A Fowl Custom: The Ongoing Debate over the Pre-Yom Kippur Chicken Sacrifice

The custom of swinging a chicken over one’s head on the eve of Yom Kippur, slaughtering it, and giving it to a poor family was once widespread among Jews. Now this exotic ritual is primarily relegated to the ultra-Orthodox. But even despite its former prevalence, it is nowhere mentioned in the Talmud, and was condemned by some medieval and modern rabbis. Shlomo Brody recalls: