High Holy Days

Rosh Hashana The Jewish New Year began Sunday at sundown with Rosh Hashana services. Rabbi Donald Goor of Temple Judea in Tarzana, below, sounded the shofar, or ram's horn, last week in preparation for the 10-day introspective period that ends with Yom Kippur at sundown Sept. 30. Wise Words Jews across the Valley will listen to sermons today encouraging them to reflect on the past year and the one to come. "It's one day when all Jewish people . . .

In the fall of 2008, Jonathan Titcher was 28 years old and laying waste to his life. He was in the Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles on a probation violation, which had come less than a week after his release from a heroin conviction. As he attended a jailhouse service to mark the Jewish high holy days, he could feel a change. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the two holidays that kick off the Jewish New Year, are solemn occasions for soul-searching and repentance. Known as the Days of Awe, and ending this year with the close of Yom Kippur at sundown Saturday, they are an opportunity for Jews to ask God to forgive their sins.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts at sundown Friday. This holiday and Yom Kippur, which begins at sundown Sept. 22, are known as the High Holy Days and are the most revered times of the Jewish year. For Rosh Hashanah, "Easy Kosher Cooking" suggests this menu: wine, challah, apple slices with honey, gefilte fish salad, lentil vegetable soup, roast chicken or turkey, carrot tzimmes, potatoes, fresh fruit and honey cake.

Welcome to the first day of school — not. The Tuesday after Labor Day marks the traditional opening of the academic year for students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, but not this time around. Budget cuts have resulted in a shorter school year and unpaid furlough days for teachers and other employees. That reality, combined with the Jewish High Holy Days, has pushed things back to Sept. 13. So why are students already attending public schools in some parts of the nation's second-largest school system?

At sundown today, Jews will gather at synagogues throughout Los Angeles to wish each other L'Shanah Tova, marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year 5754. These gatherings will be followed by services Thursday at Reform temples and on Thursday and Friday at Conservative and Orthodox synagogues. Rosh Hashanah is a celebratory time, when new year greetings are exchanged and holiday fruits apples dipped in honey are served.

Celebrations are scheduled at various Ventura County temples in observance of the High Holy Days, a period of self-examination and contemplation for the Jewish community. The two most significant events of the season are Rosh Hashanah, which is begins at sunset Wednesday and continues Thursday, and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, which begins at sunset Sept. 24 and continues Sept. 25, said Rabbi Michael Berk of Temple Beth Torah in Ventura.

Jews throughout Ventura County gathered Thursday for services to celebrate Rosh Hashana, the start of the Jewish High Holy Days, a time for reflection and spiritual renewal. For Thousand Oaks resident Cara Galpher, Rosh Hashana, also known as the Jewish New Year, is a reminder of the need to be more tolerant of others and to appreciate those close to her. "I'm more thankful about my family's health and happiness," said Galpher, 39, who was among those who attended services at Temple Adat Elohim.

The problems faced by Jews leaving the Soviet Union and the conflict in the Middle East will be among the topics of rabbis across the San Gabriel Valley during the Jewish High Holy Days, which begin this week. "We pray for our American hostages and the many thousands of other hostages," said Rabbi Elisha Nattiv of the Temple Shalom of the East San Gabriel Valley in West Covina.

What do the Pantages Theater, Airtel Plaza Hotel and Warner Center Marriott Hotel, Shepherd of the Hills Church and three Mormon churches have in common? They will all resound to the call of the shofar, or ram's horn, blown at Rosh Hashanah services on Monday evening and Tuesday morning to signal the beginning of the Jewish year 5755 and the start of the High Holy Days.

Most holidays commemorate specific events like America's national independence, the Jewish exodus from ancient Egyptian slavery, the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth, Judah Maccabee's victory over a tyrannical emperor, the Pilgrims' first harvest in Massachusetts or God giving the 10 Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy vision. -- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, (1907-1972) theologian and philosopher In their longing to connect with God, human beings through the ages have prayed. They pray to adore and worship, to repent and seek forgiveness, to express gratitude and ask for help. They also pray to mark holy days, as an estimated 1.2 billion Muslims and about 14 million Jews around the world are doing this holy season.

Joining 1.28 billion Muslims and 14.9 million Jews around the world, Southern California adherents of the two faith traditions are observing their respective holy seasons starting today. It's the first full day of Rosh Hashana -- the Jewish New Year -- and also the beginning of the month of Ramadan. Rosh Hashana, the start of the 10 High Holy Days leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, began at sundown Friday. Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, prayer and charity, started today.

Concerned for the safety of their congregants during High Holy Days, more than 60 Jewish security chiefs gathered at the Anti-Defamation League's headquarters Wednesday to learn how to, as one of them put it, "harden our targets." It was the second such meeting sponsored this year by the ADL, which normally hosts just one annually. "With the situation in Israel becoming inflammatory this summer, we felt another security briefing was justified," ADL regional director Amanda Susskind said.

As Jews entered the High Holy Days this week in the midst of reports of genocide in Sudan, one of the nation's leading rabbis is exhorting Jews to make good a vow born out of the ashes of the Holocaust: "Never again!" The appeal by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino may sound more like a theme for Yom Hashoah -- Holocaust Remembrance Day -- than for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which began at sundown Wednesday.

The findings of a new population study on Jews in America would seem tailor-made for Rosh Hashana sermons at Southern California synagogues as rabbis prepare for the start of the High Holy Days next week. After all, the National Jewish Population Study found that a significantly smaller percentage of Jews in the Western United States than those in the Northeast or Midwest will be observing the High Holy Days, which begin at sundown Friday with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

The Jewish high holy days, a 10-day period of introspection, reconciliation and forgiveness that began Friday night, fall this year when the unforgivable--the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of a year ago--remains fresh in the memory of the nation. The conjunction of the first anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington and the holy days, which begin with Rosh Hashana--the Jewish New Year--and end Sept.

Capacity crowds flocking to High Holy Days services in synagogues throughout Southern California beginning today for Rosh Hashana will hear a common message: Support your Jewish brothers and sisters in war-torn Israel. Rabbis will ask worshipers, some of whom they won't see until next year's services, to help those in the Jewish homeland in a variety of ways.

With extra police patrols guarding synagogues, rabbis in the Southland and nationwide Monday spoke gravely of moral choices to congregations prepared for their most sacred period of Jewish religious observance, the High Holy Days. At a moment of transcendent importance for Jews, religious leaders evoked varied themes in their sermons. One rabbi talked about firefighters, police and rescue workers as models for personal choices people can make.