New York, NY —
Jews from around the world celebrated Rosh Hashanah along with the ritual of Tashlich. The new year is commemorated with tossing bread crumbs into the water to cast away sins. WNYC’s Richard Hake found a congregation at the East River in Brooklyn.
REPORTER: As the waves lap up against the pilings at Fulton Street landing at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, some 100 congregants of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue share the pier with Asian bridal parties taking wedding pictures. Eileen Jareslaw is here with her two children Tobias and Simone.
JARESLAW: Our sins are symbolized by these little pieces of bread, little breadcrumbs that we all bring, and after we say the prayers we will toss them into the East River and hopefully we’ll toss our sins and be cleansed to start the new year.
KID: and they’ll be eaten. Who will eat them? The birds and the fish.
REPORTER: Jessica Brown is here with her daughters.
BROWN: We’re holding a piece of slightly stale, day old challah and any bread will do or any crumbs that might line your pockets.
REPORTER: And they use all kinds of bread. Just ask her daughters.
BROWNS: I have a bagel. Yeah, bagel, same. English Muffin. English muffin? Yes.
REPORTER: After the short prayer service…children and adults alike toss the crumbs into the river.
Barbara Deinhardt is the President of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and says the tashlich ritual goes back thousands of years.
DEINHARDT: All of the high holy days are an opportunity to think on the past year and think about how we might want to do things different and better in the coming year and this is a symbol of letting go of things we hadn’t done in the past year and give us a chance to start fresh.
REPORTER: As the bread moves with the tide some of it gets eaten by seagulls and other crumbs are gobbled up by fish. David Jareslaw says this is a great place to come on Rosh Hashanah.
JARESLAW: It is something to have this sort of backdrop of the city while you have this old ritual tossing the breadcrumbs while your standing by the Brooklyn bridge and looking into downtown Manhattan. It’s an interesting and nice juxtaposition I guess.
REPORTER: And the Rabbi, Serge Andrew Lippe, says this spot at Fulton Street Landing has a special significance.
JARESLAW: Of course the absence of the towers still feels very much a part of our connection and I can still picture them here so we don’t come down here without that memory as well.
REPORTER: For WNYC, I’m Richard Hake.