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The Jewish Holiday of Yom Kippur

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This week, Jewish families observe the holiday Yom Kippur. In Hebrew, Yom Kippur means “Day of Atonement.” People apologize for things they did wrong during the past year and ask forgiveness from others and from God.

On the night before Yom Kippur, Jews light a memorial candle to remember people who have died. Before the sun sets, families eat a large meal together. Then they go to the synagogue to chant a prayer called Kol Nidre. The prayer asks God to forgive each individual for promises they may break during the coming year. Everyone is still expected to try hard to do good things, but the prayer recognizes that humans make mistakes and will fall short of perfection.
After sunset, adults fast, meaning that they do not eat or drink anything until the following night. Young children don’t have to fast, but they usually give up a favorite food, such as chocolate. The Bible mentions in Leviticus 16:29 that God’s followers should “observe a day of sacred occasion when you shall practice self-denial. You shall do no work.” Jews practice self-denial by giving up food for a day. The act of fasting reminds them of their blessings and the needs of others who don’t have enough to eat throughout the year.
The following day is spent at the synagogue. Everyone prays for the sins of the community and also asks forgiveness for their own sins. The confessional prayer recited during the service mentions sins committed against God and against other people. Some people beat their fists gently against their hearts as they remember the mistakes they made. Beating one’s fist is a way of showing contrition for sins.
Another important part of the service is the reciting of the Great Aleinu, a prayer that asks God to forgive everyone. During the prayer, members of the congregation lie down. Lying down shows that the people are humble to and dependent upon God. Just after sunset, the shofar or ram’s horn is blown once to wish people a good new year and to mark the end of Yom Kippur.
When the service ends, families go home to a large meal because they haven’t eaten for a day. Traditional foods such as challah bread and matzah ball soup are often served.

Rosh Hashanah: Celebrating The Jewish New Year

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Next week, Jewish families will celebrate the holiday Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah means “Head of the Year” in Hebrew. The holiday represents the beginning of the Jewish New Year, similar to the way Advent, the period before Christmas, marks the beginning of a new year for Christians. On Rosh Hashanah, everyone wishes family and friends a happy new year with the Hebrew words shanah tovah, which mean “a good year.”

Rosh Hashanah begins with the setting of the sun and ends the following evening. When the sun sets, Jewish people go to their synagogue for a prayer service. They think about what they have done during the past year, including mistakes they’ve made and good things they have accomplished.

Depending on their traditions, the family will eat together either before or after the evening synagogue services. After thanking God for allowing them to live another year, it’s time to enjoy the food. A plate of apple slices surrounding a bowl of honey is an important part of the meal. Each person takes an apple slice and dips it into the honey. The apples and honey symbolize their hope for a sweet new year, one in which people will be kind and family members will be happy and healthy. Round Challah bread is also served. The round shape reminds everyone that the year always starts over again.

The biggest dish on the table is often a whole fish with the head on a separate plate. A family member might say a prayer hoping that people will be more like the head of the fish than the tail. This means that people should be leaders rather than followers.

The next morning, Jewish families go to the synagogue again to read from the Torah and wait for the blowing of the shofar. A shofar is an animal horn, often from a ram, but any kosher animal’s horn can be used except for a cow or ox. Though it is one of the most memorable parts of the holiday, there is no single reason for blowing the shofar. Some Jewish traditions say the sound is meant to remind people of stories from the past, like the story of Abraham. Abraham was originally asked to sacrifice his son to God, but when God saw the strength of Abraham’s faith, he told Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead. Others say the shofar is used to call people back to God so they will figure out what they did wrong over the past year and try to do better in the new one.

After the service, some people participate in a ritual called tashlikh. They gather near a stream or river and throw bread crumbs in the water. The crumbs symbolize the sins of the past year. By tossing them in water, people show their desire to avoid making the same mistakes in the new year.

Benjamin Franklin and Slavery

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Throughout his life, Benjamin Franklin had a tendency to change his mind on political issues. For example, he initially supported the Stamp Act and only later decided that the American colonies should separate from Britain. Yet often Franklin ended up on the winning side of an argument, even if the argument was not settled in his lifetime.

Like his opinion of the American Revolution, Franklin’s views on slavery changed, too. He owned a couple of slaves at various times of his life and published ads for slave auctions when he worked as a printer. Still, he and his wife Deborah made sure that their slaves received an education from a Philadelphia school for black students. Most slave owners didn’t think slaves could learn, but after Franklin visited the school he commented that he had “higher opinions of the natural capacities of the black race.” He also published a few articles arguing against slavery. Until 1787, however, Franklin never gave the abolition of slavery his complete support.

By 1787, the year of the Constitutional Convention, Franklin became president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. During the convention, he sought to include a statement about the freeing of slaves in the U.S. Constitution. Like many of the Founding Fathers, however, Franklin feared that the union between northern and southern states would not be created if he argued too forcefully for the end of slavery.

Franklin’s silence on the abolition of slavery lasted only until the Constitution was ratified and the new federal government was in place. In 1790, he submitted a petition on the society’s behalf to the U.S. Congress. Franklin declared that slavery contradicted the principles of the American Revolution, particularly the ideas that all men were created equal and that they were entitled to liberty. The petition stated that Congress had an obligation to ensure “the blessings of liberty to the people of the United States without distinction of color.”

The anti-slavery petition set off a heated debate in Congress. It angered pro-slavery advocates like Congressman James Jackson of Georgia. He stated that the Bible supported slavery and that slaves were needed to do the work on the South’s plantations. Though in poor health, Franklin didn’t miss the opportunity to mock Jackson’s speech in print. He compared it to a speech supposedly given one hundred years earlier by an Algerian pirate who had Christian slaves. The pirate argued that it was “in the interest of the state to continue the practice; therefore let the petition be rejected.” He also said that his religion permitted the enslavement of Christians, and that they were better off living as slaves than as free men in Europe “where they would only cut each other’s throats in religious wars.”

Like Franklin’s fictional Algerian pirate, Congress rejected the petition to end slavery. After the debate ended, George Washington wrote to a friend, “the slave business has at last [been] put to rest and will scarce awake.” The contradiction of slavery and the promises of liberty for all Americans awoke again in the nineteenth century, resulting in the Civil War. Once again, Franklin had picked the point of view that eventually prevailed.

Neil Armstrong: Future Astronaut

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On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong climbed down from the ladder of the lunar module the Eagle and became the first man ever to walk on the moon. It took Armstrong a long time to become an astronaut. Even as a young kid growing up in small towns in Ohio, Armstrong had a willingness to try new things as well as a strong work ethic. Both came in handy when he applied to NASA.

Though his passion for space travel came later, as a child Armstrong was fascinated with airplanes. At six years old, he took his first plane flight with his father in a passenger plane named the Tin Goose. Neil and his father, Stephen Armstrong, planned to just watch the planes at the Warren Ohio airport on a Sunday morning, but the pilot of the Tin Goose offered them a ride. The Tin Goose’s body was made of aluminum and carried up to twelve passengers in wicker chairs. Neil’s father remembered that “he was scared to death and Neil enjoyed it.” After his first passenger flight, Neil spent a lot of time building model airplanes. When he completed them, he hung them with string from the ceiling of his bedroom.

As he grew, Armstrong wanted to fly planes himself, but lessons cost money. Mostly, he wanted to fly so he could understand how planes were built. Armstrong said, “While I was still in elementary school my intention was to be—or hope—was to be an aircraft designer. I later went into piloting because I thought a good designer ought to know the operational aspects of an airplane.” When he didn’t have to be at school, Armstrong worked at a pharmacy stocking shelves and sweeping floors to pay for flying lessons. Even though Armstrong had to work twenty-three hours just for one flying lesson, he still received his pilot’s license at age sixteen. He hadn’t learned to drive a car, but he could fly a small plane.

After high school, Armstrong planned to go to college to study aeronautic engineering—the science of how planes were built and what made them to fly. He received a scholarship from the U.S. Navy, which allowed him to attend college in exchange for serving three years in the navy. The idea of serving in the navy didn’t bother him because he knew he would be able to fly some of the newest and fastest jets. Armstrong started taking classes at Purdue University, but soon had to learn how to pilot fighter jets when the U.S. entered the Korean War. Though flying combat missions was dangerous, Armstrong came back safely. He finished his courses at Purdue, and found work at Edwards Air Force Base.

Pilot Neil Armstrong returns from a research mission, 1960

Pilot Neil Armstrong returns from a research mission, 1960

At the base, Armstrong test piloted new planes. One of the planes, named the X-15, could go almost 4,000 miles an hour at an altitude of 207,500 feet. The plane served as an early test for space flight. In 1962, Armstrong left the test pilot program. He decided to apply to NASA’s astronaut program, which might one day give him an opportunity to fly in outer space. He was accepted and completed one other space flight before joining the other astronauts on the space shuttle Apollo 11. Part of the shuttle, the lunar module, which the astronauts named the Eagle, landed on the moon.

Queen Liliuokalani: Hawaii’s Last Queen

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In 1959, Hawaii officially became America’s fiftieth state. Before any Americans arrived, however, Hawaii was a free nation governed by one ruler. Hawaii’s last monarch, Queen Liliuokalani, sought a peaceful resolution with America but also wanted to keep her title. Instead, she lived to see her nation taken over by another country.

As early as age four, Liliuokalani felt the influence of Americans in Hawaii. In 1842, she attended a school for Hawaiian royal children, where she received lessons from missionaries from New England. Some of the lessons, such as English and music, were useful to Liliuokalani when she became queen.

The missionaries, Amos and Juliette Cooke, did more than insist that the children do homework, however. At the Royal School, Liliuokalani learned to pray to one god instead of many. No one at the school called Liliuokalani by her real name. Instead, she was given the Christian name Lydia. The Cookes also made the children wear more clothing than they were used to out in the warm climate of Hawaii, and they ate less. Liliuokalani wrote later, “It seems to me that they failed to remember that we were growing children. A thick slice of bread covered with molasses was usually the sole article of our supper.”

At age sixteen, Liliuokalani married an American named John Dominis. He served as an advisor to Hawaii’s king. King Kamehameha V noticed young Liliuokalani’s musical talent and asked her to write a national anthem for Hawaii. She wrote it in both Hawaiian and English. It read in part, “Grant Thy peace throughout the land/O’er these sunny, sea-girt Isles/Keep the nation’s life O Lord/And upon our sovereign smile.”

When King Kamehameha died, Liliuokalani’s brother became king. By the 1870s, more Americans came to Hawaii. These Americans were businessmen, not missionaries. They bought Hawaiian land and grew sugarcane on it. By shipping sugarcane around the world, Americans in Hawaii became rich.

Liliuokalani’s brother, King Kalakaua, wanted native Hawaiians and Americans to get along. To accomplish his goal, Kalakaua made a treaty with President Grant. The treaty said that American sugar growers could ship their sugar without paying taxes, and that only the United States could use Hawaii’s harbors. Kalakaua thought the treaty would create better relations with Americans, but it just made Americans richer by helping them stockpile their money. When her brother signed away Hawaii’s harbor, later known as Pearl Harbor, Liliuokalani wrote, “King signed lease of Pearl river to U. States for eight years. It should not have been done.”

One day, a group of Americans stormed Ionlani Palace where the king lived. They had weapons and demanded that he sign a new constitution that gave Americans the power to make Hawaii’s laws. A few years later, King Kalakaua, who had become only a figurehead in Hawaii, died with no heir.

His sister Liliuokalani was crowned queen. She worked hard to return her country back to native Hawaiians. She wrote a new constitution that gave her the right to rule. The Americans rejected it. When an American named Sanford Dole took over as Hawaii’s leader, she appealed to President Cleveland for help. Cleveland supported Liliuokalani, but failed to convince Dole to step down. Some of Liliuokalani’s loyal supporters in Hawaii tried to overthrow the new government, but they only managed to imprison themselves and their queen.

The new government locked Liliuokalani away for eight months, during which she was forced to sign away her rights to the throne. When she was released in 1895, she traveled the United States, unsuccessfully trying to gain support for Hawaii’s independence from America.

Frederick Olmsted: Landscaping the World’s Columbian Exposition

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The sandy area along Chicago’s lakeshore looked more like a deserted marsh than a site for the World’s Columbian Exposition. Frederick Law Olmsted, however, saw the area’s potential. As landscape architect for the project, he got the fair committee’s permission to use this site. His design called for lagoons and what Olmsted referred to as a wooded isle, but they had not been developed yet. The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, however, would give Olmsted the opportunity to create his vision. After the fair was over and the buildings torn down, a park would remain for Chicagoans to enjoy. Today this park is known as Jackson Park.

Olmsted  saw the Exposition as an opportunity to showcase landscape architecture. The work involved in designing parks did not receive the same respect as designing a building. Olmsted put all of his energy into the Chicago World’s Fair’s landscaping in the hope that his profession would be recognized as an art. He wrote, “If people generally get to understand that our contribution to the undertaking is that of the planning of the scheme, rather than the disposition of flower beds and other matters of gardening decoration, it will be a great lift to the profession.”

As landscape architect, Olmsted was responsible for planning the basic land and water shape of the fairgrounds. After consulting with the building architects, Olmsted concluded that the marshy areas of Jackson Park could be converted into waterways. Low-lying parts of the park were deepened and turned into water basins. Workers dredged sand out of the marshes to make lagoons of different sizes and shapes. The sand dug up during this process was used to raise higher areas of the park on which the fair’s buildings would later be constructed.

In addition to waterways, the original landscaping plans for the fair included a secluded piece of land that Olmsted called the Wooded Isle. The plan stated that “near the middle of this lagoon system there should be an island, about fifteen acres in area, in which there would be clusters of the largest trees growing upon the site; that this island should be free from conspicious buildings.” Olmsted created a natural setting for the island. He ensured that the best trees already on the island were fertilized and between them water plants, bushes, and young trees were planted.

Olmsted intended the island to be a place where visitors could rest and enjoy nature away from the busyness of the fair. Fairgoers appreciated Olmsted’s efforts to make nature part of the Exposition. After viewing the island, one visitor wrote that “little arms of vegetation and of land reach out here and there between tiny coves and bays, and the general effect is so natural and real that it amazes one to hear that it is not so.”

Although only a small part of the fair was dedicated to nature, Olmsted wanted the flowers and plants throughout the grounds to appear natural. A trip to the site of the earlier World’s Fair in Paris convinced Olmsted that the Chicago fair needed more natural landscaping. He thought the landscaping in Paris “must have been extremely disquieting, gaudy and childish, if not savage and an injury to the Exposition.” As a result of his observations, most of the plants at the Chicago World’s Fair came from native lakes, rivers and swamps in Illinois and Wisconsin. Workers transplanted willows, waterside plants, cattails, rushes, irises, and pond lilies on the shores of the lagoons.

When the Exposition was completed, Olmsted was at the peak of his contemporary reputation. Garden and Forest magazine stated that “the sparkle of genius which has produced a single and consistent work of art…sprang from his brain.” As a result of his work on the Exposition, landscape architecture became recognized as an art.

Raoul Wallenberg and the Rescue of Jews During World War II

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As a young man growing up in Sweden, Raoul Wallenberg couldn’t figure out what he wanted to do with his life. His family expected him to become a banker, but his grandfather also wanted him to travel Europe. Wallenberg thought traveling to foreign countries was exciting, so with his grandfather’s blessing he worked for a branch of the family’s bank in Haifa, Palestine. Since he arrived in Palestine during the 1930s, the boarding house where he stayed at night was filled with Jewish families who recently fled Germany. Adolf Hitler was in power and the Nazi party placed harsh penalties on the Jews, making it difficult for them to earn a living or even walk the streets without fear of being beaten.

 Traveling Europe after World War II

Bored with his work, Wallenberg left the bank. After World War II began, he met a Jewish businessman named Koloman Lauer from Hungary. Wallenberg’s home country stayed neutral during the war, but Hungary’s alliance with Germany made it impossible for native Jewish businessmen to travel in Europe. Instead, Lauer hired Wallenberg to travel on his behalf. Though Wallenberg enjoyed traveling, what he saw in Nazi-occupied territories like Hungary disturbed him. He encountered Nazis beating Jews in the streets and saw families rounded up and sent to so-called labor camps where they seemed to disappear. Wallenberg’s family was Jewish and he wanted to do something help, but he didn’t know what he could do.

 Wallenberg’s Assignment

Finally, in 1944, Wallenberg received the opportunity to aid Europe’s Jews. The United States had just formed the War Refugee Board, which was designed to provide rescue and relief programs for European Jews. The Board’s representative in Sweden needed a Swedish diplomat who could travel to Budapest, Hungary and rescue Jews there. Wallenberg’s boss mentioned his name to the WRB representative in Sweden, Iver Olsen. Olsen met with Wallenberg and warned him of the dangers of his mission. Wallenberg didn’t care about himself—he just wanted to do something to stop the Nazis.

 Efforts to Protect Hungarian Jews

When he arrived in Hungary, Wallenberg decided the best way to protect Jews was to provide them with Swedish identification badges. The badges proved that these Jews had ties to the neutral country of Sweden and therefore could not be deported by the Nazis. When Wallenberg ran out of official badges, he printed his own. Approximately 7,000 Hungarians received protective badges. Wallenberg also turned large houses in Budapest into Swedish safe houses and allowed Jewish people to live in them. Each house flew the Swedish flag, signifying neutral territory. The badges and safe houses all served the purpose of protecting Jews from deportation to concentration camps where Jews were killed. With the help of a Jewish staff, Wallenberg also worked on other projects, like setting up hospitals and soup kitchens for needy Jews.

Opposition

Despite Wallenberg’s best efforts to protect Hungarian Jews, the Nazis sometimes tried to defy him. On one occasion, he returned to the safe houses and discovered German troops rounding up all the able-bodied Jewish men. When the German patrol refused to leave, Wallenberg said, “As long as I live, none will be taken out of here. First you will have to shoot me.” The Nazis decided against making an enemy out of Sweden by killing Wallenberg, so the patrol left. Unfortunately, they returned later to snatch a handful of Jews and placed them on a train bound for a concentration camp. Undaunted, Wallenberg sped away in his car and caught up with the train. He shouted for the Jews onboard to show their papers, and anyone with Swedish papers returned to the safe houses with him.

Results of Wallenberg’s Work

Wallenberg’s massive efforts helped save tens of thousands of Jews. Though Wallenberg mysteriously disappeared when the Soviet Army arrived in Budapest in 1945, he left a legacy of helping others even when the task endangered his life.

The Childhood of Anne Frank

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Early Years in Germany

Although Anne Frank was born in Germany in 1929, her parents Otto and Edith knew they had to leave their country when Adolf Hitler came to power. Hitler and the Nazi party found a scapegoat for Germany’s economic problems—the Jews. Since the Franks were Jewish, Otto hoped his family could escape Germany’s oppressive Jewish laws by moving to the Netherlands when Anne was four.

The Move to Amsterdam

When the family settled in, they sent the children Anne and Margot to school. Anne’s parents knew that traditional schooling would not work for her stubborn, free-spirited personality. Instead, they sent her to a Montessori school in Amsterdam where she started kindergarten. Students often chose what they wanted to do for the day, like reading or drawing. Anne talked freely in class, often asking questions of her teachers. Even when a lesson that Anne didn’t enjoy was taught, teachers went out of their way to make learning fun. For example, if the teacher asked what two times two was and the students didn’t know, they hopped around the rows of desks, counting as they went.

Anne and Her Family

Anne’s friends always enjoyed coming over to the Frank house. Mrs. Frank made delicious food, and Mr. Frank loved to play with the children. In an era when fathers left most of the childrearing to their wives, Otto stood out. He made up stories and songs for Anne and Margot, and though he worked hard he always made time for them. He and Anne had a close relationship. Her bubbling personality kept his mind off his adult worries about money and what Hitler might do if he invaded Holland. Edith and Anne’s relationship became strained because she wanted Anne to be more like her older sister, Margot, who had a gentle temperament and did what she was told. Ironically, Anne’s future best friend had a personality similar to Margot’s. 

Best Friends–Anne and Jackie

In 1940, Hitler invaded the Netherlands. Among other restrictions, Jewish children could only attend schools with Jewish students and teachers. On Anne’s first day at the Jewish school, she met a girl named Jacqueline van Maarsen. After school, they rode their bikes to the Frank’s house at Anne’s insistence. Jacqueline later wrote, “from that day on we were inseparable…after a few days, Anne firmly declared that I was her best friend and she mine.”

Though Anne never had trouble making friends, she wanted one that she could truly confide in, and she found what she wanted in Jackie. They read books together, pretending to be the heroines they admired. Anne wrote in her diary, “Recently I met Jacqueline van Maarsen at the Jewish Lyceum. We hang out together all the time and she’s my best friend now.” Because of the German occupation, the two friends could only hang out at each other’s homes or at certain Jewish owned businesses. They spent a lot of time on Anne’s porch gossiping and having sleepovers at each other’s homes, though they also visited an ice cream shop after school, where Anne liked to flirt with boys.

Going into Hiding

When Anne’s sister Margot got a summons to report to a labor camp, the Franks knew they had to hide. They had already heard stories of Jewish young people disappearing after they left for the German camps. It was time for the family to go into hiding. Neither Anne nor Margot knew for sure where they were going so they couldn’t tell friends about their hiding place. For years Jackie believed Anne immigrated to Switzerland. Later she discovered that the Franks tried unsuccessfully to hide out in a section of Anne’s father’s office.

For more information about Anne Frank's family, including photos, visit:

1942 – Frst page of Anne Frank's diary.

Sally Ride: First American Woman in Space

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On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride and four other astronauts waited for the liftoff of the Challenger space shuttle. Although the United States already sent male astronauts into space, Sally was the first American woman to go up in a space shuttle. For the next six days, Sally served as flight engineer. Her job was to help watch over two thousand dials and lights on the Challenger’s control panel during takeoff and landing. She also helped test a fifty-foot long robotic arm and performed science experiments. Though the successful flight lasted less than a week, it took Sally years before she could even think of visiting space.

In the 1960s, when Sally was a teenager, the United States and the now former Soviet Union competed with each other to send people into space. Sally read the newspapers and eagerly watched the accomplishments of male astronauts. She didn’t know yet that she wanted to join them. Instead, Sally worked toward her college and graduate degrees in physics. One day she browsed through the college newspaper to look for a job after graduation. She saw an ad urging young scientists to apply to NASA for positions as mission specialists. The new astronauts would conduct experiments in space. Sally later wrote, “Suddenly I knew that I wanted a chance to see the Earth and stars from outer space.” She applied for the job the same day.

As a young girl growing up in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino, California, Sally stood out from the other girls. Her younger sister Karen said, “When the kids played baseball or football out in the streets, Sally was always the best…She was the only girl who was acceptable to the boys.” When Sally’s mother started playing tennis for fun, Sally also got a tennis racket. She spent so much time practicing the game that she won a scholarship to Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles. While in high school, Sally took a physiology class. She learned how living things worked. Once she finished the class, Sally discovered that she liked science just as much as tennis.

Just answering the ad didn’t make Sally an astronaut overnight, however. Out of the eight thousand people who applied, Sally was among the finalists who went to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center for testing. Mental and physical challenges as well as scientific knowledge were all part of becoming an astronaut. In January 1978, Sally learned that she was officially an astronaut. Before she could go on any missions, however, she needed to complete more training. Sally and her thirty-four classmates took courses, practiced parachute jumping, and learned how to fly a jet. Sally also spent time in a simulator that resembled the shuttle. Sally said of the simulator: “They turn you on your back and shake you and vibrate you and pump noise in, so that it’s very realistic.” Simulator training lasted twelve to fifteen hours a week, and Sally loved the feeling of riding in a real rocket.

In April 1982, the commander of the seventh shuttle mission Captain Robert Crippen chose Sally Ride to be part of his crew. Since the mission would make Sally the first American woman in space, she received a lot of media attention. Though she was excited and proud to take part in the mission, Sally didn’t think the media should make a big deal of the fact that she was a woman. She told one reporter, “I did not come to NASA to make history. It’s important to me that people don’t think I was picked for the flight because I am a woman and it’s time for NASA to send one.” Mostly Sally ignored the reporters and concentrated on the job ahead of her. By the summer of 1983, Sally was prepared to join her fellow astronauts in space.