The High Holidays Over The Years: Inside The Forverts Archive
Jewish women buying candles for Yom Kippur on the Lower East Side. Image by Forward Archive
The images of the High Holidays are, in many ways, timeless.
No matter what era, these moments — whether challah baking, preparing holiday candles, or leading services — can transcend years, allowing us to reach over the decades to our predecessors, to the Jew buying candles in a Lower East Side market or heading to shul in Grodno.
The archives of the Forward carry some of these poignant yontef portraits in Jewish communities, both in prewar Europe and in America. Our incredible archivist, Chana Pollack, has dug them out for some timely reflection, appearing for the very first time online here:
New year’s greetings from Gold’s ‘Chreyn’ (horseradish), 1952. Image by Forward Archive
Yiddish-language greeting card for the Jewish New Year, from American Jewish troops fighting in the Korean War, 1952. Image by Forward Archive
High Holiday Services led by American Jewish soldiers during the Korean War, 1952. Image by Forward Archive
Advertisement for High Holidays at the Concord Hotel in the Catskills, 1949. Image by Forward Archive
Photograph by Alter Kacyzne. A Polish Jewish baker at the marketplace on the eve of a holiday. 1929. Image by Forward archive
A challah baker, September 20 1931. Image by Forward archive
Kosher slaughterer prepares for the holidays, Lower East Side 1929. Image by Forward Archive
The Chudnov family in Toms River, NJ, harvests their cabbage crop on erev yontef in 1949. Image by Forward archive
In the early 1930’s, Herman and Hannah Grossman, owner of a photography studio on Mokotowska Street in Warsaw, posed for a photograph while performing the kapores ritual. In the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jews seek absolution for the year’s transgressions in part by swinging a chicken overhead, while prayers help human sins transfer onto the fowl. Image by Forward archive
Jewish women buying candles for Yom Kippur on the Lower East Side. Image by Forward Archive
Women on their way to synagogue in Grodno, Poland, 1920’s Image by Forward Archive
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
