Name: Rosh Hashana
Start: 2027-10-02T00:00:00Z
End: 2027-10-03T00:00:00Z
Location: Israel

What Rosh Hashana Means in Israel

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is one of the most widely observed dates on the Israeli calendar. It falls on the first and second days of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, which usually places it in September or early October. In Israel it is both a religious holiday and a national one: schools, government offices, banks, and most businesses close, and the two-day observance is marked by a blend of synagogue ritual, family meals, and a nationwide holiday atmosphere.

Because Israel operates on a Hebrew calendar for religious and civic purposes, Rosh Hashana is not a movable public holiday in the way national days are elsewhere; its date is fixed within the Jewish year and simply shifts against the Gregorian calendar from year to year.

Origins and Religious Significance

Rosh Hashana is described in the Hebrew Bible as a day of remembrance and of sounding the shofar, and rabbinic tradition developed it into the annual day of judgment, when the fate of individuals and nations is inscribed for the coming year. It opens the ten-day period known as the Days of Awe or the Ten Days of Repentance, which culminates in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

In Israel the holiday carries an additional national dimension. It is a Jewish state holiday rather than a purely communal one, so its rhythms shape public life across the country, including for the many Israelis who are secular but still mark the day with family gatherings and time off.

Customs and Traditions

Sounding the shofar: The shofar, a horn traditionally made from a ram's horn, is blown in synagogues during the holiday. Its blasts are the defining ritual sound of Rosh Hashana.
Synagogue attendance: Religious Israelis attend lengthy services, often dressed in festive or white clothing. Even many non-observant Israelis attend services at least briefly, and synagogue attendance tends to be higher than on most other holidays.
Festive meals: Families gather for evening and daytime meals, typically with extended family and guests. The meals follow the pattern of Jewish holidays, beginning with candle-lighting and Kiddush, the blessing over wine.
Symbolic foods: The meal includes foods whose names or shapes carry wishes for the new year, most famously apples dipped in honey for a sweet year, and round challah loaves rather than the braided oblong loaves used the rest of the year.
Greetings: The traditional greeting is "Shana tova," meaning "a good year," often extended to "Shana tova u'metuka," a good and sweet year.
Tashlich: On the afternoon of the first day, many people perform Tashlich, symbolically casting away sins by the water. In Israel this is often done at the sea, a river, or a lake.

Food and Drink

Rosh Hashana food in Israel follows the wider Jewish tradition of sweet and symbolic dishes, with local Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influences.

Apples and honey: The best-known combination, eaten to express the hope for a sweet new year.
Round challah: The holiday loaf is shaped in a circle, sometimes studded with raisins, and dipped in honey rather than salt at the meal.
Pomegranate: Its many seeds are associated with the wish for a year filled with merits or good deeds.
Fish: A whole fish, often with the head left on, is served in many homes, linked to the wish to be "a head and not a tail."
Dates, leeks, gourds, and other symbolic vegetables: These are part of the Sephardi and Mizrahi seder of symbolic foods, in which each item is accompanied by a blessing or pun on its name.
Honey cake and sweet pastries: Sweet desserts round out the meal.

Because Rosh Hashana is followed closely by Yom Kippur, a fast day, the meals in between are generally festive and abundant.

Religious and Civic Observances

In Israel, Rosh Hashana is an official public holiday, and the two days are observed as full rest days. Public transportation largely shuts down, and many businesses, restaurants, and entertainment venues close. Television and radio broadcasts are reduced or altered for the holiday.

Religious observance centers on the synagogue, where the liturgy emphasizes God's sovereignty and the themes of judgment and repentance. Civic life reflects the holiday through official greetings from the president and prime minister, and through the general quiet that settles over the country.

Public Festivities and the Holiday Atmosphere

Despite the solemn religious themes, the days around Rosh Hashana have a distinctly festive, end-of-summer feel in Israel. Families travel to be together, markets and bakeries are busy in the days before the holiday, and the beaches and parks are popular during the holiday break. The period is also a common time for family gatherings and for hosting guests.

The holiday is followed by the Ten Days of Repentance and then Yom Kippur, so the season as a whole is one of reflection mixed with celebration.

Regional Variations

Observance in Israel varies more by community than by geography. The country's population includes Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, and other Jewish communities, each with its own food customs and liturgical melodies, so the symbolic foods on the table and the tunes in the synagogue differ from family to family and congregation to congregation.

Secular and religious Israelis also mark the day differently: for many secular Israelis the holiday is primarily a family occasion and a day off, while for religious communities it is centered on prayer and ritual. Cities with large religious populations, such as Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, are noticeably quieter and more synagogue-focused, while more secular areas see more of the leisure and travel side of the holiday.

Key Takeaways

Rosh Hashana is a two-day Jewish New Year observed as a national holiday in Israel.
It combines synagogue ritual, especially the sounding of the shofar, with festive family meals.
Symbolic foods such as apples and honey, round challah, pomegranate, and fish are central to the table.
Public life largely pauses, with transport and many businesses closed.
Customs vary mainly by community and degree of observance rather than by region.

Rosh Hashana in Israel