Celebrating Rosh Hashanah in the 1900s Lower East Side [PHOTOS]
Rivington St., Photo: Library of Congress
Sundown tonight marks the beginning of the Jewish new year with the holiday of Rosh Hashanah.
To celebrate, below is a small collection of photos, courtesy of the Library of Congress, illustrating how Jews of the early 1900s celebrated the holiest of days while living in the ghetto of the Lower East Side.
You’ll notice that two of the shots unearthed show prayer groups engaging in the tradition of Tashlich, in which sins are symbolically absolved by tossing bread crumbs into a moving body of water. In this case from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River.
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