--- title: Yom Kippur: What to Say to Someone Observing Jewish Holiday description: There are several proper greetings one can use during the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur. canonical: https://time.com/4958294/yom-kippur-greeting/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-29T00:28:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2024-10-11T14:04:38.000Z og:title: Here's What You Should Say to Someone Observing Yom Kippur og:description: There are several proper greetings one can use during the Jewish high holiday. og:url: https://time.com/4958294/yom-kippur-greeting/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's What You Should Say to Someone Observing Yom Kippur twitter:description: There are several proper greetings one can use during the Jewish high holiday. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Here's What You Should Say to Someone Who Is Observing Yom Kippur > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Updated: Oct 11, 2024 2:04 PM UTCPublished: Sep 29, 2017 12:28 AM UTC  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Updated: Oct 11, 2024 2:04 PM UTCPublished: Sep 29, 2017 12:28 AM UTC When [Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Friday, Oct. 11](https://www.hebcal.com/holidays/yom-kippur-2024), Jewish people around the world will begin to observe the holiest day of the year in their religion. For 25 hours—until nightfall on Saturday, Oct. 12—they will refrain from any food and drink, including water. They will spend the majority of the day in the synagogue, praying to God and repenting for their sins. Unlike [Rosh Hashanah](http://time.com/4950221/happy-rosh-hashanah-greeting-hebrew-shana-tova/), which comes just a few days before Yom Kippur, the day is not necessarily joyous and festive, but solemn and reflective. Consequently, it is generally not customary to greet those observing with “Happy Yom Kippur." The best greeting to give to someone observing Yom Kippur in English is “have an easy fast.” For those who are not fasting, but are observing the Yom Kippur, you can wish them a “Good Yuntif,” or “Yom Tov,” which are Yiddish and Hebrew, respectively, for “Have a good holy day.” A more traditional greeting, and one specific to Yom Kippur, is “Gmar hatimah tovah,” or “Gmar tov,” which roughly translates to “a good seal.” Those observing the holiday believe that the Book of Life, which determines an individual’s fate for the coming year, opens on Rosh Hashanah, and is sealed at the end of Yom Kippur following the period of repentance. Since Yom Kippur comes so close after Rosh Hashanah, you can say “Shana Tova,” or “Happy New Year.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4958294/yom-kippur-greeting/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4958294/yom-kippur-greeting/"},"headline":"Here's What You Should Say to Someone Who Is Observing Yom Kippur","datePublished":"2017-09-29T00:28:38.000Z","dateModified":"2024-10-11T14:04:38.000Z","description":"There are several proper greetings one can use during the Jewish high holiday.","url":"https://time.com/4958294/yom-kippur-greeting/","keywords":["Living","Religion"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4958294/yom-kippur-greeting/","name":"Here's What You Should Say to Someone Who Is Observing Yom Kippur"}}]}] ```