A series looking at the Kaparot Ceremony as performed by the Hasidic Jewish community of Williamsburg, New York in October 2014. Kaparot, meaning 'atonements', is a ritual deemed by those who practise it as a transfer of the sins of the past year on to the chicken. After the ceremony, the chicken is ritually slaughtered and often the meat is distributed to the poor. I was particularly interested in the social dynamics between ages and gender, how the social strata of the community was evident in just these images of the ritual.
In addition to the transfer of sins believed to occur during the ritual, there was a transfer of ancient mysticism from the older generations to the younger. I wanted to convey how the community seemed vortexed around the elders holding the chickens, and the power that was transferred onto those elders by the ritual.
