Dead chickens found in trucks likely tied to Orthodox ritual

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What you need to know today

• Mamdani administration unveils strategy to combat antisemitism: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled the city’s strategy to combat antisemitism, which includes boosting the security of Jewish institutions, expanding Holocaust education and celebrating Jewish New Yorkers’ contributions to the city. Several left-leaning Jewish groups applauded the initiative, while some major Jewish organizations — including UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council — criticized it for “failing to address” the topic of anti-Israel rhetoric.
  
  
• Mamdani’s Sukkot plans: The mayor spent part of yesterday at a Sukkot food drive with Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, a leader of Queens’ Bukharian Jewish community. Tonight, a Chabad-Lubavitch outlet reports that Mamdani will be in Crown Heights at the sukkah of Devorah Halberstam, an activist whose son was killed in an antisemitic attack in 1994. 
  
  
• Spotted in the sukkah: Bruce Blakeman, the Jewish Nassau County executive who is running for governor as a Republican, visited a Crown Heights Sukkot celebration yesterday, CrownHeights.info reports.
  
  
• Abandoned chickens likely tied to Orthodox ritual: Hundreds of chickens were found in two abandoned U-Hauls in Brooklyn earlier this month, many of them already dead. A sign affixed to the trailer indicated that the birds were likely slated to be used for the Kaporos ritual, practiced by some Orthodox Jews on Yom Kippur, in which a chicken is swung around a person’s head before being slaughtered. Farm Sanctuary, an animal protection nonprofit, announced that it has adopted 10 of the baby roosters.