Wednesday evening in Ramle, Israel’s 23rd-largest city with 66,000 people, will see a first-of-its-kind across-the-board gathering in honor of the upcoming High Holidays period of prayer and soul-searching.
The event is being organized by the municipality’s Torah Culture department, in conjunction with the Religious Council and the local “gar’in Torani,” or Torah nucleus group of families. It is unique in both its scope – being held in the city’s Cultural Theater – and by the fact that rabbis of all stripes and streams in the religious world will be present. The event will culminate with a giant Selichot pentitential-prayer service.
The hall holds over 600 seats, and all of them are expected to be filled. Hareidi-religious and religious-Zionist rabbis of both Sephardic and Ashkenazi backgrounds will address the participants. The event will be dedicated to the memory of Yiftach Yitzchak Mor-Yosef, who was murdered in Ramle a month ago.
Among the speakers will be Ramle’s Chief Rabbi Yechiel Abihatzeira, the chief Rabbis of Holon and Elon Moreh, lecturers from the hareidi outreach organization Arachim and the OU Israel center outreach department, the head of the local Torah core group.
In preparation for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, Selichot prayers are recited daily for a month (by Sepharadim) or approximately a week (by Ashkenazim) before the holidays.