Exeter Celebrates Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

By Olivia Braham, Anshi Mehra, Bhumika Prem, CJ Smith, Moninisha Yadav, Alaysha Zhang

From Sunday, Sept. 25 to Tuesday, Sept. 27, some students and faculty at the Academy celebrated the Jewish Holiday of Rosh Hashanah, welcoming a New Year. On top of the usual Exeter Jewish Community dinners, the Academy offered worship services, meals, and other events for Jewish students during the holiday.

For many Jewish students on campus, Rosh Hashanah is an important celebration of ending an old year and entering a new one. Lower Matthew Grossman described the importance of the holiday: “It’s sort of a call to dissect what you did this past year and realize your wrongdoings or things that you may have done wrong and understand that you can stop bad habits or fix and repent.”

Exeter Jewish Community (EJC) co-head and senior Ben Martin explained how Rosh Hashanah is celebrated at Exeter: “We started our celebrations the night before when Rosh Hashanah actually starts. Then around 10 a.m. the next day we have our morning services and then a lunch together. And then we have our service which is down by the river, we toss bread into the river, which symbolizes our releasing from our bad sins from last year.”

“We had service the night sundown the night before and that would be when it started. Then the next morning we had services and then we went out for Toshlich. It was very similar to what I’ve done in the past,” prep Andrew Boova added.

Students were appreciative of the efforts of the EJC and Religious and Spiritual Services for planning the programming. Grossman added, “The fact that we can plan and come together to have a basically full-fledged Rosh Hashanah service is very impressive.”

Director of Religious and Spiritual Life Reverend Bonnie-Jeanne Casey further described how Rosh Hashanah programming began. “EJC welcomed the New Year by attending services and celebrating a meal together on Sunday, Sept. 25. The group met again on Monday for worship and fellowship. It was a great series of celebrations that were very well-attended.” Casey said.

Senior Riley Jones added that this year, the Academy permitted “anyone who is Jewish or wants to celebrate had the option to miss any of their classes and have them excused by the Dean’s office.”

The Academy’s policy around religious events is to work with any student to help accommodate their faith, as Casey explained. “We wanted to make sure that our Jewish community can easily honor and observe that holiday… It’s wonderful that there was clear accommodation. Generally, religious accommodation is our language around those events.”

Martin appreciated the provisions the Academy made, saying “days off on the major holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are very appreciated.”

Although many students appreciated the day off, some felt that Exeter’s rigorous environment made missing school a challenge. Prep Liv Lang said, “[Classes] were probably the guiding reason why I didn’t take the day off. Not that I feel the teachers wouldn’t be accommodating, but I am a Varsity athlete and I have a lot of stuff going on, and so it was more of, I didn’t want to have to play catch up,” she said.

Many students similarly believed that there were some things Exeter could improve on regarding policies surrounding the event. “I feel like definitely not having classes on big holidays like Passover, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and stuff like that, that could be like more of a step in the right direction. It also gives other people who are not Jewish a chance to learn about that holiday,” prep Annabel Uquhart said.

Despite some concerns, many feel appreciative of the work the Academy has done to accommodate faith-based holidays and look forward to years to come with further support. EJC co-head Andrew Horrigan noted, “I think Exeter has done a very good job [with accommodations]... I mean, we get special catered meals to our Shabbat dinners as well as to our Rosh Hashanah dinner…We had a brunch that day as well. And they did a great job with that. So I think, on many levels, the school is doing a very good job helping students be Jewish.”

For most Jewish Students, Rosh Hashanah services provided comfort and solace during this important holiday. EJC and the Academy will continue planning religious programming for important Jewish holidays in the future, and the Academy is also to work with any student to help accommodate their faith. Boova concluded, “[At Exeter] I definitely feel supported. I don’t know much about what we could do better.”