Pray
Below is a series of prayers that we have compiled to offer some support and clarity to you, your family or anyone impacted by the situation in Israel.
Prayer for the IDF
May God who blessed our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah Rebecca Rachel and Leah – may God bless the fighters of the Israel Defense Force, who stand guard over our land and the cities of our God from the border of the Lebanon to the desert of Egypt, and from the Great Sea unto the approach of the Aravah, on the land, in the air, and on the sea.
May Adonai cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them. May the Holy One, Blessed is Adonai, preserve and rescue our fighting men and women from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may God send blessing and success in their every endeavor.
May God lead our enemies under their sway and may Adonai grant them salvation and crown them with victory. And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is Adonai, your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.
Now let us say: Amen.
Poem: Yet We Continue To Pray
Laura Hegfield 10 August 2023
Our hearts are broken, yet we continue to pray.
It seems the only choice;
give voice to our anguish, our longing for peace, for healing;
another day soaked with blood, filled with smoke.
Bombs know no discretion.
Hate creeps beyond boundaries
of time,
of space.
The scent of fear permeates whispering walls
archaic and crumbling
that can neither protect, nor hide:
our children,
mothers,
fathers,
sisters,
brothers.
Finger prints and footholds etched in wind-worn stones,
DNA locked in fragments of bones
tell the same sad story.
Malice cannot detect truth; cannot discern lies.
Safety and reason long ago lost,
foreshadows ghosts, stains and the memories of tomorrow.
Only this mantra of hope remains:
Give us strength Kaddosh Barchu.
May our broken hearts be mended.
Holy Blessed One, we pray;
let this ancient war of othering,
not seeing,
listening,
or recognizing our shared humanity soon be ended.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
Prayer
Praying for all lives impacted by the latest attack on Israel on this Jewish Holy Day. Grieving and in terror, our hearts are broken once again. As we pray, more than 700 people are already killed and hundreds of Israelis have been kidnapped, thousands are injured, and rockets continue to rain down on the Jewish home land that due to colonization is shared as sacred by so many religions.
It is tragic that, rather than being a home for peace, Israel is once again the heart of global conflict between people who live elsewhere. Let us grieve but let us all awaken, as watch organizing hatred explode into war and watching people around us turn to tired old propaganda tropes to blame victims rather than join us in the horrifying despair that is never far from surface for all of us Jews living in a post-Holocaust world.
Our hearts are broken as we seek comfort and hope, knowing that humans on all sides will face as a few evil people profit. But let us not forget that Jews are being blamed, once again, for their own persecution. The true spiritual test is to remain grounded in critical thinking and compassion while everyone around us continues with their daily concerns. May we realize that this is the essence of colonization: when marginalized and colonized communities turn on each other in lateral violence rather than on those who are actually organizing the attacks.
We offer this prayer, adapted from one written by Rabbi David Wolpe, translated Rabbi Nir Barkin and shared by Rabbi Shira Stern. May peace and justice soon be transformed from prayer to reality. 
El Maleh Rachamim
Compassionate God,
We pray
not to wipe out haters
but to banish hatred.
Not to destroy sinners
but to lessen sin.
Our prayers are not for a perfect world
but a better one
Where parents are not bereaved
by the savagery of sudden attacks
Or children orphaned
by blades glinting in a noonday sun.
Help us dear God,
to have the courage to remain strong,
to stand fast.
Spread Your light
on the dark hearts of the slayers
And Your comfort
to the bereaved hearts of families of the slain.
Let calm return Your city Jerusalem,
and to Israel, Your blessed land.
We grieve with those wounded
in body and spirit,
pray for the fortitude of our sisters and brothers,
and ask You to awaken the world to our struggle and help us bring peace.
אל מלא רחמים, אל רחום וחנון
Prayer for Israel
Another prayer for the IDF
Collection of Prayers from the Central Conference of American Rabbis
Click here to view