Jewish New Year celebration | Press Releases

What: Jewish New Year celebration of Fairfield University's Carl and Dorothy Bennett Center for Judaic Studies. University students will celebrate the joyous Jewish fall harvest festival of Sukkot by building a sukkah.

When: Thursday, October 16, 4:30 - 6 p.m.

Where: Fairfield University campus, in the plaza outside of Donnarumma Hall - a building near Bellarmine Hall. Weather permitting, the celebration will be held in the sukkah, a hut or tent-like structure that is constructed for the holiday. If the weather is not good, festivities will be held in the Bennett Center, Donnarumma Room 245.

Background: The Jewish festival of Sukkot - a fall harvest festival lasting seven days - begins five days after Yom Kippur. Sukkot is a time of rejoicing - a time to strengthen one's resolve, to help those who are in need and to remind people of the fragility of life. Sukkot is traditionally celebrated by eating in (and for some religious Jews, even sleeping in) a sukkah.

KADIMA, Fairfield University's undergraduate Jewish student organization, will build the sukkah. A casual get-together will take place in the sukkah with food traditionally associated with the Jewish New Year. Professor Ellen M. Umansky, Ph. D., director of the Bennett Center, will give a brief explanation of the festival's origins and the foods served. (The festival of Sukkot has both historic and agricultural significance in that it commemorates the forty years that Jews wandered the desert, living in temporary dwellings.)

The Bennett Center has invited members of the University community to use the sukkah as a place for meditation, meetings, meals or for small classes and discussion groups to gather.