Literally.
Yesterday I was walking in Meah Shearim for a few minutes, and right there on the street corner, there was a pile of little cages, each one containing a chicken or three. Kaparot refers to the custom of slaughtering a chicken on Yom Kippur eve and giving it to someone poor. Although it should not be confused with a real sacrifice, it is suppossed to remind the person of the bad things that could happen as a result of sinning, and also provides one with the opportunity to perform the mitzvah of giving charity. In the US this is almost universally accomplished by giving money, in lieu of a chicken. Based on what I saw yesterday, it is much more common here for people to actually buy a chicken and have a shochet slaughter it.
(And they really stunk. Horribly. I think that part of the atonement one might get for one’s sins is just from the yissurin of handling the aptly-name fowl. Schnitzel anyone?)
That’s not all though. On my way back home from a shiur in Yerushalayim last night, I was passing by Yishuv Adam (located a few hundred meters outside of “the fence”) and right there by the side of a road there was a guy sitting on a crate. Next to him he had set up a small chicken-holding pen, fillled with about 20 squawking birds. The sign next to him (lit up with a big light) said “Kaparot for Sale”.
(Only in Israel…)
October 4th, 2006 at 20:14
Update: on Sunday, the day before Yom Kippur, as I came back from Shacharit I saw a crowd by the side of the road: people had come with their chickens, there was at least one shochet there doing the slaughtering and kashering, and a few freshly slaughtered (and salted and plucked) chickens were on a table on the side, waiting (presumably) for delivery to families who needed them for their Yom Tov meal.
Definitely not something that you see every day.