celebrating rosh hashanah

Victoria Prever shares long-held traditions of the Jewish New Year, including this brisket recipe jewelled with pomegranate seeds

- Victoria Prever

The Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah (which translates from Hebrew as 'head of the year'), is a festival when most Jewish people sit down to feast together to mark the anniversary of the creation of the world. The date moves around in the modern calendar because Jewish months are based on the lunar year. This year, it begins on the evening of Sunday, 25 September and ends the evening of Tuesday 27 September.

It's customary to eat a fruit not tasted so far that season, and pomegranate - said to contain 613 seeds (reflecting the number of commandments in the Hebrew Bible or Torah) - is the most traditional. It also works very well with cost-effective beef brisket.

 

Pomegranate brisket