Some 1,500 Israelis gathered in cities across the country on Monday to pray for the people of war-torn Syria, hours before the start of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.
Under the banner “The world is silent, we are not”, and with the involvement of rabbis and communal leaders, people gathered in Beersheba, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, the Golan Heights and other places in prayer, music and silent meditation.
The events were organised and coordinated via Facebook by the son of the late peace activist Rabbi Menachem Froman, Shivi Froman.
Mr Froman said: “Hundreds of people, men, women and children, are slaughtered daily and the world is silent”. He said that the pre-Yom Kippur gathering was “to cry out, to pray, to hope, to sing, to identify and to awaken the mercy of the world in general and about the suffering that is taking place here next to us”.
More than 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian civil war, according to the latest United Nations figures, and millions have been displaced since it first erupted in March 2011.
Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city and the country’s industrial and financial centre, has been hit by intense aerial bombardment in recent weeks by Syrian and Russian warplanes, who seek to recapture the city. The bombardment is reported to have resulted in hundreds of casualties, including 68 children.
