Tagged tashlich

A Rosh Hashanah ritual — in space

Daniel Shorr, far right, and other members of Stanford’s Student Space Initiative escort a rocket he built. (Courtesy of Shorr)

SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — Typically, Jews gather after Rosh Hashanah services to recite a brief prayer and then symbolically cast away their sins by tossing breadcrumbs into a body of water. The ritual, called tashlich, isn’t mandated by Jewish law — it’s just… Read more »

A Jewish atonement ritual (not the chicken one) gets an eco-friendly makeover

2015 was the last year that Temple B'nai Brith families were allowed to use bread at the traditional tashlich ceremony at the Blessing of the Bay Boathouse in Somerville, Mass. (Sharona Jacobs)

SOMERVILLE, Mass. (JTA) — On the first afternoon of Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Eliana Jacobowitz will lead her congregation on a walk to the Blessing of the Bay Boathouse on the Mystic River for tashlich, a centuries-old ritual when Jews symbolically discard their sins from the past year into a… Read more »

Mark Feuerstein dishes on his very Jewy new sitcom, ‘9JKL’

Mark Feuerstein as Josh, Liza Lapira as Eve, David Walton as Andrew, Linda Lavin as Judy and Elliott Gould as Harry in a scene from "9JKL." (Cliff Lipson/CBS Broadcasting Inc.)

  CHICAGO (JUF News via JTA) — A grown man moves into a New York apartment sandwiched between his meddlesome, boundary-less parents on one side and his brother, wife and their newborn baby on the other. Sounds kind of like a sitcom, right? It is. But the premise also happens to… Read more »

HIGH HOLIDAYS FEATURE Hugging a chicken and other twists on High Holiday rituals

Sarah Chandler leads a twist on the kapparot ritual in which participants hug chickens rather than swinging them over their heads. (Courtesy Chandler)

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 »

HIGH HOLIDAYS FEATURE: Casting away your sins at Tashlich — it’s not just fish food

On the first day or Rosh Hashanah, a body of flowing water with fish and sime bread crumbs are all that's needed to begin the transformative process of tashlich. (Edmon J. Rodman)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Can ridding oneself of a year’s sins really be as simple as tossing a piece of bread into the water? Basically that’s tashlich, or “casting away,” a custom that many Jews practice each year at the seashore, lakeshore, stream or even koi pond. Simply find… Read more »