Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on September 25, 2022

Plates ofapples and honey will be the first thing you'll see at many Rosh Hashanah celebrations. "Jews have been dipping apples in honey for thousands of years to ensure a sweet, fruitful year ahead," Rachel Levin, author of the cookbook "Eat Something," tellsDelish. "Shana tovah um'tukah, you say good, sweet year or shana tovah for short." Next to those apples, you might see a bowl of dates, whose ripeness symbolizes the end of one year giving way to a new one. The Hebrew word for date, tamar, also means "that our enemies be consumed," per Chabad.org.

The pomegranate has a place in several ancient fables, including that of Persephone, who ate several seeds from the tart red fruit and was thereby damned to spend "one third" of each year in the underworld with Hades (per the National Library of Medicine). On Rosh Hashanah, the pomegranate has a more positive connotation. According toDamien Stone, author of "Pomegranate: A Global History," each seed of the fruit represents a commandment from the Torah (viaFood52).You might also see a fish head and a string bean at a Rosh Hashanah celebration, but that's a story for another time.

Read more:

The Fruit Traditions Behind Rosh Hashanah - Mashed

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