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Yom Kippur

Content type
Collection
Drawing of male and female holding basket and looking at each other

Maraviglia's Fifteenth-Century Prayer Book

Evelyn Cohen

The British Library shares a fifteenth-century prayer book commissioned by a father to his daughter, Maraviglia, a testament to women’s participation in fifteenth-century Italian Jewish ritual life.

Album cover showing two faces and the words Monajat: Galeet Dardashti featuring Younes Dardashti

7 Questions For Galeet Dardashti

Mirushe "Mira" Zylali

JWA talks to Dr. Galeet Dardashti, cultural anthropologist and singer, about her new album Monajat.

Magda Schaloum

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Roz Bornstein interviewed Magda Altham Schaloum, on June 5, 2001, in Mercer Island, Washington, for the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Schaloum shares her experiences growing up in Hungary, including enduring antisemitism, the impact of anti-Jewish laws, her family's separation and deportation to Auschwitz, her survival through slave labor camps, and her life after the war, including immigrating to Seattle and building a new life with her husband and children.

Silhouette of Girl Eating from a Spoon

If You Have an Eating Disorder, You're Not Alone

Emma Barthold

The new year, with its onslaught of messages about “improving” our bodies, can be especially hard for people with eating disorders.

Photo of Daniela Gesundheit and her album cover, featuring a woman with her face in her hands and the words "Alphabet of Wrongdoing" in jumbled letters

Q & A with Daniela Gesundheit About her New Album, "Alphabet of Wrongdoing"

Sarah Jae Leiber

JWA talks with musician, vocalist, and composer Daniela Gesundheit about how her new album, Alphabet of Wrongdoing, makes the sacred accessible. 

Postcard of a family of four dressed in Kittels

Frolicking Maidens and the Hidden History of the Kittel

Leora Krygier

The kittel is commonly worn by men on Yom Kippur, but their ancient use by young maidens to attract husbands is little known.

Place setting with "&"-Themed Placemat

Breaking the Fast: Why I’m Choosing to Eat this Yom Kippur

Larisa Klebe

Not fasting on Yom Kippur can be rooted in a need to atone too.

Topics: Food, Yom Kippur
Photo of Emily Barth Isler Holding Her Book, "After/Math"

How To Mark A New Year

Emily Barth Isler

Author Emily Barth Isler discusses what it means to her to have her debut novel, AfterMath, launch on Rosh Hashanah.

Forgiveness Graphic

This Yom Kippur, I’m Trying to Forgive

Jessica Ullian

Atonement is tricky this Yom Kippur. Let's work on forgiveness, instead.

Topics: Yom Kippur

Episode 46: Virtual Holidays: Lessons from our Muslim friends (Transcript)

Episode 46: Virtual Holidays: Lessons from our Muslim friends (Transcript)

Christine Blasey Ford

One Year Later

Steph Black

One year after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony to Congress, in light of the High Holidays, what have we learned?

Apples and honey

High Holiday Poems

Maia Evrona

Exclusively for JWA, poet Maia Evrona shares two poems for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Girl Blowing Shofar

The Harm of Tshuvah: A Letter from an Abuse Survivor

Rakhel Silverman

People view forgiveness as the secret to healing, as if it isn’t a long painful process of flashbacks, relapsing, shame, medication, and therapy, as if there’s some easy way to heal that I have been too prideful to consider. To view forgiveness as the apex of survivors’ progress trivializes each person’s individual struggle.

Ray Frank

“In a Place Where There Are No Men”

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz

The 21st century in general, and this season in particular, is a high stakes time in the congregational rabbinate. Taking a break from my annual scramble to produce four 20-minute sermons that will change the course of history (that’s really what it feels like), I had the opportunity to re-read some High Holy Day words that actually did change the course of history.

Topics: Yom Kippur

Ray Frank's Yom Kippur Sermon, 1890

Read the 1890 Yom Kippur sermon by Ray Frank, the first Jewish woman to preach formally from a pulpit, and consider what unites and divides the Jewish people both historically and today.

Ray Frank Litman, 1923, Cropped

Icons for the New Year: Ray Frank

Tara Metal

While seeking stories of transformation this holiday season, most of the tales that have caught my attention involved women who exchanged quiet domestic lives for active involvement in the public sphere. Ray Frank did the opposite: she swapped her life as a trailblazing Jewish leader for one away from the spotlight.

Magda Altman Schaloum

Holocaust survivor Magda Altman Schaloum speaks out on behalf of all Holocaust survivors and their families. Born and raised in Hungary, she endured acts of antisemitism throughout her childhood, and in 1944 and 1945 Magda was sent to several concentration camps. She lost both her parents and her brother. Magda met her husband, Isaac Schaloum, in a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany. Isaac was from Salonika, Greece. They emigrated to Seattle in 1950, where Isaac became a tailor and businessman, and they raised three children. Although of Hungarian descent, Magda became an active and beloved member of Seattle’s Sephardic community. She volunteers for many Jewish organizations, including the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, and continues to bear witness to the horrors of hatred and antisemitism.

Erica Concors

What’s in a name? Finding Solidarity in a Young Jew’s Herstory

Erica Concors

Yesterday, as Yom Kippur approached, social justice organizers and progressive Jews gathered in downtown Boston to not only "remember" often underseen and undervalued laborers but also to stand in solidarity with the current labor struggles of our day. Here is Erica Concors', one committed organizer's, powerful speech. 

Iraqi Almond Milk

Eating Jewish: Breaking fast with Iraqi almond milk

Katherine Romanow

For most of us, the break fast meal following Yom Kippur evokes images of bagels and cream cheese, coffee cake, blintzes and noodle kugel.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Yom Kippur
Sephardic Fish with Tomato Sauce

Eating Jewish: Get ready to fast with Sephardic fish in tomato sauce

Katherine Romanow

Even before Rosh Hashanah was over this year, my mind turned to what I should make for Yom Kippur.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Yom Kippur

A Gender-Free Yom Kippur

From the Rib

I wanted to write this post about women and Yom Kippur, as I often have done for other Jewish holidays, on topics such as what roles women should play during the holiday, stories about women associated with the holiday, etc. But I searched, and was kind of surprised that I found nothing in particular to write about.

Eating Jewish: Almond Sponge Cake, to break the fast

Katherine Romanow

The meal that breaks the fast of Yom Kippur is one that is needed to revive the body after a long day of reflection and repentance, and the food which one eats to break the fast is an important consideration. The meal that is served after the fast should consist of dishes that are light on the stomach and easy to digest after this long period without food. Every community has their own traditions concerning the food that is usually served at this meal. Within the Ashkenazi community the fast may be broken with a dairy meal including things such as bagels and cream cheese or coffee cake.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Yom Kippur

Those "Twice a Year" Jews

Leah Berkenwald

In the space between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we are inundated with messages about self-reflection, our responsibilities as Jews in the world, and our level of involvement with Jewish life.

Eating Jewish: Rice with Chicken - a pre-fast meal

Katherine Romanow

After the celebration of the New Year and feasting on the many foods that make up a central part of its celebration, comes Yom Kippur and the time to fast. Despite the fact that this day is concerned with the abstention from eating, food still plays an important role in the observance of this holiday. One needs to fortify themselves with the proper food prior to the beginning of the fast in order to help sustain themselves through the day. Ideally foods should be filling and those that are salty or spicy are usually avoided so as not to cause excessive thirst.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Yom Kippur

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