We welcome a new year.

Elul: 1-29 Elul 5782 | 28 August – 25 September, 2022

Rosh Hashanah: The Jewish New Year 1 Tishrei 5783 | September 25-27, 2022 (Sunday-Tuesday)

Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement 10 Tishrei 5783 | October 4-5, 2022 (Tues-Wed)

Elul and High Holiday Offerings for 2022

As we welcome the New Year 5783, we welcome you home. For some of you, the JVP community has been a political and spiritual home for years, and we’re thrilled and heartened to see you again. For those of you who are new to JVP, we invite you to join a community that holds your values, discover a new family waiting for you with open arms, and find spiritual leadership to fortify you for the year ahead.

During the High Holy Days, we strengthen our resolve and courage to to turn to whatever needs to be seen and to be healed. We ask: How are we preparing for this New Year? What are we waking up to? What are we returning to? What asks to be repaired? How will we resurface? Come help us realize a vision of home and liberation rooted in collectivity.

JVP is proud to offer this collection of High Holy Days resources and live-streamed services from Rabbis of the JVP Rabbinical Council, Havurah Network, JVP members and congregations across the country. This year, 5783, marks our emergence from the shmita year — a year intended to be one of rest and letting go.  But in the wake of this month’s horrifying attacks on Gaza, only the most recent manifestation of the ongoing Nakba, we recognize that we have had little to no rest or time for rejuvenation. In the midst of seemingly endless cycles of violence and oppression, how can we dream up and manifest the new?

For many of us, it is in coming together, in heartbreak and rage, that the new can begin to seem possible. JVP Havurah Network is holding space for all those who wish to be in community as we engage in Judaism beyond Zionism. Join us in interweaving the political and spiritual through prayer, song, reflection, and study in advance of and during the Days of Awe.  Gather-in with us or on your own, bring your whole selves, and may we be strengthened in these days for the work ahead.

Here is a menu of offerings, DIY activities, meetings, and services that that lift up our Jewish values and support you in this period of rest, reflection, and repair.

Soul Candles Ritual Kit

Pictured is the 5779 Soul Candles Kit. Photo by Irit Reinheimer.

With this kit, we bring the tkhines of Jewish women into our lives and hold them up to shine brightly.

The Soul Candles candle making tradition has been passed down through tkhines, Yiddish collections of prayers by and for women. Soul Candles are made to both honor ancestors and protect the living. Said while spinning wick into candles, these tkhines prayers capture the ritual of Jewish Russian and other Eastern European women’s memorial candle making during the High Holy Day season. Jonah Aline Daniel, Rabbi Ariana Katz, and Rebekah Erev have partnered in the past handful of years to explore thkines and the Soul Candles traditions through text, ritual, art, research, prayer and craft. The kit includes all the wick, wax, and ritual guidance required to participate in the ritual fully.

The 5781 kits builds on previous years’ kits with even more ritual and artistic offerings.

For a limited time, the Soul Candles Ritual Kit is available to the public and does not require membership to purchase!

Learn More! Order by August 26th to guarantee delivery in time for Rosh Hashanah.

5781 Radical Jewish Calendar Project

Organized by Jewish month, layering Jewish and Gregorian dates, astrological happenings, holidays, and political history.

Twelve months of political art, culture, and history made by dreamers, artists, and organizers who want to know what time it is.

This project, in our fifth year, was dreamed up by some Jews who were tired of using calendars with advertisements for cemeteries as their only reference for Jewish holy days. This is a collaborative effort between friends and many contributors.

All proceeds will go to artists and design contributors, which include farmers, rabbis, candle makers, facilitators, radio hosts, bodyworkers, rock stars, carpenters, Kohenet priestesses, organizers, and more.

This calendar is a celebration of Jewish culture that is intersectional, queer, feminist, anti-racist, and that challenges and builds a Judaism and Jewishness beyond Zionism. Because you’ve always wanted to find out when Ta’anit Esther and the anniversary of the BDS Call are, all in the same place.

Printed in the Pacific Northwest by union-labor.

For more BDS-friendly Judaica, visit our Social Justice Judaica store here.