The New York Times has a couple articles about past celebrations of Rosh Hashanah.
In one article the Times tells about how Barbara Ann Paster relives what it was like to observe Rosh Hashanah in 1919 in Portsmouth New Hamphsire.
As Mrs. Shapiro, the wife of a pawnbroker with a 9-year-old daughter, Mrs. Paster cooks dishes that follow the rhythm of the seasons, and the Jewish calendar.
She may make strawberry jam for her strudel in June, or pickle cucumbers with dill from her garden, or put up Reliance peaches with brandy in August.
For Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins on Friday evening, she excitedly pinched rolled-out strips of pasta dough into bowtie noodles to use with leftover kasha stuffing from her roast chicken, and made traditional honey and poppy seed cakes.
Mrs. Paster, 61, has been portraying Mrs. Shapiro since the Shapiro house opened in 1997. ?My entire life was made for this job,? Mrs. Paster said with a laugh. ?I married an Orthodox man. I?m Jewish from Russia, so I know the rules of kashrut and family purity. I am also a storyteller.?
The real Shapiro family arrived in the United States just a few years before my father’s grandfather did.
And A soldier’s voice recovered is the story of the first Rosh Hashanah service in Germany since the rise of Hitler – on Armed Services Radio with the sound of mortars in the backgound.
L’Shana Tova Tikatavu!
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
