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Rosh Hashanah

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Celebrating Rosh Hashanah: baking, stories, crafts

Activities for kids to celebrate the Jewish New Year.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022, starting off the 10-day period of prayer and reflection known as the High Holy Days.

Some of the foods used to mark the festive holiday Rosh Hashanah are apples dipped in honey, as well as challah, the egg-washed, braided bread traditionally served each week on Shabbat (the Jewish sabbath). Challah is customarily made in round loaves for Rosh Hashanah.

Baking

If you’d like to try making your own challah, the New York Times recipe by Joan Nathan draws rave reviews. You can also watch her make the same challah — including some pretty impressive dough braiding that would be a great brain exercise for kids — in this video for Tablet Magazine:

Crafting

Here are some fun apple-theme crafts for kids from the YouTube channel My Jewish Mommy Life to help with marking Rosh Hashanah. (And the crafts also will work throughout the fall, as the host notes, since they are a neat way for kids to make their own apples (out of yarn and pipe cleaners) and to make apple-print art with paint:

 

Storytime

If you’d like to learn more about how Rosh Hashanah is celebrated, you can listen here to the story “Apples and Honey: A Rosh Hashanah Story” in this video by Butterfly Garden Preschool.

More arts and crafts:

4 easy art projects inspired by a visit to Seattle Art Museum

5 fun and easy fall craft projects for kids

A fall art project: Create an owl

About the Author

Jillian O'Connor

Jillian O’Connor lives in Seattle with her husband, two sons and a dog named after the Loch Ness Monster.