HIGH HOLIDAYS
The Jewish Congregation Groningen has the great pleasure of employing a permanent cantor who comes from Istanbul and introduces numerous special melodies. Visitors are very pleased with his singing of psalms and prayers and with the readings from the Torah scroll and the Books of Prophets. His efforts on Jewish New Year and Great Atonement Day are supplemented by a cantor originally from Groningen who comes over from Tel Aviv especially for this purpose. With the support of MAROR, the two cantors provide the services on the High Holidays in a very inspiring manner and to everyone’s great satisfaction.
On YOUTH NEW YEAR or ROSH HASHANAH, all attention is focused on the morning prayer and the added texts in which the ram’s horn or SJOFAR is blown as an announcement for the New Year and in clear reference to the Torah’s reading about Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. This reading on the Second Day as well as the reading about the announcement of Isaac’s birth to Sarah on the First Day, are the subject of discussion at lunch with kiddush.
GROTE VERZOENDAG or JOM KIPPOER has a special historical aspect in Groningen: on October 2 and 3, 1942, hundreds of people were rounded up in the Jewish neighborhood and driven to the train station to be transported to Camp Westerbork. Most of them never returned. Because Great Day of Atonement often takes place on or near these dates, on the eve a speech about it and a prayer of remembrance is said. This remembrance adds to the mood of this day which aims to make amends for all that each individual has done wrong. The day itself proceeds as it should with fasting and abstinence from all daily needs. Most visitors stay in the synagogue all day until the end of the day, after which there is a communal breaking of the fast with coffee and currant bread traditionally in Groningen.