for Farmed Animals. The fast aims to raise awareness of the plight of who are raised and killed for food. This year, about 10,000 people from 71 countries have pledged to join him.

Author Isaac Besheva Singer once said, “In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis.” The cows who are branded with fire and baby pigs who are castrated with no painkillers would assuredly agree.

The animals’ perspective

Lawyers for the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos filed an emergency order with the City of New York arguing that the swinging and slaughtering of tens of thousands of chickens in the street should be shut down because the ritual causes immediate, irreversible damage to public health and violates animal cruelty and sanitation laws. A judge is expected to issue a decision on Wednesday.

Following is a one minute video of the ritual taken on Tuesday, the first of three days of chicken swinging that lead up to Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.

On Tuesday night, a few dozen activists clashed with hundreds of Orthodox Jews who were “transferring their sins” to live chickens while swinging them around their heads. The activists were contained in a pen and were surrounded by Kaporos practitioners who are always eager to debate.

Protesters & chicken swingers square off

This barbaric scene that takes place year after year is heart-breaking for activists, but the community has hope. Karen Davis, the founder of United Poultry Concerns and who traveled from Virginia to participate, says: “As more and more animal rights activists get involved, and with legal challenges in the works, many Orthodox rabbis are publicly condemning Kaporos on grounds of animal cruelty and sacrilege.”

Thousands of chickens will be held in crates for several day with no food or water

Animal rescuers, including Jenny Brown from the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, were on hand to save as many chickens as possible and transport them to sanctuaries to live out their natural lives in the company of with hundreds of other farm animals who escaped from slaughter.

Woodstock tends to injured chicken rescued from Kaporos

Please sign the Change.org petition urging NYC to enforce the laws being broken by Kaporos practitioners.

Kaporos, the annual chicken-swinging ritual that takes place before Yom Kippur, doesn’t start until Tuesday night, but, already, an activist has been arrested, and hundreds of chickens stacked in crates on the street have died.

Activist Arrested (photo: Yeshiva World News)

Wearing a Mercy For Animals t-shirt, an activist from New Jersey was arrested on Monday for allegedly stealing chickens from a “Kaporos Center” in Brooklyn. Authorities found the liberated chickens in his vehicle. Sadly, these animals, who had a brief taste of freedom in the back of a van, will most likely be used in the Kaporos ritual and then slaughtered.

Liberated chickens are free no more (photo: Yeshiva World News)

In a separate incident, Brooklyn resident Rina Deych, a founding member of the advocacy group working to end the chicken-swinging ritual, made the grisly discovery of hundreds of dead chickens stacked in crates, and she took footage with the hope that authorities would charge the perpetrators with animal cruelty.

Ms. Deych suspects that the chickens, who are deprived of food and water for several days, died of dehydration: “We just witnessed hundreds, possibly thousands of chickens dead in crates in Brooklyn. We called the police, but they would not take our report. NYPD is supposed to respond to animal cruelty and neglect cases.”

Ms. Deych’s video documentation of dead and dying chickens:

If you live in or near NYC, please attend one or more of the three anti-chicken swinging protests organized by the Alliance to End Chickens for Kaporos. The protests take place from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. in Brooklyn, New York.

On September 5th, U.S. Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, hosted a pigeon shooting party to raise funds for his re-election campaign.

In spite of the Senator’s efforts to keep out animal rights activists, an undercover investigator from SHARK infiltrated the event and took close-up footage. During the hunt, 1,000 captive birds were thrown into the sky and shot down. Those who escaped from the killing field with gunshot wounds suffered and died over a period of hours or days.

On Tuesday, SHARK is holding a press conference to announce that it has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding multiple potential violations of state and federal law, including the use of federal property, state employees and government vehicles for a political fundraiser and the transport of pigeons across state lines.

Bob Barker, the former host of the Price is Right, recently narrated a short public service announcement to raise awareness of canned pigeon hunts:

Please share these videos and take a moment to learn about the critically important work done only by SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect & Kindness) to protect animals who are tormented and killed in canned hunts, rodeos, and other exploitive “sports.”