The biblical holiday of Rosh Hashana, or the Feast of Trumpets, is the time of year when Jews everywhere around the world put aside the stress of the daily grind to spend time with family and celebrate. Jewish families put work and school on the back burner in order to observe Rosh Hashana, eat and pray together, and reflect on their deeds of the past year while looking towards the new year to come.

Here is how this important holiday is recognized around the world:

Israel:

Rosh Hashana is a public holiday in Israel, and it is the only holiday that is observed for two days, as it is considered too important for only one day of observance. It is marked by prayers at the local synagogue, and many also gather to pray at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Prayers are often accompanied by the sounds of the shofar — a traditional ram’s horn trumpet that dates back to biblical times. Because of the trumpet’s significance as the world’s oldest wind instrument, the holiday is also sometimes known as the Day of the Sounding of the Shofar.

You can visit this website to see and hear different types of shofars and learn the significance of each type of sound they make: http://www.holidays.net/highholydays/shofar-videos.htm

Australia:

Rosh Hashana is not a federal holiday in Australia. However, many Jewish organizations close or have restricted hours during the holiday. Jewish Australians will gather with their families on the opening night to dine on a traditional meal of challah bread, pomegranates, apples dipped in honey, and carrot stew.

Within Australia, Jews account for less than 1% of the population. However, the Jewish community is careful to observe all of the traditions and customs of Rosh Hashana, including the blowing of the shofar and performing dashiki, the casting ritual.

Brazil:

The Jews of the Amazon area in northern Brazil have many practices that are unique to them due to their heritage. The Jews of the Amazon immigrated in the early 1800s from Morocco, where the economy could no longer support them and where Arab hostility was growing.

Only in 2008 did the Sephardic Jews of this region celebrate the publication of their first Rosh Hashana machzor, or New Year prayer book. The machzor, called “Ner Rosh Hashana,” was prepared and edited by Rabbi Moyses Elmescany and Cantor David Salgado.

It includes the traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish New Year prayer services, together with both a transliteration and translation into Portuguese. The machzor allows the Jewish community to celebrate Rosh Hashana using the same rites and customs that were observed by their ancestors from Morocco in the early 19th century.

China:

Today Jewish life flourishes on mainland China. As a whole, China currently experiences the fastest rate of economic growth in the world, and the Jewish community has been a part of this since Deng Xiaoping’s “Open Door Policy” went into effect in 1979.

Kehillat Beijing was the first Chinese Jewish community to be established at this time. Now Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai all have significant Jewish communities and Chabad-Lubavitch centers in each city. Here Rosh Hashana is observed with the traditional meals, services, and customs.

Chabad in Beijing holds a beautiful dashiki each year, when men, women and children symbolically cast their sins into a peaceful Chinese lake filled with colorful goldfish and surrounded by willow trees.