Food and Fun At the Jewish Harvest Festival - Fruit-Filled Canopy for Sukkoth Sept 20-27, 2021

 

This photo shows the traditionally bearded chief rabbi of Jerusalem in a sukkah. On the table are bottled juices and sweetmeats. The cloth walls have been decorated with paintings and streamers.

Another view of a sukkah shows the fabric wall, the wooden ceiling open to the sky, suspended electric lights, coloured lanterns, pictures of grapes, hanging and green fronds and paper chains.

Jewish Sukkoth - UK

Also following the lunar calendar, the Jewish festival of Sukkoth, celebrated at homes and synagogues in Israel, Jewish northwest London (where Anne Frank's father retired post WW2) and the USA. Some neighbours and synagogues will invite nearby communities to see and join in, welcoming all comers of all religions. 

I went to a Sukkah ceremony held at the back of Northwood & Pinner synagogue in Northwood. They had invited members of the next door church. 

I also visited a sukkah at the back of the home of neighbours in Hatch End, Pinner. 

Sukkah in London, England, built in the back garden against the house wall, with real greenery which has taken hours to install, a base of flowers, and citrus fruit and etrug. Photo by Angela Lansbury. 

Later in 2020 I was invited to a dinner in the Sukkah of a house in Finchley.

The sukkah is just like the booths you see built in India where a guardian sleep to watch over the gathered in crops.

See Sukkahs in Israel

A Sukkah on a rooftop in Jerusalem. Photo from Gilabrand in Wikipedia under Sukkah.

In Israel you can see the balconies of apartment blocks have a sukkoth. The only regulation being that the temporary structure must be open to the sky. That means if your balcony is immediately under another, you can't have a sukkah.

A place with lots of apartment blocks with balconies is Tel Aviv which has wonderful Bauhaus buildings - German fore-runner of art deco in the UK, France, and Italy.

What is a Sukkah?

The sukkah is a lattice with suspended fruits and ferns and greenery and nowadays plastic baubles like a Christmas tree. Expect a drink of fruit juice or wine, some fruits and or food and a quick prayer or blessing as you stand around or an entire service over a dinner table. 

The structure are called a sukkah. The festival is sukkot (Hebrew), or sukkas (Yiddish which is North and East European, German with a few words of Hebrew or Russian or Polish or the ancestor's language.

You can buy a sukkah kit. Ask or pay somebody to build you one. Build it yourself. Look in newspapers and on local websites to find an event. Ask friends and family.

Useful Websites

https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/uk/sukkot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukkot

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