​This is a notice, written in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish soliciting funds for the United Charity Institutions of Jerusalem. The notice asks donors to contribute the money from the kapparot ceremony performed before Yom Kippur to their organisation. The fact that the text is written in English and Yiddish and the New York address suggest that the notice was intended for an American audience. The notice states that the United Charity Institutions was hoping to raise $500,000 from their Yom Kippur appeal with two of the major recipients of funds being the Etz Haim Yeshiva and the Bikur Cholim Hospital in Jerusalem. The kapparot ceremony is performed to symbolically discard one’s sins before the judgement of Yom Kippur. Traditionally, chickens were used for this ceremony, but today it is more common to use coins that are then donated to charity, as seen in this notice.

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Yom Kippur – Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the Jewish year. The date of Yom Kippur is 10 Tishrei, and it marks the end of the ten-day period beginning with Rosh Hashanah which is called the High Holy Days and the Ten Days of Repentance. According to tradition, God evaluates each person’s life and writes their name in either the Book of Life or the Book of Death during the Ten Days of Repentance; on Yom Kippur, the books are sealed. While reflection and prayer take place throughout the ten days, Yom Kippur is the most solemn day, and it is traditional to pray, fast, and refrain from bathing and wearing leather shoes. It is also traditional to give tzedakah (charity), during this time period. Another unusual custom is wearing a tallit for all of the prayers, when it is usually only worn during the day, and in some communities men wear a special white robe named a kittel. There are five services on Yom Kippur, beginning with the Kol Nidrei prayer and the Maariv service in the evening. Prayers are resumed the following day with Shacharit (morning service) and the Musaf (additional service) which includes a description of the special ceremonies that took place in the Temple on Yom Kippur. Later in the day is the Mincha service, during which the Book of Jonah is read, and the day comes to close with the Neilah service, considered to be the final opportunity to ask God to be written in the Book of Life, which ends with the congregation saying the Shema and the blowing of the shofar. 

Kapparot – This ceremony takes place in the days leading up to Yom Kippur in some Jewish communities and involves the custom of swinging a chicken over one’s head to symbolically transfer one’s sins to the chicken. The chicken is then slaughtered, and the meat is donated to a needy family. An alternative option is to use coins wrapped in a handkerchief instead of a chicken and to then donate the money to charity. Over the years there has been much rabbinical discussion about to the performance of this ritual. There are those who object due to concern for the suffering of the animals; others worry that people will not truly repent if they know they can simply transfer their sins to an animal. While performing kapparot is not mentioned in the Torah or the Talmud, giving tzedakah (charity), especially during the ten days of repentance, is one of the three ways of doing teshuvah (repentance) along with prayer and fasting.