Rosh Hashanah

Appears in
Jewish Holiday Cooking
Jewish Holiday Cooking

By Jayne Cohen

Published 2008

  • About

“The pineapple groans under her sharp knife like a live fish. Its juice, like white blood, trickles onto my fingers. I lick them. It is a tart-sweet taste. Is this the taste of the New Year?”

—Bella Chagall, Burning Lights

1 and 2 Tishri (September or October)

Rosh Hashanah celebrates both the New Year and a birthday—humankind’s. But in place of revelry, there is reflection; instead of joyful music, the shrill wail of the shofar summons us to cleanse our souls and our hearts.

“Some of the townspeople stood on the wooden bridge reciting the ‘tashlikh’; others lined the river banks. Young women took out their handkerchiefs and shook out their sins. Boys playfully emptied their pockets to be sure no transgressions remained.”

—Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Tashlikh”