Thousands gather at Western Wall in mass prayer for return of hostages

Thousands of Jews, most of them observant, throng the alleyways of the Old City of Jerusalem en route to a mass prayer for the hostages in Gaza at the Western Wall Plaza, which is at capacity.

David Lau, the chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Israel, reads Psalms, followed by his Sephardic counterpart, Yitzhak Yosef and other prominent rabbis praying on the southern balcony overlooking the Western Wall. The mass prayer follows a call by both chief rabbis, which they said was to “cry out and beg and elicit the mercy of heavens on the whole of Israel” in connection with the war with Hamas.

The rabbis recite selihot, penitential poems and prayers, alongside some relatives of hostages held in Gaza and soldiers fighting there. Prayers for the safety of the Israeli hostages and soldiers in Gaza follow.

In the area leading to the plaza, activists for the hostages’ release hold up posters and banners with pictures of all 136 hostages in Gaza, four of whom have been held for years. The prayer, occurring on the eve of the first day of the Hebrew calendar month of Shevat, features repeated shofar blasts — an unusual occurrence that is part of an emergency response.

“I’m 69 so I don’t serve in the army but the call to this prayer is my draft order,” says Emmanuel Ohaiun, who traveled to the Western Wall from Shlomi, a town near Israel’s northern border. “There is the war on the ground, and there is holy warfare that I came to fight.”