This year, Yom Kippur starts on the evening of Tuesday, 8 October and ends on the evening of Wednesday 9 October.  As Christians, we thought it would be good to learn a little more about the holiest day of our Jewish brothers and sisters.

Here are 13 facts about the holiest day for the Jewish people

1. Yom Kippur is the Jewish day of atonement when Jews make peace with God.

2. Yom Kippur is considered the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people.

3. Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur are known as the ‘High Holy Days’ or ‘Days of Awe’.

4. During the Days of Awe, Jews believe God inscribes their names on books, writing who will live and who will die and who will have a good year and who will have a bad year. On Yom Kippur, they believe those books are sealed. Because of this Jews use the days between these dates (the Days of Repentance) to reconcile with those they’ve offended in the previous year and repent of their sins.

5. Before Yom Kippur, some Jews symbolically throw their sins away in a practice called Tashlich (Hebrew for “to cast”). They will go to a body of water where they say prayers and throw bread into the water as a symbol of casting their sins away.

6. More religious Jews will perform the kaparot (symbolic “atonement”) rite in preparation for Yom Kippur, where they wave a chicken over their head three times while reciting Isaiah 1:18 before slaughtering the fowl and donating the bird, or its monetary value, to a charitable cause.

7. Many Jews choose to follow a tradition of wearing white clothing on Yom Kippur, symbolising purity and a Biblical promise that sins that are repented shall be made white as snow.

8. Many Jews fast a full 25 hours for Yom Kippur. Anyone who cannot safely fast, including children and pregnant women, are exempt.

9. Some religious Jews also avoid washing, bathing, makeup and deodorant use, as well as sexual relations during Yom Kippur.

10. Many Jews, even those who do not actively practise Judaism, will take the day off work for Yom Kippur. Much of Israel closes down over this period.

11. Many observant Jews spend much of the holiday at the synagogue. Services include readings from the Torah.

12. Yom Kippur concludes with the blowing of the Shofar (a trumpet made from a ram’s horn).

13. Many families hold a festive meal with relatives and friends to break the fast

Yom Kippur – The Holiest Day for the Jewish People

Yom Kippur starts at sunset this evening and finishes at sunset tomorrow evening. This is the holiest day of the year for Jews. Watch this short video to find out what happens.#LoveIsrael #DefendIsrael #PrayforIsrael #ChristiansAgainstAntiSemitism #YomKippur #CUFI

Posted by Christians United for Israel – UK on Tuesday, 8 October 2019

Become a member of CUFI and receive these mini-books and exclusive lapel-pin

Related Articles:

How the Oscars got hijacked by Israel hate

Every year when the Oscars comes around, we prepare ourselves for headlines about who won big on the night, the fashion on display on the red carpet, and indeed talk of the...

“The numbers are not real” – new analysis blasts Hamas figures as FAKE

Graph with Hamas daily figures shows impossible straight line.There is lack of correlation between women and children casualties.Hamas's own figures show Israel is killing hardly any...

‘You should be ashamed of yourself for using Auschwitz to criticise Israel’

This year's Oscars was surrounded by controversy due to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. One of the winners on the night was The Zone of Interest, a film about the Holocaust...

Israel is at war with Hamas, not the Palestinian people

Israel has long sought peace with her neighbours. Unfortunately, you cannot make peace with a neighbour that wants to wipe you off the face of the earth. Hamas is one such neighbour, and as...

For Hamas, No Lives Matter

For years, anyone with a modicum of interest in understanding the Israel-Palestinian conflict recognized that Hamas had no care for the lives of innocent people on both sides of the...

We call upon the UK Government to officially recognise Jerusalem is Israel's capital and move its embassy to Jerusalem.