Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.
Rosh Hashanah
The Latest
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Fast Forward DC synagogue will pack pews with celeb cutouts on High Holidays
With the High Holidays going virtual across the country, Jews will miss the call of the shofar, the intimacy of a shul setting and — not least of all — the opportunity to schmooze. But the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in D.C. is offering congregants a chance to commune with their famous coreligionists —…
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Community On the internet, no one knows if you’re atoning
“Isn’t that Franny from Fire Island?” my husband asked as a well-dressed woman stepped up to the bimah to greet the rabbi. I looked closer. Indeed it was Franny, looking great. “Just please don’t tell me that you don’t recognize her with her clothes on,” I said, before he could. That nasty beach joke was…
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Fast Forward Ex-Obama health official gives Coronavirus Rosh Hashanah pep talk
(JTA) – As the High Holidays approach, Jews across the country are preparing for a Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur like none they’ve ever experienced. Andy Slavitt, a former Obama administration official who ran Medicare and Medicaid from 2015 to 2017, wants to encourage his fellow Jews to look on the bright side. “This is…
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News Will Rosh Hashanah 5781 come with a paywall?
The High Holidays are designated for spiritual stock-taking, but this year synagogues are wrestling with a decidedly non-spiritual issue: money. The Days of Awe also happen to be the season in which many synagogues garner enough income — in the form of ticket sales, membership renewals and Yom Kippur appeals — to sustain themselves for…
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The Schmooze Timothée Chalamet Handed Out Bagels On The Red Carpet On Rosh Hashanah
Like an inverse Santa Clause, Timothée Chalamet — diminutive, hairless, Jewish — arrived at the red carpet for the premiere of his new Netflix film “The King” on Tuesday night, holding aloft a sack of gifts. The 23-year-old star of “Call Me By Your Name” came bearing bagels, which he proceeded to distribute to the…
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Fast Forward Check Your Snail Mail — The Saudi Ambassador Might Send You A Rosh Hashanah Card
In an apparent first, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. sent High Holiday greetings to American Jews. The card, from Reema Bandar al Saud, the ambassador, (also known as Reema bint Bandar) was first reported by the Josh Lederman of NBC News. It’s not clear what format the card was sent out in, or who…
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Life Round Challah For The High Holidays? Try These Other Traditional Shapes!
In my decades as a congregational rabbi, I always knew it was time to order our challot for the season the moment I started drafting my five High Holiday sermons. I knew that there would be no time to bake one, much less several, though I did manage to prepare our family version of seasonal…
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News We Asked Rabbis About Their Holiday Sermons. Here’s What 65 of Them Planned to Say.
Anti-Semitism, Israel, immigration, climate change. But mostly: anti-Semitism. Aspiration, repentance, renovation, optimism, and, again, anti-Semitism. Diets, meditation, memory, anger, balance, meaning, love, waiting, faith, change — and anti-Semitism. After a year in which 12 Jews were killed in terror attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, Calif., a year the police recorded rising hate crimes…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
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Sports Texas A&M’s Sam Salz cherishes his first taste of DI college football — and the opportunity to inspire fellow Orthodox Jews
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