High Holidays 2023/5784

Days of Awe: Rosh HaShana, Tashlich, Yom Kippur

September 15-25, 2023 • 1-10 Tishrei 5784 

From JVP Havurah Network, JVP BIJOCSM Network (Black, Indigenous, Jews of Color, Sephardi, Mizrahi), JVP Rabbinical Council, JVP Chapters, Members and Friends

JVP Offerings

Virtual Rosh Hashanah Sephardi-Mizrahi Seder For All: Sunday, September 10
Join us for a Virtual Sephardi/Mizrahi Rosh Hashanah Seder For All! BIJOCSM peoples everywhere and allies are all welcome. This virtual cultural and spiritual event is becoming a tradition, with our various voices participating in offering and re-interpreting the Rosh Hashanah blessings.

Tashlich Ritual Guide for Casting Off Funding of Israeli Settlements and User’s Guide
Tashlich is a “casting off” ritual performed between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. This ritual guides deep personal and community reflection. At the same time, it highlights our work to end our complicity in funding Israeli settlements. This ritual will be part of the pre-launch of the We Don’t Buy It Campaign. By boycotting Psagot wine produced in Israeli settlements, we symbolically and materially cast off support for a significant funder of Israeli settlements.

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Offerings from JVP Networks

High Holidays Services
Mending Minyan Havurah, Woodbridge, CT • September 15, 16, 24, and 25
Spiritual, reflective, songful, Jewish services decoupled from Zionism, in-person and virtual, for Erev Rosh Hashanah, Rosh Hashanah, Kol Nidre, and Yom Kippur.
Pre-registration and full list of dates and times here.

Sephardi Egalitarian Services
Congregation Beth Elohim, Brooklyn, NY • September 11, 15, 19, 24, and 25
The Egalitarian Sephardi Mizrahi Community of New York is holding in-person Egalitarian Sephardi High Holidays at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Services will be delivered in Maghrebi and Yerushalmi nusahim, led by Laura Elkeslassy and friends. All are welcome!
Registration and full list of dates and times for services here.
For musical liturgy on September 11 register here, and on September 19, register here.

Teshuvah Fast for Palestine
Chavurah for a Free Palestine, Virtual • September 18-24, Daily
During the 10 Days of Repentance observed from Erev Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur, it is a custom among people who want to give witness to serious harms to fast from sun up to sun down, concluding in time to eat a meal before lighting candles for the 24 hour fast day of Yom Kippur. With Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, use the period of fasting to explore fasting as a cultural and spiritual tool that helps us operationalize teshuvah.
Registration here.

High Holidays Services
Tikkun Olam Chavurah, Philadelphia, PA • September 16, 17, 24, and 25
Gathering for in-person services at the Germantown Mennonite Church. We will welcome the new year together with political, spiritual, warm services on both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Learn from and pray with Rabbis Linda Holtzman and Rebecca Alpert, Sue Hoffman and Otter Escovitz.
Details on services are here.

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Offerings from JVP-Friendly Synagogues

JVP-friendly synagogues have a wide variety of High Holy Days offerings online, hybrid and in person, including programs for children and tots. Many of these synagogues have a sliding fee scale for non-members — no one is turned away. You are invited to visit these web pages and design your own program of prayer and practice.

High Holidays Services

Tzedek Chicago — an Anti-Zionist Synagogue • Chicago, IL
Abundant opportunities for prayer, learning, contemplation and calls to action for the High Holy Days, in-person and on Zoom.
See full details and register here.

Hinenu Shtiebl • Baltimore, MD
“Creative possibility, radical dreaming”: Join in-person and virtual services from Elul, Selichot, Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur through Sukkot.
See full details and register here.

Kehilla Synagogue • Bay Area, CA
“A river is flowing to water the garden”: Join in-person and virtual high holiday services.
See full details and register here.

Kolot Chayeinu • Brooklyn, NY
Join in-person and virtual high holiday services in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
See full details and register here.

Kol Tzedek • Philadelphia, PA
“Olam HaBa: Dreaming the World to Come”: Join in-person and hybrid services for the Days of Awe 5784.
See full details and register here.

New Synagogue Project • Washington, DC
“We return to you and you return to us”: Join non-Zionist services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as well as spaces for Jews of Color and Multiracial families, with hybrid, in-person and online offerings.
See full details and register here.

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Guides

Use these guides and study materials for yourself, or in your havurah or community.

Nishmat Shoom: Ritual Guides for the Days of Awe

New Synagogue Project: Elul Journaling Guide and Sukkot Guide

New Synagogue Project, Kol Tzedek, and Hinenu: High Holy Days Zine Haggadah

Reparations Task Force: Teshuvah and Reparations 

For dreaming the world to come, Olam HaBa: Planner 5784

Radical Jewish Calendar 5784: Years of Radical Dreaming

Micah Bazant: The People’s Bubbe Yahrzeit Candle Stickers for Yom Kippur

A note from JVP Havurah Network: When thinking about Sukkot, we remember that many Mizrahi Jews hold the experience of the Ma’abarot, the transit camps/refugee camps that Mizrahim were placed in when they were exiled to Palestine/Israel.

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