The Jewish Press joins Klal Yisrael in praying for the safety of our fellow Jews in Israel, especially the soldiers in harm’s way. Almost as one, Jews around the world are acknowledging the day-to-day peril facing ordinary Jews in Israel and the extraordinary service of the IDF in protecting them.
* Rav Aaron Yehuda Leib Shteinman and Rav Chaim Kanievsky have called on all Jews to pray for civilians threatened by Hamas rockets and for the safety of IDF soldiers operating in Gaza.
* Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said each and every person is obligated to pray, recite Psalms and intend the merit of their good deeds for the success of the soldiers who are endangering themselves for the sake of defending the Jewish people.
* Shas spiritual leader and rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Porat Yosef, Rabbi Shalom Cohen, said “the Jewish people must implore through prayer for the IDF soldiers who are going out [to Gaza] in self-sacrifice, defending the nation that dwells in Zion against those that have risen up against it…. May God be with them and return them in peace to their families.”
* The Vizhnitzer Rebbe davened at the gravesites of previous Vizhnitzer rebbes for the success of the IDF in Gaza.
* The Shomrei Emunim Rebbe urged prayers for IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, saying: “Every person should imagine as if it his own son fighting out there.”
* A program initiated in 2009 by Rechovot Chief Rabbi Simcha Hakohen Kook and the Bostoner Rebbe, zt”l, calling for people to “adopt” an individual soldier by name and pray on his behalf, has been organized anew by the mother of a former paratrooper (see shmiraproject.com for details).