Rosh Hashanah in Israel: what to expect as a visitor

In Israel, Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) consists of two days that open the most reflective stretch of the year. The country slows right down, families get together, and the sound everyone waits for is the shofar, a ram’s horn, sounded in synagogues and at the Western Wall.

If you’re travelling here in late September or early October, there’s a fair chance your trip bumps into it. So here’s what the days are about, and what they mean in practice for getting around.

Quick facts & guide tips

What Rosh Hashanah is

Rosh Hashanah means “head of the year” in Hebrew, and it marks the Jewish New Year (in 2026, we move into the year 5787). The Bible itself doesn’t call it that, though. In the book of Leviticus it’s simply a day of sounding the horn in the seventh month (a “zichron teruah”, a memorial of the sound of the shofar trumpet); the idea of it as the new year comes later, from the rabbis.

You’ll also see it called Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance. Worth knowing: that’s the same Hebrew name as Israel’s modern Memorial Day for fallen soldiers, which falls in the spring and is a completely different day.

In the Jewish tradition, it’s considered a time of judgement, when you consider the year past and the mistakes you made, both in terms of your inter-personal relationships and in terms of religious practice. It’s a time to repent, to apologise and to try to do better in the year to come.

Rosh Hashanah also opens the ten days that lead up to Yom Kippur, the most solemn day in the calendar, and in general starts roughly a month of holidays when the country is running at a slower pace and many people take an opportunity to travel overseas.

The traditions

The Jewish new year is very different to the Western new year. There’s no countdown to midnight; few raucous parties (there are club nights as people are off work, but it’s not a common tradition).

The tone is festive but gentle. On the eve of the holiday, families sit down to a meal together.

There are various traditional foods, most famously an apple dipped in honey, a wish for a sweet year. That’s often followed by the simanim (signs), a little spread of symbolic foods (a pomegranate, dates, sometimes the head of a fish), each tied to a hope for the year ahead. Gifts are common too, within families and often from employers to their staff.

A central element of the holiday is the shofar, a traditional Jewish trumpet made from a ram’s horn and mentioned frequently in the Bible. It’s blown in a set sequence of notes during the synagogue service. It’s a very old tradition, and hearing it is one of the most important aspects of the day for many people. Volunteers go around hospitals and old-age homes to blow the shofar for those unable to make the service.

One quirk worth knowing: Rosh Hashanah is the one Jewish holiday kept as two full days everywhere, Israel included. Most festivals run for two days abroad but a single day here; Rosh Hashanah is two days either way. So it’s a two-day pause, not one. And because this year the first day is a Saturday, the shofar will only be sounded on the second day.

A time to reflect

On a personal note, it’s a part of the year I really look forward to. I like the chance to stop and think about the year that’s just gone, and what I’m hoping for in the one ahead. And after a busy year of guiding, a couple of days of family time without phones or computers is no bad thing at all.

If you’re visiting over Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah isn’t a great sightseeing day. On both days much of the country takes a break like Shabbat, with public transport stopping and many restaurants, shops and tourist attractions closed.

If you’re self-catering, do your food shop the day before, and plan for a relaxed day (many people go to the beach as the weather is normally still good). Churches and Christian sites carry on as normal, so the Christian Quarter and Bethlehem aren’t affected, and it can also be a good day to visit the Dead Sea.

If you’re looking to get some of the atmosphere of the holiday, try to catch the shofar blowing. Slipping into a synagogue to hear it, or standing among the crowds at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, connects you to something thousands of years old. It’s a small thing to do, and a memorable one.

For how the wider Jewish calendar shapes a trip here (what’s open, what’s not, and the days worth planning around), I’ve set it all out on my plan your trip page.

Shanah tovah, as the greeting goes: wishing you a good year.