Dead chickens placed in odd position on ritzy NYC block — sparking ‘animal sacrifice' claims
Two slaughtered chickens were found on an Upper West Side median in an odd position that has activists worried they were killed in an animal sacrifice ritual.
The birds were found Saturday lined up with their feet facing at West 89th Street and Broadway less than a year after similar fowl play three blocks away on Broadway and West 92nd Street, local publication West Side Rag reported.
'[It] appears to be animal sacrifice to me,' John Di Leonardo, executive director of Humane Long Island, told The Post.
'It's illegal for live slaughter markets to sell live birds to the public but we know they do it often,' he said.
'From Buddhists releasing live animals in Central Park who die if not recovered to birds tied to trees for Santeria in public parks to Shaktis killing pigs near Gateway National Park – to whatever this is.'
Edita Birnkrant, of animal advocacy group NYCLASS, said 'it clearly was done purposely and placed in a visible spot.
'They look healthier than the birds usually look at live markets,' she added.
'The nearest live poultry market is in Harlem so I don't know [if] that's the culprit.'
By Tuesday, the birds had been removed but not everyone was uneasy about the birds.
'I'm almost kind of glad,' said Harold Steinblatt, a self-described 'frequent bench-sitter' and longtime Upper West Side resident who said the incident sounded 'cultish.'
'That means it's not just all rich hedge fund managers here,' he said.
'Or maybe it was a disgruntled hedge fund manager who was the culprit.'
Chickens are the most common sacrifice in the Santeria Afro-Caribbean religion, according to the BBC.
The Supreme Court upheld the right to animal sacrifice on religious grounds in 1993 — but according to New York laws, aggravated cruelty to animals is a felony punishable by up to two years in prison.
Evidence of sacrificial killings have been reported across the five boroughs, with chickens, pigs and even rats killed in 'twisted' religious rituals in parkland surrounding Jamaica Bay in Queens.
In Upper Manhattan, whole dead chickens and cows, as well as fish and eggs, have been found as offerings on crypts at Old Trinity Cemetery, according to Scouting NY.
Thousands of chickens are also killed each year in the Big Apple ahead of Yom Kippur during the ultra-orthodox Jewish ritual of Kaporos, which involves slitting a chicken's throat, per ABC New York.
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Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
A fight to save a Hindu temple for the ‘unheard and unseen'
NEW YORK (RNS) — Illuminated by a skylight at the center of a small factory-turned-Hindu temple in Queens sits a murti of the Divine Mother — a 1-ton, 6-foot-tall icon of the South Indian village goddess Mariamman, an incarnation of Kali, the deity of time and death. Smoke from cigarettes and incense fills the room, and bottles of rum sit next to fruit at the altar. 'Our religion is very rural, very villagelike,' said Chandni Kalu, 31, a priestess at the Richmond Hill temple . 'It's very raw.' Even other Hindus might find Sunday worship services at the Shri Shakti Mariammaa temple unfamiliar. The mostly Indo-Caribbean congregants worship goddess Kali, who also represents transcendental knowledge that can manifest within, or spiritually possess, her followers. At a recent service, a young male pujari, or lay priest, shook and danced vigorously through the crowd, entranced with Shakti, the feminine energy that inhabits someone possessed by Kali. 'We are a healing temple,' said Sharda Ramsami, one of the original members of the temple when it was founded in 2008. 'Whether it's something physical or something spiritual, we arealways the last resort, and when people come here, they're desperate for help. I think that's what's most powerful: that desperation, and then here's the answer that no one else could provide for them. Mother knows.' ___ This content is written and produced by Religion News Service and distributed by The Associated Press. RNS and AP partner on some religion news content. RNS is solely responsible for this story. ___ But the temple is also known as one that is open to all. Its clergy have married same-sex couples after they were shunned or rejected from other Hindu temples in the area, and, uniquely, those clergy, the temple staff and congregants are mostly women. Women come to seek refuge at the temple, Ramsami explained, sometimes to escape dire situations. They have been quietly offered money from temple staff or even given the keys to the building to stay there. Other temples, Ramsami said, would throw women out for menstruating or not allow women to approach the altar. 'That's just not something we believe in,' she said. 'We worship a woman.' 'Even in mainstream Hinduism,' Kalu said, 'there's so much patriarchy. Women aren't really given roles, and whenever they are, it's just mediocre roles in the kitchen making prasadam (offerings). I was really given a platform here to become a priestess.' Now, the temple is in danger of closing. Without more than $150,000 in necessary upgrades to the space, the landlord and the city will move to push the temple out. 'I think Mother had a plan for us all to be here, because our lives changed so much and in so many ways,' said Hilda Thamen, Ramsami's aunt and another founder of the temple. 'She did so much for us. So now what's going on here is really sad. It's really hurting us.' Back in 2018, a noise complaint from a neighbor led to intervention from the city's Department of Buildings, resulting in a small fine. In 2024, after another noise complaint by the same neighbor, the city determined the temple needed to legally register as a community space. To do so, said Ramsami, the building needs several costly improvements to electricity, plumbing, fire safety and accessibility. But it is unclear whether these changes are viable in a building intended for manufacturing, not worship. Though renting another location for more money may eventually be possible, 'if we move somewhere further, we lose some of our congregants,' said Ramsami. 'A lot of older folks come here, and the bus stop is right down the block, so it's just easy for them to walk here.' The neighbor, who lives in a single-family home behind the temple, heard the loud bhajans, or devotional songs, and drums nine nights in a row during the holiday of Navratri, an homage to the goddess Durga. At the time, he told congregants he would 'rather there be a bar' than a temple so close to his windows. The neighbor has denied the temple's request to build an exit in the back, and has constructed a 12-foot fence in between them.' He came once and he saw our logo painted on the gate and he said, 'Oh, Diablo, Diablo meaning the devil,'' said Ramsami. 'So it definitely stems from fear. 'Most Kali temples in the area are tucked away in basements or backyards. 'If you look at the murti or an image of Ma Kali, she's so different from other mothers,' said Kalu. 'She's dark,she's disheveled, she's naked. She has blood dripping from her tongue. And I think all of that makes people uncomfortable. Blood is kind of deemed inauspicious, and I think from fear it became so taboo.' Even in Guyana, said Thamen, 'you were afraid to say you go to a Kali temple, because people look at you different.' In the 19th century, the British brought scores of indentured Indians to Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname in the Caribbean. Many came from southern India and brought their animistic and folk religions with them. Caribbean Shaktism was thus born, with rituals passed down in a 'broken' version of Tamil by word of mouth to the mostly English-speaking Indo-Caribbean population, with no Scriptures to consult and no book of mantras. Yet the tradition still thrives thanks to the Queens temple's founders, some of whose parents were priests in Shakti temples back in Guyana. A small group of second-generation New Yorkers gutted out the factory, built a kitchen and redid the roof, all while holding day jobs in commercial and residential cleaning, catering and nutrition school. The mission of Shri Shakti Mariammaa was clear, said Dave Kutaiyah, the temple's chairman.'This is not only a place for religion or a place where you come to pray on Sunday,' he said.'This is a place where you come and you see people who look like you, people who are familiar to you. 'That's one of the things we instill in our temple: Treat everyone the same, whether you work for city government and you're the right-hand person to the mayor, or you're working at Dunkin' Donuts on the 12 a.m. shift. People need to be loved and respected, and that's what we try to bring here.' The temple has survived through individual donations from families wanting a particular puja, or ritual, to be performed. But Kutaiyah and his team, even during the current financial struggle, have never asked for money from the congregation, or passed out a tithing plate. 'We believe worship should be free, health should be free, and we shouldn't gain financially from that,' said Ramsami. 'I think 90% of people who attend here will tell you they work in a department store, factory or at JFK (International Airport), so we don't have a lot of white-collar professionals that have a lot of disposable income to donate,' added Kutaiyah, who works in human resources. 'I always tell people, use your pension money to pay your bills first, and then think about God. God will not be upset with you if you can't give anything.' A GoFundMe campaign, co-signed by a number of organizations that have used the temple's space for meetings, such as Jahajee: Indo-Caribbeans for Gender Justice and the Caribbean Equality Project, has been circulating since June. In November, at a court date to pay an outstanding fine, the temple will ask the city for an extension to figure out its next steps. Rohan Narine, NYC organizer with the national organization Hindus for Human Rights, one of the supporters of the GoFundMe campaign, has a personal stake in the temple's success. A Queens native, Narine has been hosting Om Night open mics at the temple for years. Narine considers himself an 'orthodox Hindu' and was surprised on his first visit to see worshippers throwing menthol cubes of fire into their mouths and dousing themselves in rosewater. But despite theological differences, 'I felt that beauty and that raw spiritual energy thatyou don't feel in other temples,' he said. 'It's not like sitting down at an ashram, offering prasad, do a little aarti (lamp ritual) and you eat and go home. Here, it's very involved. It's almost like being part of a live interactive performance.' In Indo-Caribbean spaces in Queens, according to Narine, the temple's style of worship is becoming more mainstream. More people are coming to the temple not just for curiosity's sake, but to worship alongside the Shakti community. 'I think the entire expanse of Hinduism should be represented,' said Narine. 'All of the Hindu pantheon should have the ability to practice their faith freely. We as Hindus, and especially Indo-Caribbean in America, are very comfortable with the more simplistic way of worship, and Shakti worship might be more complex. But we can't shy away from that. I think we should be more open to that.' Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
A fight to save a Hindu temple for the 'unheard and unseen'
NEW YORK (RNS) — Illuminated by a skylight at the center of a small factory-turned-Hindu temple in Queens sits a murti of the Divine Mother — a 1-ton, 6-foot-tall icon of the South Indian village goddess Mariamman, an incarnation of Kali, the deity of time and death. Smoke from cigarettes and incense fills the room, and bottles of rum sit next to fruit at the altar. 'Our religion is very rural, very villagelike,' said Chandni Kalu, 31, a priestess at the Richmond Hill temple. 'It's very raw.' Even other Hindus might find Sunday worship services at the Shri Shakti Mariammaa temple unfamiliar. The mostly Indo-Caribbean congregants worship goddess Kali, who also represents transcendental knowledge that can manifest within, or spiritually possess, her followers. At a recent service, a young male pujari, or lay priest, shook and danced vigorously through the crowd, entranced with Shakti, the feminine energy that inhabits someone possessed by Kali. 'We are a healing temple,' said Sharda Ramsami, one of the original members of the temple when it was founded in 2008. 'Whether it's something physical or something spiritual, we arealways the last resort, and when people come here, they're desperate for help. I think that's what's most powerful: that desperation, and then here's the answer that no one else could provide for them. Mother knows.' ___ This content is written and produced by Religion News Service and distributed by The Associated Press. RNS and AP partner on some religion news content. RNS is solely responsible for this story. ___ But the temple is also known as one that is open to all. Its clergy have married same-sex couples after they were shunned or rejected from other Hindu temples in the area, and, uniquely, those clergy, the temple staff and congregants are mostly women. Women come to seek refuge at the temple, Ramsami explained, sometimes to escape dire situations. They have been quietly offered money from temple staff or even given the keys to the building to stay there. Other temples, Ramsami said, would throw women out for menstruating or not allow women to approach the altar. 'That's just not something we believe in,' she said. 'We worship a woman.' 'Even in mainstream Hinduism,' Kalu said, 'there's so much patriarchy. Women aren't really given roles, and whenever they are, it's just mediocre roles in the kitchen making prasadam (offerings). I was really given a platform here to become a priestess.' Now, the temple is in danger of closing. Without more than $150,000 in necessary upgrades to the space, the landlord and the city will move to push the temple out. 'I think Mother had a plan for us all to be here, because our lives changed so much and in so many ways,' said Hilda Thamen, Ramsami's aunt and another founder of the temple. 'She did so much for us. So now what's going on here is really sad. It's really hurting us.' Back in 2018, a noise complaint from a neighbor led to intervention from the city's Department of Buildings, resulting in a small fine. In 2024, after another noise complaint by the same neighbor, the city determined the temple needed to legally register as a community space. To do so, said Ramsami, the building needs several costly improvements to electricity, plumbing, fire safety and accessibility. But it is unclear whether these changes are viable in a building intended for manufacturing, not worship. Though renting another location for more money may eventually be possible, 'if we move somewhere further, we lose some of our congregants,' said Ramsami. 'A lot of older folks come here, and the bus stop is right down the block, so it's just easy for them to walk here.' The neighbor, who lives in a single-family home behind the temple, heard the loud bhajans, or devotional songs, and drums nine nights in a row during the holiday of Navratri, an homage to the goddess Durga. At the time, he told congregants he would 'rather there be a bar' than a temple so close to his windows. The neighbor has denied the temple's request to build an exit in the back, and has constructed a 12-foot fence in between them.' He came once and he saw our logo painted on the gate and he said, 'Oh, Diablo, Diablo meaning the devil,'' said Ramsami. 'So it definitely stems from fear. 'Most Kali temples in the area are tucked away in basements or backyards. 'If you look at the murti or an image of Ma Kali, she's so different from other mothers,' said Kalu. 'She's dark,she's disheveled, she's naked. She has blood dripping from her tongue. And I think all of that makes people uncomfortable. Blood is kind of deemed inauspicious, and I think from fear it became so taboo.' Even in Guyana, said Thamen, 'you were afraid to say you go to a Kali temple, because people look at you different.' In the 19th century, the British brought scores of indentured Indians to Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname in the Caribbean. Many came from southern India and brought their animistic and folk religions with them. Caribbean Shaktism was thus born, with rituals passed down in a 'broken' version of Tamil by word of mouth to the mostly English-speaking Indo-Caribbean population, with no Scriptures to consult and no book of mantras. Yet the tradition still thrives thanks to the Queens temple's founders, some of whose parents were priests in Shakti temples back in Guyana. A small group of second-generation New Yorkers gutted out the factory, built a kitchen and redid the roof, all while holding day jobs in commercial and residential cleaning, catering and nutrition school. The mission of Shri Shakti Mariammaa was clear, said Dave Kutaiyah, the temple's chairman.'This is not only a place for religion or a place where you come to pray on Sunday,' he said.'This is a place where you come and you see people who look like you, people who are familiar to you. 'That's one of the things we instill in our temple: Treat everyone the same, whether you work for city government and you're the right-hand person to the mayor, or you're working at Dunkin' Donuts on the 12 a.m. shift. People need to be loved and respected, and that's what we try to bring here." The temple has survived through individual donations from families wanting a particular puja, or ritual, to be performed. But Kutaiyah and his team, even during the current financial struggle, have never asked for money from the congregation, or passed out a tithing plate. 'We believe worship should be free, health should be free, and we shouldn't gain financially from that,' said Ramsami. 'I think 90% of people who attend here will tell you they work in a department store, factory or at JFK (International Airport), so we don't have a lot of white-collar professionals that have a lot of disposable income to donate,' added Kutaiyah, who works in human resources. 'I always tell people, use your pension money to pay your bills first, and then think about God. God will not be upset with you if you can't give anything.' A GoFundMe campaign, co-signed by a number of organizations that have used the temple's space for meetings, such as Jahajee: Indo-Caribbeans for Gender Justice and the Caribbean Equality Project, has been circulating since June. In November, at a court date to pay an outstanding fine, the temple will ask the city for an extension to figure out its next steps. Rohan Narine, NYC organizer with the national organization Hindus for Human Rights, one of the supporters of the GoFundMe campaign, has a personal stake in the temple's success. A Queens native, Narine has been hosting Om Night open mics at the temple for years. Narine considers himself an 'orthodox Hindu' and was surprised on his first visit to see worshippers throwing menthol cubes of fire into their mouths and dousing themselves in rosewater. But despite theological differences, 'I felt that beauty and that raw spiritual energy thatyou don't feel in other temples,' he said. 'It's not like sitting down at an ashram, offering prasad, do a little aarti (lamp ritual) and you eat and go home. Here, it's very involved. It's almost like being part of a live interactive performance.' In Indo-Caribbean spaces in Queens, according to Narine, the temple's style of worship is becoming more mainstream. More people are coming to the temple not just for curiosity's sake, but to worship alongside the Shakti community. 'I think the entire expanse of Hinduism should be represented,' said Narine. 'All of the Hindu pantheon should have the ability to practice their faith freely. We as Hindus, and especially Indo-Caribbean in America, are very comfortable with the more simplistic way of worship, and Shakti worship might be more complex. But we can't shy away from that. I think we should be more open to that.'
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Allergies seem nearly impossible to avoid — unless you're Amish
Whether triggered by pollen, pet dander or peanuts, allergies in this day and age seem nearly impossible to avoid. But one group appears virtually immune, a mystery to experts who study allergies. Despite the increasing rate of allergic diseases, both in industrialized and in developing countries, the Amish remain exceptionally - and bafflingly - resistant. Only 7 percent of Amish children had a positive response to one or more common allergens in a skin prick test, compared with more than half of the general U.S. population. Even children from other traditional farming families, who still have lower rates of allergic disease than nonfarm children, are more allergic than the Amish. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. In fact, one Amish community living in northern Indiana is considered one of the least allergic populations ever measured in the developed world. 'Generally, across the country, about 8 to 10 percent of kids have asthma. In the Amish kids, it's probably 1 to 2 percent,' said Carole Ober, chair of human genetics at the University of Chicago. 'A few of them do have allergies, but at much, much lower rates compared to the general population.' Now, Ober and other researchers are trying to discover what makes Amish and other traditional farming communities unique, in the hopes of developing a protective treatment that could be given to young children. For instance, a probiotic or essential oil that contains substances found in farm dust, such as microbes and the molecules they produce, could stimulate children's immune systems in a way that prevents allergic disease. 'Certain kinds of farming practices, particularly the very traditional ones, have this extraordinary protective effect in the sense that, in these communities, asthma and allergies are virtually unknown,' said Donata Vercelli, a professor of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of Arizona. 'The studies that have been done in these farming populations are critical because they tell us that protection is an attainable goal.' The Amish are members of a Christian group who practice traditional farming - many live on single-family dairy farms - and use horses for fieldwork and transportation. As of 2024, around 395,000 Amish live in the United States, concentrated mostly in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. Over the past century, the incidence of allergic diseases - including hay fever (allergic rhinitis), asthma, food allergies and eczema - has increased dramatically. Hay fever, or an allergic reaction to tree, grass and weed pollens, emerged as the first recognized allergic disease in the early 1800s, climbing to epidemic levels in Europe and North America by 1900. The 1960s saw a sharp increase in the prevalence of pediatric asthma, a condition in which the airways tighten when breathing in an allergen. From the 1990s onward, there has been an upswing in the developed world in food allergies, including cow's milk, peanut and egg allergies. Urbanization, air pollution, dietary changes and an indoor lifestyle are often cited as possible factors. The 'hygiene hypothesis' - first proposed in a 1989 study by American immunologist David Strachan - suggests that early childhood exposure to microbes protects against allergic diseases by contributing to the development of a healthy immune system. The study found that hay fever and eczema were less common among children born into larger families. Strachan wondered whether unhygienic contact with older siblings served as a protection against allergies. Subsequent findings have given support to the hygiene hypothesis, such as that children who grow up with more household pets are less likely to develop asthma, hay fever or eczema. Perhaps even more beneficial than having older siblings or pets, however, is growing up on a farm. (More than 150 years ago, hay fever was known as an 'aristocratic disease,' almost wholly confined to the upper classes of society. Farmers appeared relatively immune.) This 'farm effect' has been confirmed by studies on agricultural populations around the world, including in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. But even among farming communities, the most pronounced effect appears to be in the Amish. In a study of 60 schoolchildren by Ober, Vercelli and their colleagues, the prevalence of asthma was four times lower in the Amish as compared with the Hutterites, another U.S. farming community with a similar genetic ancestry and lifestyle. The prevalence of allergic sensitization - the development of antibodies to allergens and the first step to developing an allergy - was six times higher in the Hutterites. The researchers first ruled out a genetic cause; in fact, an analysis showed that the Amish and Hutterite children were remarkably similar in their ancestral roots. Instead, the main difference between these two populations seemed to be the amount of exposure as young children to farm animals or barns. 'The Hutterite kids and pregnant moms don't go into the animal barns. Kids aren't really exposed to the animal barns until they're like 12 or so, when they start learning how to do the work on the farm,' Ober said. 'The Amish kids are in and out of the cow barns all day long from an early age.' When analyzing samples of Amish and Hutterite house dust, they found a microbial load almost seven times higher in Amish homes. Later experiments showed that the airways of mice that inhaled Amish dust had dramatically reduced asthmalike symptoms when exposed to allergens. Mice that inhaled Hutterite dust did not receive the same benefit. Now, Ober and Vercelli are beginning to identify the protective agents in Amish dust that prevent allergic asthma. In 2023, their analysis of farm dust found proteins that act like delivery trucks, loaded with molecules produced by microbes and plants. When these transport proteins deliver their cargo to the mucus that lines the respiratory tract, it creates a protective environment that regulates airway responses and prevents inflammation. 'We don't really talk about the hygiene hypothesis as much anymore because we now understand that it's not really about how hygienic you're living,' said Kirsi Järvinen-Seppo, director of the Center for Food Allergy at the University of Rochester Medical Center. 'It's more like a microbial hypothesis, since beneficial bacteria that colonize the gut and other mucosal surfaces play a significant role.' During the first year or two of life, a baby's immune system is rapidly developing and highly malleable by environmental stimuli, such as bacteria. Some experts believe that exposing young children to certain types of beneficial bacteria can engage and shape the growing immune system in a way that reduces the risk of allergic diseases later in life. Farm dust contains a hodgepodge of bacteria shed from livestock and animal feed that isn't harmful enough to cause illness, but does effectively train the immune system to become less responsive to allergens later in life. In 2021, Järvinen-Seppo and her colleagues compared the gut microbiomes of 65 Old Order Mennonite infants from a rural community in New York with 39 urban/suburban infants from nearby Rochester. Like the Amish, the Old Order Mennonites follow a traditional agrarian lifestyle. Almost three-fourths of Mennonite infants in the study were colonized with B. infantis, a bacterium associated with lower rates of allergic diseases, in contrast to 21 percent of Rochester infants. 'The colonization rate is very low in the United States and other Western countries, compared to very high rates in Mennonite communities, similar to some developing countries,' Järvinen-Seppo said. 'This mirrors the rates of autoimmune and allergic diseases.' These clues about the origin of the farm effect represent a step toward the prevention of allergic diseases, Järvinen-Seppo says. Whatever form the treatment takes, the impact on prevention of allergic diseases, which affect millions of people worldwide and reduce quality of life, could be enormous, experts say. 'I don't know that we can give every family a cow. … But we are learning from these time-honored and very stable environments what type of substances and exposures are needed,' Vercelli said. 'Once we know that, I don't think there will be any impediment to creating protective strategies along these lines.' Related Content Family adopts a shelter dog — then learns he's the father of their late dog Can the Fed stay independent? Trump-era adviser may put it to the test. The Hubble telescope zooms in on the galaxy next door Solve the daily Crossword
