Rosh Hashanah: Welcoming the Year 5787 in the Jewish Calendar

Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year – begins at sunset on 11 September. The Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History sends its warmest wishes to everyone welcoming the year 5787 and wishes you a good and sweet year – Shana Tova U’Metuka!

Rosh Hashanah, literally meaning “head of the year,” marks the beginning of a new cycle in the Jewish calendar. It is also a time for reflection, introspection, and renewal. One of the most important symbols of the holiday is the shofar, whose sound calls people to reflect on the year that has passed and to begin the new one with good intentions. The festive table traditionally includes apples dipped in honey, a round challah, and other symbolic foods representing the hope for a sweet year ahead.

To mark the holiday, the Museum presents the virtual exhibition “Rosh Hashanah Greeting Cards in the Museum’s Collections.”

The exhibition features Rosh Hashanah postcards from the first half of the 20th century and later decades preserved in the Museum’s collections, photographic greetings, facsimile reproductions of historical postcards, as well as unusual exhibits such as candy wrappers bearing New Year wishes.

The postcards feature recurring motifs important to the holiday and Jewish tradition, including the shofar, Jerusalem, the Star of David, biblical figures, flowers, and family portraits. Some of the exhibits entered the Museum’s collections from family archives, while others were found in the territories of the Vilnius or Kaunas ghettos after the Holocaust.

A separate section of the exhibition is devoted to Rosh Hashanah greetings illustrated with reproductions of works by Vilnius-born artist Rafael Chwoles (1913–2002), bringing together visual art, Yiddish and Hebrew poetry, images of Jerusalem, and New Year wishes.

The exhibition was curated by Olga Movšovič, Curator of the Photography and Postcard Collection, and Aušra Rožankevičiūtė, Chief Curator of the Collections.

We invite you to explore the virtual exhibition and discover how people across different eras wished one another a good year. The virtual exhibition “Rosh Hashanah Greeting Cards in the Museum’s Collections” is available here:
https://www.jmuseum.lt/virtualios-parodos-ros-ha-sanos-sveikinimu-atvirukai-muziejaus-rinkiniuose/