Hours before Yom Kippur, Israelis wave chickens in the air

Israeli Jews this week waved chicken over their heads and emptied their pockets into a water stream in a set of rituals traditionally carried out ahead of the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur.

Orthodox Jews perform the rituals to cleanse themselves from sin ahead of Yom Kippur, or ‘day of atonement’, which begins on Wednesday at sundown.

In Tel Aviv, some Orthodox Jews performed the ‘Tashlich’ ceremony where people empty their pockets into a running source of water, symbolically casting their sins out.

In Jerusalem’s strictly-Orthodox neighbourhood of Mea Shearim, people took part in a custom called ‘Kapparot’ by waving a live chicken over their head.

The act is thought to purge the believer of their sins by symbolically passing them onto the animal.