Ahead of the weekend's Yom Kippur Day of Atonement, the Ministry of Environmental Protection is calling on people in the traditional-observant community to carry out the tradition of the kaparot atonement ritual by waving money over their head and providing charitable funds to needy people rather than using chickens, thereby avoiding what it called the unnecessary killing of the birds.
The ministry says tens of thousands of chickens are abused each year by virtue of the ritual while the use of money is humane.