Tagged High Holidays

(JTA) — Israel passed a grim milestone over the weekend as its tally of coronavirus deaths exceeded 1,000. The country currently has the highest rate of new infections per capita in the world, with an average of 199.3 new cases a day per 1 million residents for the week… Read more »

(JTA) – Less than two miles away from the Center for Disease Control’s campus in Atlanta, where doctors and researchers prepare guidance for the nation’s coronavirus response, an Orthodox rabbi is preparing a different set of plans. Rabbi Adam Starr’s task: how to accommodate hundreds of people for in-person… Read more »

(JTA) — Like many synagogues, Temple B’nai Hayim used to rely on the High Holiday season to survive financially. The small Conservative synagogue in Southern California would receive the lion’s share of its revenue in the run-up to the holidays: Members sent in their annual dues, which included entry… Read more »

Using a recipe Handmaker resident Betty Light shared, Bonnie Gottesman (left) and Rabbi Richard Safran were among a group of residents at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging who enjoyed making honey cakes Sept. 25 in preparation for Rosh Hashanah. Some added nuts and/or raisins, depending on their individual… Read more »

Julie Matlin (Courtesy of Matlin)

MONTREAL (JTA) — Picking through gefilte fish in the kosher department, searching for the freshest packages, I think of my Grandma Fanny. She made her gefilte fish from scratch, lovingly combining the cod, whitefish, pike and whatever other secret ingredients she threw in that made it so good. “This… Read more »

Rabbi David S. Wolfman

Rabbi David S. Wolfman will help officiate High Holy Day services this year at Temple Emanu-El, along with Rabbi Batsheva Appel, Cantorial Soloist Marjorie Hochberg, and the High Holy Days Choir under the direction of RobertLopez-Hanshaw. Currently, Wolfman is the founder and principal of David S. Wolfman Consulting, LLC:… Read more »

A couple of years ago I was standing in the lobby of a Jewish Community Center in California, admiring the artwork of Shlomo Katz. The JCC had just opened an unusual display of hand-knotted Persian rugs featuring Jewish and biblical themes, and I found myself entirely lost in the rug… Read more »

Picture services for the High Holidays: A roomful of congregants sitting with heavy books in their laps listening to a rabbi sermonize or a cantor chant is what likely comes to mind. Baking pizza? Embracing a chicken under a tree? Not so much. But those are some of the… Read more »

UMAN, Ukraine (JTA) — By selling coffee to Jewish tourists, 18-year-old Yuri Breskov can earn in a week more than his teachers from high school make annually in this provincial city. His revenues peak at $3,000 on the week of Rosh Hashanah, when some 30,000 Israelis and other Jews visit… Read more »

  LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Was your father a rabbi? When I tell people that I wanted to be a rabbi from the time I was 4 years old, they always ask me that same question. No, my father made women’s clothing, but he was my rabbi. When I was… Read more »

"Big Sam: A Rosh Hashanah Tall Tale" (Apples and Honey Press)

(JTA) — A challah-baking Jewish giant, a young baseball champ and an endearing boy in a pumpkin patch are among the stars of five delightful new books for kids published just in time for the High Holidays. This year’s crop includes new stories by two of the country’s most… Read more »

(Rabbis Without Borders via JTA) — The month of Elul is the season of repentance and forgiveness that culminates with Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. In the rabbinic imagination, Elul is an acronym for “Ani L’Dodi V’dodi Li” – “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”… Read more »

(JTA) — Hanukkah is “late” this year (no disrespect to lunar-calendar literalists), which means winter will be well underway by the time those first lights are lit. What better time to curl up with a good book than when the weather outside is frightful, but the latkes are so… Read more »

(JTA) — Here we are in September/Elul, preparing to welcome a new Jewish year and a new fall season of Jewishy books, including the first novel since 5766 (by now almost 40-year-old) wunderkind Jonathan Safran Foer — perhaps you’ve heard the buzz. Presented below is JSF’s latest, plus nine… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Rosh Hashanah came around last year, Rabbi Aaron Gaber wanted to grapple with an issue roiling the country. So he decided to focus his sermon on racism. But several members of Brothers of Israel, a 120-family Conservative synagogue in suburban Philadelphia, weren’t pleased. “Some of the… Read more »

(Kveller via JTA) — Two essential parts of preparing for Rosh Hashanah, our clean slate for the year, is asking forgiveness from anyone we wronged and making a list (mental or written) of the ways we fell short since the last time we heard the shofar. Ideally that hard… Read more »

RICHARDSON, Texas (JTA) — Urbandictionary.com is an open-source site where the average citizen contributes definitions to new and old words and slang. As the High Holidays approach, I’ve been contemplating the phrase “epic fail.” According to one entry on Urbandictionary.com, epic fail means “complete and total failure when success should… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For Israelis, the Ten Days of Repentance from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur have turned into days of violence. Unrest has swelled in Jerusalem following an Israeli ban on a protest group at the Temple Mount, the holy site known to Muslims as the Haram… Read more »

Ruth Messinger

NEW YORK (JTA) — Each year when I sit in synagogue during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I’m struck by the complex stories we read about biblical women and by the wisdom these stories offer about ensuring the dignity of women and girls today. The past year was one… Read more »

An illustration from "Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook," which offers recipes along with its collection of Jewish folk tales. (Courtesy Interlink Publishing Group)

(JTA) — Shofars, apples and honey, make room for pomegranates, couscous and pumpkins. The new crop of children’s books for the High Holidays opens a world beyond the beloved traditional symbols of the New Year (Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on Sept. 4). From ancient times to today, the savory,… Read more »