Yom Tov trivia

The Mishnah in Maseches Rosh Hashanah tells us that Rosh Hashanah is not the only “New Year” in Yiddishkeit. What are the others?

Tu B’Shevat — Rosh Hashanah l’ilanos (for the trees); Alef Nissan — Rosh Hashanah for the Chagim; Alef Elul — Rosh Hashanah for maaser beheimah]

Believe It or Not!

Do you know what a telegram is? In the days before cell phones or email, and even before people had a phone line at home, friends and relatives communicated via telegram. A telegram was a message sent by a machine called a telegraph; the sender would visit his local telegraph office, and dictate the message he wanted delivered. The telegraph office would telegraph the message to the recipient’s local office, where it would be copied onto paper and delivered to the recipient. Because the sender had to pay for each word, telegrams were historically short and to the point. Common telegrams would say: “Mother sick. Come soon.” Or “Baby boy. Everyone well.” It was a way to update loved ones and stay in touch in a world so different from the one we know now.

Yidden used telegrams to wish each other a shanah tovah, too. Before Rosh Hashanah each year, there was a major increase in telegraph messages, with thousands of messages exchanged each year. Amazingly, in 1925, the Western Union Telegraph Company instituted a special service before Rosh Hashanah, the way they did before the major non-Jewish holidays, to handle the volume of telegrams!