(RNS) — On Yom Kippur (Oct. 12), the holiest day of the Jewish year, hundreds of Jews will gather at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza for a religious service to publicly mourn the lives of Palestinians killed by Israelis over the past year.
The service, part of the afternoon Yom Kippur liturgy called Yizkor, will feature traditional Jewish prayers, a coordinated ripping of a garment — a sign of mourning called “kriah” — and a short eulogy by a New York-based Palestinian-American for her slain Gaza family.
The event is a further sign of the stark divide that has emerged among American Jews in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel and the country’s devastating yearlong retaliatory war in Gaza and now Lebanon. Most American Jewish institutions are emphasizing a fealty to Israel and the Zionist project. Younger American Jews, in particular, are rebelling and calling Israel’s military offensive, which has killed 42,000 Palestinians, a genocide. They want the U.S. to stop arming Israel with weapons.
“One of the things that was so painful to think about is how many Jewish communities are not going to be mourning Palestinian lives alongside Israeli lives,” said Rabbi Alissa Wise, founder of Rabbis for Ceasefire, which is sponsoring the service. “There won’t be repentance and atonement for all the violence and horror over the past year that Israel has caused. We’re trying to embody and practice a more liberatory way of practicing Jewish life.”
The Yizkor service comes as Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations have just announced a Nov. 10 “Stand Together” rally for Israel on the mall in Washington, D.C. The rally comes one year after a similar “March for Israel” last November and is intended to show unity with Israel and a resolve to fight antisemitism.
” … at Stand Together, we will reaffirm our strength as a community standing together against hate and antisemitism, and standing with the State of Israel,” said William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, in a statement.
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The Yizkor service planned for Yom Kippur, by contrast, is not a rally or a protest. It’s a religious memorial service featuring traditional Jewish prayers: El Maleh Rahamim (God full of compassion) as well the Mourner’s Kaddish, a prayer for the dead, recited at every Jewish prayer service.
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Traditionally, Yizkor pays tribute to people who have died over the past year, and in many synagogues it also honors Jews who died in the Holocaust. It originated in medieval times as a way to honor the Jewish martyrs of the Crusades. The Grand Army Plaza service is intended to boldly widen those boundaries to include Jewish lives lost but also non-Jewish lives.
“We wanted to create some kind of big public ritual, for a combination of moral reckoning, grief, remembrance — Jewish ritual at its deepest, oldest and newest,” said Ellen Lippmann the rabbi emerita at Kolot Chayeinu, an independent Jewish congregation in Brooklyn that is co-sponsoring the event.
Najla Khass, a refugee services coordinator for the nonprofit Islamic Circle of North America or ICNA Relief USA, will eulogize family members who have died in Gaza.
In addition to Kolot Chayeinu and Rabbis for Ceasefire, sponsors for the event include Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and Shoresh — groups that have advocated solidarity with Palestinians as a Jewish value.
Rabbi Alissa Wise. (Photo by Jess Benjamin)
Since many of the Jews participating in the service will be at Yom Kippur services that morning, Rabbis for Ceasefire partnered with the group Christians for a Free Palestine to provide the logistics: setting up the stage and sound system and coordinating with the media.
Wise said she anticipates as many as 1,000 people in the plaza, best known for its iconic Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch commemorating Civil War veterans. Participants are asked to wear white, in keeping with the traditional Yom Kippur symbol of repentance. They are also asked to bring a small stone, which they will use to create a memorial.The Jewish custom of placing stones on graves is a way to honor the deceased.
Organizers said they opted for the Yom Kippur service instead of one on Oct. 7 because that anniversary is not a religious one and group members were longing for a spiritual expression rooted in Jewish tradition.
“What feels important in my reading of Jewish life is that Judaism is an evolving religion and so we get to evolve it, too,” said Wise. “And so what’s important now is that we extend it beyond the Jewish community. That feels like the most important ethical commitment.”
A board member of Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, a 6,000-member New York-based organization dedicated to fighting racism and inequality, said the Yizkor service was as much about recommitting to the organization’s values.
“The world we want to build and live in is where everyone’s life is honored, respected, and that people can live their lives with dignity and safety,” said Susannah Dyen, the JFREJ board member. “Having that space together to grieve and to recommit felt really important.”
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