Why Yom Kippur means Jews must lead peace with Arabs

Making peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors is the Jewish thing to do around Yom Kippur, according to Rabbi Tuly Weisz, founder and CEO of Israel365.

Weisz made the comment the day after U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released their plan for Middle East peace, which begins with ending the war in Gaza. Qatar will play a key role.

Watch previous episodes of Insider:

On Yom Kippur, the Jewish people read the Book of Jonah, in which God tells Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh. At first, the prophet is not at all interested in collaborating with these sinners and enemies, “but Yom Kippur teaches us that we are all God’s children… The role of the Jews is to be the older child, the more mature one. We have a responsibility to stand up to the plate even when it is uncomfortable, and to take more responsibility, especially in this region, and that’s what we’re going to try to do here.”

He added, “Yom Kippur reminds us that God really loves all of His children.”

Rabbi Daniel Rowe of Aish added that this time of year—the period of the High Holidays—is also a time of judgment, when “cataclysmic good and bad events are going to happen.”

“When we talk about spirituality at the moment, and what we focus on, if you look at our prayers, we definitely talk about the land in our prayers and our return to the land. But we talk about God as sovereign over the world. And we talk about how this is the time of year when Abraham and Isaac and all these biblical events took place—the schism between Isaac and Ishmael, and the reconciliation. These are all tied to this time of year as well,” Rowe explained. “The last two years will have shaken us and are going to build a new Israeli society and a new world.”

He added, “I think we’ve shown heroism, courage. I think it’s time for us as a nation to feel what we are together, and how we can be a blessing to the world.”