As you’re Kvelling over Apples & Honey…
…check out how Jews around the world are bringing in 5774!
Tanya, 22 | Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Q: How will you celebrate the New Year
A: I’ll be celebrating with my entire family, even the extended family.
Q: What foods will you for sure be eating?
A: Of course, apples and honey, then pomegranates, and sesame seeds.
Q: What is the importance of the New Year to you?
A: It’s a fresh start, a time to ask for forgiveness and a time for all the family to get together..and basically eat!
Q: Your favorite part about Rosh Hashanah?
A: Spending time with my family
Yoav, 32
|Tel Aviv, Israel
Q: How will you celebrate the New Year
A: We have a large family gathering at my parents home, they have been hosting Rosh Hashanah for as long as I can remember!
Q: What foods will you for sure be eating?
A:The food varies but there are some traditional dishes. Before the entree there a short ritual where my father presents different types of foods and asks all of the guests if they know why these foods are eaten (and surprisingly we forget the answers from one year to the next… so I’m probably forgetting some stuff). The foods are pomegranate, raw carrot, apples dipped in honey, black-eyed peas, dates, pumpkin, leeks..etc.
Q: What is the importance of the New Year to you?
A: See the answer 2 (Maybe…Food?)
Q: Your favorite part about Rosh Hashanah?
A: I really like the dinner, but also 3 days of not going to work!
Q: Do you do anything unique for Rosh Hashanah?
A: I think that the whole ritual with the different foods is pretty unique for secular families. It’s probably quite common for religious families.
Alex, 24 | AKron, Ohio, USA
Q: How will you celebrate the New Year
A: With family as usual
Q: What foods will you for sure be eating?
A: Apples and Honey!!! And apple cake, Yum!
Q: What is the importance of the New Year to you?
A: Getting to spend time with my family.
Q: Your favorite part about Rosh Hashanah?
A: I am unable to go back home to North Carolina so it is nice to spend time with my relatives up here!
Frank, 29 | Tel Aviv, Israel (Originally from South Africa)
We asked Frank, who recently moved to Israel, his thoughts and plans on Rosh Hashanah, being he is not Jewish and living in the Holy Land.
Here’s what he said…
I’ll probably spend Rosh Hashanah with some friends who are olim chadashim (those who have made aliyah), where we’ll eat together and then maybe have drink out at a bar.
Hopefully, I’ll get lucky and one of my Israeli friends will invite me to a family get together. For other holidays this has been nice as I see how the families interact and it’s also just fun.
I’d have liked to spend the holiday with my parents, but I can’t really travel until the Ministry of the Interior has completed the extension of my work permit and visa.
adi, 22
| Kfar Saba, Israel
Q: How will you celebrate the New Year
A: I will celebrate this fantastic holiday with my family (which I love) the best thing in this meeting is the children that run all over the place and are excited to see everyone (really the only thing that makes me laugh).
Q: What foods will you for sure be eating?
I really enjoy my grandma’s food which includes gefilte fish (yes I like it!) and chrain (you know it right? You makes it from beet root it’s supposed to be kind of spicy food but for Rosh Hashana she makes it sweeter because the belief is that you need to eat sweet food for a sweet new year!)
My grandma also eats the head of the fish cause there is a sentence thats says,”to be the head and not the tail” means to be the leader this year.
We eat also apple and honey- it’s super yummy! And we eat pomegranate cause it symbols the prayer for God to help the Jewish people multiply (that’s how you say that?)
Ido, 28 | International Graduate Student at The University of Akron, From Israel
Q: How will you celebrate the New Year
A: I will celebrate Rosh Hashanah with my girlfriend, Effie, and her family. They are like my family in the States.
Q: What foods will you for sure be eating?
A: I believe all the Jewish people celebrate Rosh Hashanah in very similar ways around the world. I know that I can’t wait to eat apples and honey.
Q: What is the importance of the New Year to you?
A: The importance is that we are wishing for a good new year.
Q: Your favorite part about Rosh Hashanah?
A: There are two favorite things. First, the dinner with all my family, I’ll probably join them on Skype! Secondly, eating Apples and Honey!