When our children were little, we lived in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh, an upscale, multi-cultural, inner-city neighborhood in the heart of the university community. Known for its diversity, the neighborhood is home to many synagogues making it also the heart of the Jewish community in our city.
While not Jewish ourselves, we thoroughly enjoyed learning about the traditions and customs of that faith along with the major holy days observed by the community. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah. One of the more interesting holidays commanded in the Torah is Sukkot, also known as the Feast of the Tabernacles.
This holiday commemorates the fall harvest and is celebrated for seven days. The modern-day observance is characterized by festive meals in a sukkah, a temporary wood-covered hut constructed to celebrate the Israelite’s Exodus from Egypt.
As such, in late October every year, sukkahs would begin appearing on the lawns of many of our neighbors’ yards in commemoration of this festival.
We sent our children to a Jewish pre-school in a local synagogue and will always be grateful for the love and care they received by the staff. Many of the staff were older women and were more like “grandmothers” to our children rather than childcare workers. I’ll never forget the numeric tattoo one of the women had on her arm, a clear indication that she was a holocaust survivor.
While we knew that in a Jewish pre-school our children wouldn’t experience celebrations of holidays like Christmas and Easter, I was caught a bit off guard when nothing was done to commemorate Halloween in their school. After doing some research I was remind that Halloween (like Valentine’s Day) has its roots in the Christian tradition. While the secular portion of the holiday may be celebrated across all cultures today, given today’s date I thought you might find this information on the origins of Halloween from History.com of interest. Boo!
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