Gideon Levy’s furious,sarcastic Yom Kippur message

JVL Introduction

In his inimitable and furious style Gideon Levy has written his message for the most holy day in the Jewish calendar; for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement when all must seek forgiveness for their sins and transgressions and commit to doing better in the year ahead.

But, argues Levy, there is surely no further need for a Day of Atonement in Israel since Israel can do no wrong so what possible sins do Israelis have to atone for? Rather it is those of us, in JVL, Global Jews and European Jews for Palestine, all on the Jewish Bloc who support Palestinians, who are critical of Israel who need to atone.

Amongst the many “guilty” of this sinning, Levy calls himself out, of course, as well as, for example, the film makers Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham for daring to show IDF soldiers’ own testimony of what the Israeli military was doing in Gaza.  Before you read Levy’s words of frustration and fury, however, do take 30 seconds to watch this video thanking the film makers by children in Gaza’s orphans camp. Their thanks are surely more important than the 25 minutes of standing ovation they received in Venice.

This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Sun 20 Sep 2026. Read the original here.