By Yori Yalon, Efrat Forsher, Shlomi Diaz, Lilach Shoval, Dan Lavie, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Thousands of Jewish worshippers visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City on Thursday night, for the culmination of Selichot penitential prayers ahead of Yom Kippur.
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz were among those in attendance.
Traditionally, Orthodox Jews also perform rituals to cleanse themselves from sins ahead of the high holiday, which begins Friday at sundown.
In Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim, people took part in a custom called kapparot. Traditionally, Orthodox Jews believe that by waving a live chicken over their head, it will purge them of their sins by symbolically passing them onto the animal.
In Tel Aviv, some Orthodox Jews performed the tashlikh ceremony where people empty their pockets into a running source of water, symbolically casting their sins out to the sea.
Security forces were on high alert ahead of the Yom Kippur holiday. Under orders from the political echelon, police enacted a general closure on the Judea and Samaria area. Gaza Strip border crossings have also been closed.
The closures will be lifted after Yom Kippur comes to a close, on midnight Saturday, provided security assessments indicate it is safe to do so.
Police have called in reinforcements, and as of Thursday, thousands of officers were deployed across Jerusalem, in the Old City and the surrounding areas in particular. As in previous years, police closed off a number of thoroughfares and installed roadblocks on major roadways. As Jews generally refrain from driving on Yom Kippur, the roadblocks are meant to keep Arab east Jerusalem residents from driving into the western part of the city and sparking clashes between the city’s Arab and Jewish populations, as well as to avert possible clashes between religious and secular Jews.
While police are unaware of any concrete threats, they warned they would act with determination to prevent any form of disorderly conduct of any kind during Yom Kippur.