Kapparot

Kapparot (Hebrew: כפרות, Ashkenazi transliteration: Kapporois, Kapores) is a customary atonement ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews on the eve of Yom Kippur. This is a practice in which either money is waved over a person's head and then donated to charity, or else a chicken is waved over the head and then slaughtered in accordance with halachic rules and donated to the hungry. PETA has made the claim that more than two-thirds of all the slaughtered birds are simply thrown in the trash, while the kapparot organizers claim that the sites donate the dead chickens to feed the poor.