Book Review: A Turkish Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah celebrations are different in different parts of the world, and if you want a glimpse into how Sephardic Jews get ready for the holiday, check out A Turkish Rosh Hashanah by Etan Basseri with illustrations by Zeynep Özatalay.

This short picture book follows Rafael and his cousins shopping at a market in Istanbul with their grandmother. Spanish words are sprinkled in the text because Sephardic Jews are a diaspora community that settled in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal), which also influenced communities in the Middle East and North Africa, where some of the Iberian Sephardic Jews settled after being expelled from Spain. The vernacular languages are Sephardic Jews are generally derived from Spanish, Portuguese or Catalan. (I learned this from Wikipedia so if anyone knows better or different information please let me know and I’ll update!)

The children go shopping for special treats for the holiday meal and meet some cats along the way. While one child thinks the cats are creepy, Rafael is nice to them, and the cats repay that kindness when the kids encounter a bully.

When the family gathers for the feast, their grandmother explains the meaning of each of the foods: apples for sweetness, beets for freedom, dates for peace, pumpkin for forgiveness, leeks for friends who protect us and pomegranates “so that our good deeds will be as many as the seeds inside.” They also have a fish head at the table so that they will be leaders at the top in the coming year.

There’s a little more history of the Jewish community in Turkey at the back of the book, as well as information on what Rosh Hoshanah is and how it is celebrated in different communities. The Sephardic Jews, as well as Mizrachi and Hasidic Jews, have a seder meal, known as yehi ratzones in the Judeo-Spanish language known as Ladino, where special food are shared that symbolize hope for the family and the Jewish people in general for the new year.

Even if you don’t know all the history (though it’s a good idea to read the information at the back of the book before you read the story to kids if you don’t know about these traditions) this is a fun book that gives kids of all faiths a glimpse into traditions that might be different from their own but in which you can see similarities to other holidays involving food.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover, published 2024 by Kalaniot Books. Suggested retail price $19.99.

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

Have you read?

Leave a Reply