Lawsuit over synagogue’s chicken slaughter dismissed
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge has tossed out an animal rights group’s lawsuit against a California synagogue that practices the ritual slaughter of chickens.
Judge Andre Birotte Jr. ruled that Chabad of Irvine doesn’t engage in an unfair business practice by charging for the killing and disposal of chickens used in the rite called kapparot or kaporos.
United Poultry Concerns, a Virginia-based group, argued that the $27 fee was well above the actual cost, making it a profit-making venture.
But Birotte said in the ruling Friday that the synagogue “does not participate nor compete as a business in the commercial market by performing a religious atonement ritual that involves donations,” the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday (http://lat.ms/2pI5ViV).
