Reading The Prayers
On this serviette the word Shanah Tovah are read from right to left. The vowels are not always printed. Like speedwriting and texting, you can usually guess the word from the consonants and the silent letters which acts like trees on which you hand the dots and dashes for the vowels.
You can see the pomegranate. Its many seeds represent abundance.
Greeting
When you arrive, remember to say, Shanah Tovah, meaning happy new year.
Food And Drink
The evening before New Year's Day there's a celebratory festive meal, featuring special foods such as honey for sweetness and kosher wine. A blessing is said for each food.
Don't start drinking until the blessing over wine has been said.
There isn't just one blessing. It's not like the prayer we used to say at my Church of England Grammar school, which went, 'For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful.' After that you could start eating. NO! Don't start on the bread until the blessing over bread has been said! Oops.
The charming thing about the Jewish prayers before eating, before each food and win,e and after the meal, is that everything can be sung to a tune, a chant.
At the meal which I attended, the hostess had prepared chopped apple, dates, and figs. With honey for dipping.
Our main course was fish, white fish. Dessert was donuts and more honey.
The next day my family heard the Shofa being blown in a street in Hendon.
The shofah or ram's horn used to blow a sound on Jewish New Year.
I have never heard of that before, outdoors, in public. Usually you would go to synagoague and hear the shofa being blown. I suppose, because large gatherings indoors are banned, because of covid-19, blowing the shofa outdoors seemed like a good idea. That way many people could hear it. And no risk of all that huffing and puffing and blowing being over somebody sitting indoors nearby.
You might have received or seen a new Year card. More likely, nowadays, everything is online.
The next major Jewish festival event will be Yom Kippur, a day of fasting. The devout hope to be written into the book of life, to survive the next year.
Forthcoming Festivals
After that, the jollity of of Sukkot, harvest festival, when fruits and/or greenery are hung on a temporary dwelling outside the house or religious buildings.
I recall going to the Northwood and Pinner synagogue. A large awning was build in a car park against the wall.
When I took a trip to India, I saw the temporary huts in fields at harvest time. The guards were living and sleeping in the hut in the middle of the field to guard the bales and harbest from animals and people. And also to watch the weather, to summon human help if it rained and the harvest had to be moved under cover.
Suddenly the succah made sense. A hut at harvest time, not inside your building, but outside, with reminders of the old days.
Members of the adjacent church were invited, and members of a three faiths council.
What To Buy Or Save
Where would you be able to buy serviettes like this on for the Jewish New Year? On the internet, in a supermarket stocking Jewish goods in an area in London New York, or Israel. From a Jewish shop. From a Jewish delicatessen. Like Xmas cards, you might find some half price, ready for you to stock up for next year, just in case.
Useful Websites
To learn Hebrew
About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer. She and her family have lived in the UK in England and Scotland, USA, Spain and Singapore and Switzerland. See my other posts on languages including Hebrew.
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