Interview about the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah

Gazeta Wyborcza , 15 September 2004

Anna Drygalska:

this evening, the Jewish Newy Year, Rosh Hashanah, begins. Why now?

Dr Premyslaw Piekarski, Galicia Jewish Musuem and UJ Orientalist :

Jews celebrate the new year four times in our calendar year, but they only change the numbering once. Rosh Hashanah (which one can translate as “head of the year”) is a harvest festival, like the Polish do¿ynki. This evening at sunset begins the first day of the month of Tishri 5765.

How do Jews greet the New Year?

The basic greeting is Shana Tova! – a good, sweet new year. The religious part includes a service in the synagogue, during which one can hear the ram’s horn – the shofar. After a ceremonial blessing they eat apples and challa drenched in honey. Another traditional dish is carrot in pierogi, pastry or candied – in Yiddish its name sounds like mer, that is more.

Have some customs gone out of use?

Young people walk by water, shaking their left pockets out. At one time the head of the household would take a white cockerel, which was supposed to concentrate in itself the sins of the whole family, by the leg and whirl it round his head. After, the head was cut off and it was eaten. Later, instead of this, rich Jews would shake a purse full of money, which they then distributed to the poor.