For the first time in decades, Israel is celebrating the holiday of Yom Kippur, the most important day in the Jewish calendar, from Friday evening, this year in the shadow of war.
Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, is the only day of the year when the country stops. For 25 hours, from Friday at sunset until Sunday at nightfall, borders, airports and most businesses will be closed, and public transport will be at a standstill.
Only hospitals, emergency services and security forces remain in operation. Israeli soldiers engaged on the front lines in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon will continue their activities without change.
In Israel, although there is no law prohibiting it, almost no cars are on the road, which allows many children and cyclists to invade the roads, including highways, every year.
Traditionally, it is also the day of greatest crowds in synagogues and a large majority of Jews, including many non-observant ones, observe a day-long fast.
If since the start of the war triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, the Israeli media have been operating full time on Shabbat and other Jewish holidays, on Yom Kippur, no radio or channel television broadcasts.
However this year, several media outlets contacted by AFP affirmed that for the first time, they were ready to broadcast live in the event of a major event during the festival.
– “Maximum alert state” –
“We are on maximum alert on the occasion of Yom Kippur, but we hope that it will not be necessary to go live,” Yaël Melzer, spokesperson for the private television channel, told AFP. Keshet 12.
“We will make a decision based on the assessment of the situation,” she added.
For Jews observing the ban on turning on an electrical appliance for the duration of the holiday, the public channel Kan will set up “a silent channel” allowing the public to leave radio and television sets on, which will broadcast information only in cases of emergency, Ilil Shahar, Kan’s deputy information director, told AFP.
For the first time, “we will have a team [de journalistes] on-call duty ready to intervene,” adds Ms. Shahar, indicating that Friday’s programs will continue normally until the start of the party and will be closed with the national anthem at sunset.
The Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, David Yossef, called on the faithful to redouble their prayers for the release of the hundred hostages held in Gaza, and to add a prayer in memory of the victims of the war.
He also issued a statement prohibiting active soldiers from observing the fast.
– Unable to disconnect –
Passive Defense issued instructions Thursday on ways to receive critical information during Yom Kippur, by tuning in before the holiday to a silent channel and the emergency app designed to allow users to receive alert messages even if their phone is turned off.
Since its creation in 1948, Israel has experienced two wartime Yom Kippurs.
The first time in 1948 itself, but that year the holiday fell during a truce in the first Arab-Israeli war, and the second time in 1973 when the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state during the holiday: the Israeli-Arab war of October 1973, known in Israel and the West as the Yom Kippur War.
But that was before the invention of 24-hour news, the internet and social media, which today offer many a reassuring sense of connection, essential in times of war, says Paul Frosh, professor of communications at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“What will be particularly difficult this year will be the loss of this feeling of connection” for those who give up the use of electrical devices such as their telephone, as tradition requires.
Zamira Miara, 67, a resident of Ashkelon, judges that “it will be impossible to disconnect until the war is over.”
“Nowadays, everyone has their own Telegram channel and can browse the news,” even on Yom Kippur, says Itay Elgasian, a 30-year-old Jerusalem trader for whom the silence of the media will be less burdensome this year.
For Liad Ben Moshe, on the contrary Yom Kippur offers the opportunity for a welcome break from the “constant beeps of our phones” which will allow the faithful to concentrate on their link with the “creator of the world”.
“When you disconnect from the outside world, you can connect to yourself and silence the background noise,” this young religious woman living in a Jewish colony in the West Bank told AFP: “This Yom Kippur will be more powerful thanks to that.”
reg/mib/mj/feb
© Agence France-Presse
Related News :