BROOKLYN: Ultra Orthodox Jews Mock DA With Yom Kippur Chicken Image

An unidentified New York City group of Ultra Orthodox Jews has mocked the reelection campaign of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes by publishing an internet ad that depicts Hynes as a chicken to be slaughtered "Yom Kippur-style."

The ad states, in Hebrew, “It’s time to beat kaporos.” Kaporos is an 800-year-old ritual in which Orthodox Jews wave a live chicken over their heads before Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. In symbolic exchange for their sins, the chicken is later slaughtered. A Hynes supporter, City Councilman David Greenfield (D-Flatbush), called the message “appalling.” Greenfield said the ad implies Hynes’ oppoents want "to see Joe Hynes killed in the ritual tradition of slaughtering chickens.”

A spokesman for Hynes' rival, Ken Thompson, says their campaign has nothing to do with the ad. Thompson has been aggressively courting Brooklyn's massive Orthodox community, some of whom charge that Hynes has unfairly targeted local rabbis charged with child molestation. Virulently anti-gay New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes major Orthodox communities, has endorsed Ken Thompson.