Travel with Angela Lansbury: What the Jewish Harvest Festival of Sukkot means for Jewish families and friends, businesses and customers, and buyers and sellers of sukkoth tee-shirts

Angela Lansbury in a sukkah at a home in the UK. It is in a back garden.

Oct 2020. Angela Lansbury in a sukkah in London in a back garden.

Today Monday 10th October 2022 and tomorrow Tuesday 11th October 2022, some Jewish businesses in London, England are closed for Sukkot. For two days. In the UK orthodox Jewish families celebrate for two days, on festivals which are only one day in Israel, in order to be sure to be celebrating at the same time as Israel even if the date in Isreal spans two days elsewhere. If your estate agent (Americans say realtor) in London, England, is closed, don't worry, read the signs. They are probably opening again on Wednesday.

You might be invited to a neighbour's sukkos, or to one built in a synagogue.

What is the sukkos (temporary building) celebrating sukkot (the festival). I typed restival, a happy typo.

Israel

In Israel, you can see the little huts hung with fruit on balconies of blocks of flats in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and elsewhere. The rule is that you can build it only if you can see the sky, so on a penthouse would be ok, not indoors nor a covered area and bad luck if your balcony has another directly above it.

Jerusalem and Tel Aviv also have festivities such as the parade in Jerusalem called the Jerusalem march.

A sukkah is built outdoors by Jews, albeit leaning against the house wall.

However, the Samaritans build a sukkah indoors, because they had to do so under Byzantine persecution and have kept up the practice.

Samaritan sukkah indoors. Photo from Wikipedia.

I like the way the Samaritan sukkah has the fruit arranged in concentric circles of different colours.

India

When I was in India I saw a hut built in the middle of a field. My driver-guide said it was for the workers to guard the crops of the harvest.

In London I have been in three different sukkas.

You are supposed to eat all your meals in the sukkah. Just pray that it doesn't rain.

You can buy the components for building one online.

If you get invited to a meal or an event in a sukkah, you could wear an oufit featuring fruit.

You can buy Sukkoth tee shirts and dresses online from Red bubble and others, for about twenty dollars, plus postage, and upwards. Look out for bargains in the sales after the festival is over.

I bought a shirt with grapes. You find items with grape themes in shops attached to wineries. Items for sukkoth might be in Jewish museums of Jewish souvenir shops.