Michal Weinstein and Naomi Cohen

By Larry Gordon

Party setup by Events 360

It used to be that if you were fortunate enough to make a simcha–let’s say a bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, or wedding–you just made a few calls and it was all done. But then over the last decade or so, maybe a bit more, a simcha, regardless of the type, became something greater and larger, and frequently too much for one or two people to handle.

That’s where the new Events 360 company comes into the picture. Located on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst, Events 360 was the brainchild of our former graphics director, the talented Michal Weinstein.

Events 360 is a group of talented artists and businesses in the events industry with combined decades of experience in delivering the precise type of simcha that people want to have as they celebrate milestones and lifecycle events in their lives and those of their children.

So let’s break it down a bit, though I suggest that in addition to reading about this boutique simcha shop with everything at your fingertips, you actually take a few moments to step inside and almost instantly watch your special event come alive.

We live in a fast-paced, busy world full of all kinds of pressures either at work or at home–and very often in both places. As a result, when it comes to planning that big event, it’s easy to become frazzled and overwhelmed with a sense of losing control.

Now, though, it looks like things do not have to be that way. And why should they be if for a few extra dollars you can have everything done for you–expertly–to your expectations and liking?

“Very often people walk in,” says Michal–who runs the décor and planning part of Events 360 together with Naomi Cohen–“and they sit down and just say, ‘We are making a simcha, we are busy, and we need help,’ and we pick it up from there.”

Teri Schure of the Cedarhurst BID, Dassy Weiss, Simone Ambalo,
Dina Rogoff, Michali Weinstein, Naomi Cohen, and Cedarhurst Village Trustee Ari Brown at the Events 360 ribbon-cutting ceremony in June

“However, if someone wants to run their own event, we are the ideal solution too,” she adds, noting that clients can pick and choose whom they want to use and work directly with all the sources.

And I need to add that this is a very comfortable place to sit and talk out your dreams and visions about that next big party and then just having it done.

So what are some of those things for your simcha that are just too time-consuming to get done in the fashion that you prefer? The list begins with the design of a logo or monogram for your invitation, swag and screen-printing (if you don’t know what that is, it’s probably not that important to you), invitations (that’s a big one often filled with frustration), linen, lighting, flowers, and balloons. And then there is entertainment, music, DJ, MC, hostess gifts, photography, albums, videography, montage, venue, caterer (food), benchers, and kippahs.

The list of vendors is too long to mention but once you step inside the Events 360 shop at 510 Central Avenue, it will become clear that your big simcha or event can easily be bigger and greater than you ever imagined. All the information that you need is available at events360ny.com or, better yet, follow their very creative Instagram account @events360ny. v

A Game Of Chicken

Preparing for kapparos

For some of us, it is not the year of the chicken, but arguably it is the season of the chicken. And this isn’t about a chicken in every pot–an adage attributed to Herbert Hoover’s campaign for the presidency in 1928. It is about crates of chickens waiting their turn to be sacrificed, so to speak, allowing us to be at least symbolically expiated of any offenses committed in the course of the last year.

Some rabbinical authorities that I spoke with this week plainly stated that in this day and age, the practice of “shlugging kapparos” with chickens is not really a problem, but it has become an issue. One rav said that as a community we need to be careful when considering the way those chickens are being treated prior to their being slaughtered for food for someone, somewhere, to enjoy over the coming yamim tovim.

It has not occurred over the last two years, but prior to that–about three and four years ago–there was a group that bought ad space at this time of year urging readers not to shlug kapparos with chickens but to perform the traditional ritual with money instead. The ad said that the use of chickens for this practice was simply a form of merciless torture for the birds. At the time we did not think that it was inappropriate to feature an ad like that, because people are certainly entitled to their opinions–at least on certain matters, anyway.

The practice, which probably goes back hundreds of years, if not more, is about saying a prayer while swinging a chicken over your head, expressing the wish that you be forgiven for your iniquities or offenses, and taking the matter even a step further by praying that the wrath from above or any physical punishment that may be in order be transferred to the chicken instead of being suffered or experienced by the penitent.

That is not the problem, and neither is the fact that a smooth but sharp blade will soon be drawn across the chicken’s neck, ending its life as it knows it (if it does know it) and turning it into a sumptuous dish fit to grace your yom tov table. Almost no one has a problem with that, as most people understand that creatures like these and others were created by G‑d–amongst other things that benefit mankind–to be served as dinner and sometimes lunch.

OK, so if that is not the problem, what is? According to some rabbis and even a kol koreh publicized last week by Agudath Israel of America, it is the way in which the chickens are treated prior to slaughter. Here is what the Agudah said, in brief: “Reissuing a rabbinic statement that was first published ten years ago and that remains relevant today, Agudath Israel of America is calling upon the community to exercise care regarding the custom of kapparos before Yom Kippur. Given the size of the community, and the large volume of chickens that will be handled in the upcoming days, the practice of kapporos needs to be conducted in a manner that ensures that proper standards of kashrus, cleanliness, and humane treatment of animals, as defined by halachah, are met. This can be achieved by patronizing only those establishments that are under appropriate rabbinic supervision.”

The language here is a bit nuanced, but the motivation and catalyst for such a statement is the way these chickens are mercilessly stuffed into wooden crates, making sounds that seem to indicate some discomfort, if not outright suffering. Then they are pulled out, swung around, their necks stretched, and slaughtered, leading to their instant death.

I’ve seen scenes like this in Crown Heights, Williamsburg, Boro Park, and parts of Monsey, and it adds up to one big public-relations fiasco for frum Jews. No, it wasn’t always like that; however, with the introduction of social media into the dynamic, the result is just not a pretty picture.

I can vividly recall for you today the many times I traveled with my father to one of these swinging-chicken-over-your-head experiences in a rather festive atmosphere, usually a day or two prior to Yom Kippur. It was a somewhat happy occasion because, after all is said and done, the chicken was meeting its expedited ultimate fate instead of one of us. I mean, do you see anything fundamentally wrong with that? I don’t.

But still I was never willing to hold the chicken by its wings–that’s how the experts instruct you to do it to limit its mobility–until I had my own children, and, well, I had no choice, as someone had to hold the chicken and maneuver it around the children’s heads. The first time I did it, I am recalling now, I held the wings tight as I did not want them to flutter or for the chicken to make a run for it.

I have to admit that I felt the breathing warmth of this living chicken in my hands and I think I may have even felt the rapid thumping of that little chicken heart on the inside of my hand that was firmly attached to this seemingly unhappy chicken. My father was both a trained journalist and a shochet, though I never saw him practice the latter. Thinking back now, that was probably a good thing. I mean, I’m sure over these last many years I’ve butchered a few articles here in the paper, but for the most part it has been a bloodless endeavor.

So let me just share one memory with you before I let you go to figure out if you will shlug kapparos this year with money or chickens. There was one year when my father brought home a box of five live chickens, figuring that we would keep them overnight and the next morning we would do the ritual at home and then my dad would take the death-row chickens back to the butcher for their last meal. It sounded like a good idea and fun, too, if I can say that, except for what happened next. I’m not sure what transpired, but overnight three of the five chickens died from what appeared to be natural causes. I’m not sure how old they were. We were all disappointed, and I don’t know what my father did with the deceased birds.

I haven’t used chicken for kapparos in a number of years and I cannot say specifically why, but I just do not like what looks to me like a wild-eyed rampage and murder scene, even if the victim is going to end up lying peacefully alongside some broccoli and a baked potato.

For now it looks like money is the way to go. Firstly, I think it’s easier and more natural to give money to charity than to offer up chickens. People certainly need chickens for yom tov but there are many more things they can do with money than with some chicken. And, additionally, money–even when it’s lost–does not have a heartbeat.

Comments for Larry Gordon are welcome at editor@5tjt.com.

 

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