Operations manager Becky Kinney, right, and Assistant Head Chef Janie Lewis, left, talk to executive director, Cindy Hughey (not shown), while busy at work preparing the bread for the Rosh Hashanah holiday dinner at the MSU Hillel Jewish Student Center, 360 Charles St., Wednesday night.
If Abbey Askotzky was at home during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, she’d be taking the day off school and going to temple with her family. Her mom would have been in the kitchen the day before, preparing food and shaping braided challah bread with raisins into a circle, to symbolize the sweet new year.
A Milwaukee native, the marketing senior said she wasn’t able to make it home for the holiday — but she will be celebrating with friends in West Bloomfield and Farmington Hills.
Wednesday night’s High Holiday service and dinner marked the eve of Rosh Hashanah, and services at the MSU Hillel Jewish Student Center, 360 Charles St., will go until Friday morning.
Co-president of Hillel, Askotzky said she’s spent past holidays there with many other students who either can’t make it home or can’t miss class.
“I’m getting used to being away from my family during Rosh Hashanah,” she said. “I try to keep my mind off of it for the most part, so it’s getting easier and I haven’t missed them too much. But it is nice to go home.”
Dan Kuhn, international relations junior, said he’ll be heading home to West Bloomfield to spend the holiday with his family.
“It’s a nice break — being able to go home and spend time with my family,” Kuhn said. “It’s nice being in a place where you can practice everything.”
Kuhn said he practices tashlich, a tradition of throwing one’s sins into a moving body of water, with his family on the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah. It’s something done as a Jewish community, and he said it’s done to relieve sins against God.
They also blow the Shofar, a long ram’s horn, he said.
“The sound is supposed to wake you up to the new year,” he said.
Busy with work and classes, human biology sophomore Hilary Greenberg said she’s going to try to make it to Hillel’s morning services to celebrate the new year today.
“It’s nice to have Hillel, it’s kind of a home away from home,” she said.
Greenberg will be heading home to Oak Park for dinner with her family on Wednesday, and plans to return to campus in time for classes on Thursday.
Similar to a Thanksgiving feast, she said her mom usually makes potatoes, brisket, matzo ball soup and her “famous” lemon gelatin to go with the turkey.
“It’s one of our holiest holidays, besides Yom Kippur,” Greenberg said. “It’s like a fresh start, a new beginning.”
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