Yom Kippur

27 September

Yom Kippur is a day of atonement and repentance in the Jewish calendar. It is the end of a period of holidays that starts 10 days earlier with Rosh Hashanah. Its date varies wildly each year.

Observance centres around synagogues. Services are held in the morning, and then again in the afternoon. Even people who rarely go will go on this day.

Observance of the day requires a complete fast, including liquids, including water, from sundown of the day before till sundown of this day. Consequently, just before the first sundown, everyone has a big meal, to help them get through, and when it's all over, after the second sundown, easy and quick meals are prepared. The fasting is supposed to free you of physical desires, though a cynic might wonder how you're supposed to forget about yours with your children reminding you by constantly moaning that they're hungry.

Though it's a day of no work, you can cook during the day to have something ready for the evening when it's all over -- if your starving family can stand the smell of food. Many people try to make foods a day ahead that can stand in the refrigerator, so that you won't be looking at food while you're fasting. Some swear the worst part is caffeine withdrawal from no coffee.

The day before Yom Kippur, some still perform the "Kaparot." You swing a live chicken or a rooster over your head (sic) and say "This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement. This chicken will go to its death while I will enter and proceed to a good long life, and peace." Men swing a rooster; women a chicken.

In Israel, everything shuts down and the streets are desserted with no traffic except the occasional emergency vehicle.

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