Rosh Hashanah comes with excitement and fear

For many, the political unrest has taken its toll, said Rabbi Margie Klein Ronkin, executive director of the Essex County Community Organization, a coalition of 59 communities committed to racial and economic justice.

“For better or worse, the Jewish people have celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur through many different periods of pain and unrest,” Klein Ronkin said. “Everyone I know has mixed feelings about the Christmas season.”

Klein Ronkin, a member of a Brookline temple, also leads a congregation of about 60 families at Temple Beth-El in Potsdam, N.Y., during the Jewish High Holidays. She grapples with how to maintain hope in difficult times.

“This is the worst year I can remember as a Jewish person in America. “I was so worried about our relatives and friends in Israel and worried about the Israeli government’s decisions that are having a terrible impact on so many innocent Palestinians,” said Klein Ronkin.

Rabbi Keith Stern, the senior rabbi of Temple Beth Avodah in Newton, said he has seen the toll the past year has taken on his congregation.

“We have been carrying October 7th with us since the day it happened. It’s like a permanent tear in the fabric of our lives,” said Stern, who is also a member of the city’s Human Rights Commission.

Stern checks every day the status of the hostages taken by Hamas, the war in Gaza and the fighting in Lebanon. He said everyone is worried and sad about the future, which is tragic given the holiday.

“People feel compelled to really express the kind of joy that is normally part of the Rosh Hashanah experience,” he said.

At Northeastern University, Devon White, 21, a behavioral neuroscience student, and her boyfriend Ethan Handel, 21, an environmental science student, had different views on whether to hold a moment of silence Wednesday night during a holiday potluck to honor those who do should have died in the Israel-Hamas war. Handel felt that the New Year celebrations were not the right time to discuss the war as he believed it could lead to an unpleasant discussion.

“I don’t really want to equate my Judaism with a connection to Israel, so I somehow don’t feel like there has to be any connection between my views on what’s happening in the Middle East and the way I practice my Judaism religion.” said Handel.

Other students agreed, like Ben Weiss, 21, a computer science student at Northeastern. He understands why people want to discuss the war, but hopes that wouldn’t be the focus of the evening.

“I’m just looking forward to the event and seeing everyone. I’ll be with my sister and people I know. I think it will be a fun, celebratory evening,” Weiss said.

At Northeastern University and Harvard University, the school’s Hillel organizations want To help students feel that the holiday celebration can be a safe place to discuss the war. Getzel Davis, Harvard Hillel’s rabbi, led the Reform service, which includes prayers for the nation and the State of Israel.

There were conversation prompts for students to reflect and discuss what it feels like to be part of the Jewish community and how this Rosh Hashanah means to them.

Naomi Anbar, 20, a third-year theater and psychology student and Shabbat studies chair at Northeastern’s Hillel, said she hopes everyone takes a moment to just be with each other.

“Rosh Hashana right now in the community is about holding on to that sense of hope,” Anbar said.

She hoped the evening embodied social media posts she had seen: “May this year be as sweet as the last was bitter.”

Klein Ronkin turns to Jewish history to find a way forward and inspire faith that things will get better. One of her sermons for Rosh Hashanah focuses on the resilience people can find in retelling their own stories.

The Rosh Hashanah liturgy is about women who are desperate because they cannot have children and whose lives are transformed by the grace of God. There are also stories about the Exodus from Egypt and the Israelites’ liberation from slavery, she said.

“I also encourage people to look deeply into their own history … to remind ourselves that we are resilient people,” she said.

Rachel Umansky-Castro can be reached at [email protected]. John Hilliard can be reached at [email protected].