SUBJECTS: History
YEARS: 3–4
Is New Year's Day, 1 January, special to you, or do you celebrate the new year at a different time?
For Jewish people all around the world the new year is celebrated for two days that fall between early September and early October.
Explore why the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is so important for people of the Jewish faith.
Things to think about
- 1.Note down the date or dates that for you mark the beginning of a new year. Make a list of what you and people close to you usually do at that time. Share your list with someone else to see what is similar and what is different.
- 2.Hebrew is the language of the Jewish people, and Rosh Hashanah is Hebrew for the 'head of the year'. The speaker in this video says that it is a very serious time. How is that view of a new year's beginning similar to or different from most New Year celebrations in Australia?
- 3.The speaker says that Rosh Hashanah 'gives the direction for our behaviour for the 12 months ahead' and 'When we enter a new year we have to change ourselves for the better'. Do you know what making a New Year's resolution means? If not, find someone who does. Is a New Year's resolution similar to what the speaker is saying about Rosh Hashanah? Why or why not?
- 4.In the video you will have seen and heard a Jewish man blowing a kind of horn. It is called a shofar. Do some research on the shofar. What is it made of? How it is blown? Why it is an important part of Rosh Hashanah?
Date of broadcast: 27 Sep 1992
Copyright
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