Roundup: Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur

I’ve written about the High Holidays a lot since 2005! There’s too much material to do a comprehensive post, so here are some highlights.

Veganism and Animal Protection

All of the following blog posts about veganism and animal protection are from heebnvegan, the Jewish/vegan blog that I ran between 2005 and 2010. I wrote related High Holidays articles for other websites, but they haven’t survived the changing tides of the internet.

• I blogged about Rosh Hashanah meals. I organized a Jewish Vegan-Foods Mega-Potluck in 2006 and 2007. For the latter, I wrote, “Trivia: Which Jewish holiday features round challah, apples with agave nectar, potato latkes, soofganiyot, charoset, karpas with salt-water, Israeli salad, hummus, kasha varnishkes, Manischewitz wine, Dr. Brown’s soda, and grape juice? Rosh Hashanah heebnvegan-style, of course!” I blogged about three different Rosh Hashanah meals in 2009.
• 2008 was a banner year. I ran a guest post by Robin Silberman about raw Jewish foods, including recipes for mock “gefilte fish” and sprouted lentil salad. I discussed DIY taschlich, including from California-based LEHKEEROOVERS (Lively Enthusiastic Happy Kosher Ethical Raw Organic Optimistic Vegan Equal Rights Sympathizers). I talked about High Holidays coverage on other blogs, including my two guest posts for the PETA Prime Blog.
• For Yom Kippur, I blogged about the holiday’s prohibition against wearing leather as well as the use of chickens for kapparot multiple times. Check out my 2005 post about the former and Rina Deych’s 2010 guest post about the latter.

Punk/Music

My first article about Jewish punk was for New Voices in 2005. I interviewed Alicia Jo Rabins, who played fiddle for Golem and previously KOSHER. She said, “Playing in KOSHER was a way to say, ‘I have a lip ring and green hair, and I’m also gonna fast on Yom Kippur, and I’m not going to deny either of those things.’” That’s a quote I’ve used widely ever since.

• In 2008, I blogged about Rosh Hashanah punk shows in Australia (featuring Yidcore) and Israel. A MySpace bulletin promoting the latter said, “Celebrate the Hebrew New Year With Some Punk.”
• In 2016 for Jewcy, I wrote “Trans Tishrei: A Little Schmekel for the Holidays,” showcasing Schmekel’s songs for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah.
• In 2017 for Jewcy, I wrote a “Mosh Hashanah” playlist for the High Holidays, with music from Free Radicals, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Yidcore, and Pitom. This inspired an Alaskan radio special called “Mosh Hashana: A Punk Tribute to the Jewish New Year,” which aired around Rosh Hashanah in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
• In 2017 for JTA, I wrote a feature titled “Punk Bands Prove Shofar Isn’t Just for the High Holidays,” focusing on Yidcore, Schmekel, and Steve “Gangsta Rabbi” Lieberman. I followed up with a blog post that also discussed a brand-new metalcore song with shofar from the Schleps. My JTA article inspired or was cited in not one but two Forward articles, an article in The Wisdom Daily, and a trivia question. Last month, I blogged about a “Radical Shofar” playlist that I never got to write, focusing on Radical Jewish Culture releases by Alvin Curran and Paul Shapiro.