Tag #121010 - Interview #102368 (Solomon Meir)

Sukkot is the holiday of tents. It celebrates the 40 years during which Jews wandered through the wilderness and lived in huts. My grandparents used to build a sukkah. It is made from wood planks so that there is enough room for a table and a few chairs inside it – it depends on the number of family members – and it is covered with corn stalks, straw – and on many occasions when it rained, it would rain on the food on your plate. The sukkah was adorned; if you had a rug, something, you placed it inside, you hung fruit that were available during that season: grapes, apples. Sukkot lasts for 8 days, and meals are served inside the sukkah during this time, usually lunch meals. There were no special dishes. My parents didn’t build a sukkah, they were neighbors with my grandparents and they went over to their place, the entire family had lunch over there. Perhaps people even slept inside the sukkah elsewhere, our family didn’t. And people go to the synagogue, but only men do. In my family, women attended the synagogue only on New Year’s – on Rosh Hashanah – and on Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement.