As you may know, we don’t publish on Jewish holidays or the Sabbath (read more about this here), but we don’t want you to be lonely or bored while we’re on “Rosh Hashanah Hiatus,” for the two days of the holiday (Thursday and Friday) and for Shabbat as usual…we’ve got SO much content here you may have missed something, so click around and stay a while…!

You can start with the videos below, “How to Give a Real Apology” and “4 Things Jews Do on Rosh Hashanah,” and then explore Mayim’s video channel as well as our rebooted GrokNation video channel. Which videos are your favorites? Let us know and as we expand our offerings, maybe we’ll be inspired by your ideas! Whether you’re Jewish or not, we wish you a wonderful, happy and healthy  new year ahead!

Some More About Rosh Hashanah!

When people say “Happy New Year,” it’s usually associated with the last day of December, party hats, confetti and champagne toasts at midnight. But when you hear it in September around your Jewish friends, then it’s probably not about the ball dropping in Times Square – this time it means the Jewish new year, or as you may know it, Rosh Hashanah. 

The observance of the holiday includes eating ritual foods: apples and honey (Mayim, a vegan, uses agave) for a sweet new year; pomegranates because the many seeds symbolize fertility and abundance. We listen to someone blow the shofar, a ram’s horn, to evoke olden modes of assembly. We go to synagogue – at most synagogues, Rosh Hashanah is one of the most crowded services of the Jewish year.

And most importantly, we consider the year that passed and assess our behavior toward other people, toward God and ourselves.

So if you see Jewish people over this holiday period, you can greet them with “Shanah tovah,” meaning “good year.”

And may this year bring only good changes: better connection, more communication, more peace, more bravery, and more tolerance for us all.

Shana tovah!