Alla Umanskiy's Rosh Hashanah Message for 2024

I’m hosting Rosh Hashanah dinner this year for my family – a fact that excites me and makes me nervous. Normally, my parents host. They’re the “adults.” They do the brisket and the apples and the honey and all the appropriately packaged Judaism that comes with this holiday. I’m a “kid” – only 45 – so I come over with my spouse and children in tow, ready to eat kosher meats, and dip apples into things, and savor the love that my parents always put into this special evening.

Except this year, for various reasons, my parents won’t host. So, I stepped up, adulting, feeling very grown. It’s about time. Now the brisket and the apples and the challah and the matza balls are up to me (and my husband – a great cook!).

It’s a slight hassle – maneuvering the relatives and the groceries and the cooking and the serving – but I couldn’t be more thrilled. This is my chance to maintain the thread that has kept my family’s Jewishness alive. This is my opportunity to show my daughters how to do this – and that mom (not just grandma) can do it too.

So this is how Rosh Hashanah has evolved in our family. From none at all in my Soviet early childhood, to full-blown shebang at my parents’ house, to, finally, my house with my own kids. A circle, whole, complete, round as an apple.

Alla Umanskiy is a writer, wife and mother, living, working and raising a family in Johns Creek.