Israel's Chief Rabbis Ask for Fasting and Prayer at Purim

Israel's two chief rabbis issued a joint letter calling on the public to add prayer, fasting and supplication, and reminding readers that instructions issued by the IDF Home Front Command about public gatherings are binding. The letter was published on 1 March 2026, the day before Purim began.

It opens by pointing to those serving: "We see the steadfastness of the Air Force pilots, of the IDF soldiers, and of the rest of the security personnel." It then draws the parallel that structures the whole text: that just as the Jews of the Purim story were saved after fasting and outcry, "as Mordechai the Jew and Esther upheld them, and as they upheld for themselves and their descendants the words of the fasts and their outcry", so the public should now add "words of fasting and outcry".

What the letter asks people to do

The instruction is specific and liturgical. Worshippers should add to the morning and afternoon prayers, after the Amidah (the central standing prayer of Jewish services), the penitential prayer Avinu Malkeinu, "Our Father, Our King", along with Psalms 20, 121, 123 and 130.

The rabbis then add a civil instruction alongside the religious one: "It is obligatory to obey the Home Front Command's instructions, which sometimes change, regarding gatherings." The letter closes with the wish that, as in the Book of Esther, "for the Jews there was light and gladness and joy and honor, so shall it be for us".

The circumstances the letter does not spell out

The text does not name the conflict it is responding to. Reporting from the same days does. The Times of Israel reported on 2 March 2026 that Israel was at war with Iran and had come under ballistic missile attack, that Purim fell on 2 and 3 March that year (a day later in Jerusalem, which observes it on the following day) and that the Home Front Command had banned public gatherings, including public readings of the Book of Esther, even inside public bomb shelters.

On the same day The Jerusalem Post reported that the two chief rabbis had also urged people to limit alcohol at the Purim meal, invoking the principle of pikuach nefesh, the overriding duty to preserve life, so that families would stay alert enough to reach shelter quickly, and had given guidance on reading the Megillah, the scroll of Esther, in protected spaces and on resuming a reading interrupted by sirens. The IDF Military Rabbinate imposed a complete ban on alcohol for soldiers.

Who the two signatories are

Rabbi David Yosef holds the Sephardi chief rabbinate; the title Rishon LeZion used in the letter's heading is the traditional designation of that office, which originated as the title of the chief rabbi of Jerusalem in the seventeenth century. He was elected in September 2024 by an assembly of about 140 rabbis, mayors, legislators and public representatives, winning 72 votes; he is a son of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who held the same post.

Rabbi Kalman Meir Bar, previously the chief rabbi of Netanya, was elected Ashkenazi chief rabbi in a run-off on 31 October 2024 by 77 votes to 58. Chief rabbis serve ten-year terms. The Chief Rabbinate itself is recognised in Israeli law as the supreme rabbinic authority for Judaism in the country, with jurisdiction over Jewish marriage and divorce, conversion, burial, kosher certification and the rabbinical courts.

What the letter leaves open

The text as published carries no date, no addressee and no indication of whether it was circulated to synagogues, published in the press or both. It does not say what is meant by "words of fasting": whether a formal fast day is being called or a private practice encouraged. And while it instructs readers to follow Home Front Command orders, it does not set out how that squares with gathering for communal prayer, which is a tension other rabbinic guidance issued that week addressed directly.