This New Year finds me in Washington, DC – a verdant city shaded by massive trees, with a great river, abundant rain and lush natural growth. To get here, I traveled from Israel, through Europe, passing from the Ancient to the Old to the New World. Compared to the Ancient and Old Worlds, the magnitude … Read More »
rosh hashana
Sweet as Carob Syrup
For years I’ve wanted to observe how carob syrup is made. Like many of the highly labor-intensive, traditional Palestinian foodways, carob syrup production is barely practiced anymore. But several weeks ago, on a visit to Abu Malek in Kufar Manda, I saw an enormous pile of carob pods on the front porch. Fall is carob season … Read More »
The Garden of New Year
How confusing to celebrate two New Years each year. Can I pledge allegiance to one of them, or at least find some resonance beyond the occasion for a holiday meal or a midnight kiss? Because I live in the Galilee, from whose agricultural landscape the practice of declaring a New Year at the end of … Read More »
Defying Closure
Looking out my window at the full-grown green olives weighing down the branches of our tree, I am reminded that the Jewish New Year does not begin neatly at the end of one traditional agricultural year and the beginning of another. These olives, last of the summer fruit to ripen, will only be harvested in … Read More »
Pomegranates Waning
Pomegranates herald the new year – the Jewish new year that is – which means their bright red orbs suspended among the yellowing leaves on their bushes give us former East-coasters a feeling of autumn. Now with Hannuka just around the corner, the late-ripening pomegranate varieties are still in the stores and its a last … Read More »