The Jewish community around the world will ring in the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, this month.

The Rosh Hashanah celebrations will take place from Sept. 13-15. This two-day celebration is one of the two High Holidays, along with Yom Kippur.

Paul Cohn, rabbi at Temple Sinai, said this new years is quite different from the traditional American new year celebration.

“Rosh Hashanah is a time of solemnity when we ponder our lives. When the Shofar is sounded it serves as a spiritual alarm clock which wakes us up and helps us ponder our lives. Ten days later is Yom Kippur,” Cohn said.

According to Cohn, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are almost equivalent to the Christian celebrations of Christmas and Easter.

“We read from the Torah, the story of Issac and Abraham, and eat sweet apples to symbolize a sweet new year. It is like having Christmas and Easter ten days apart,” Cohn said.

For Benjamin Bucholtz, music education senior, Rosh Hashanah is important for various reasons.

“It’s the New Year, so in a similar way to the American New Year, it’s typically a time for reflection on the past year and looking ahead for the year to come. But it’s also the start of the ten ‘Days of Awe’ which end on Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. So I look at it as an opportunity to start to get in the mindset of this period, and to start to really take stock of where I am as a person, what wrongs I’ve made, how I can improve,” Bucholtz said.

Bucholtz added that this holiday is also a huge social event.

“It’s one of the few times of year you’ll see just about everyone in the community in one place. Back at the synagogue in my hometown of Tampa, it was a time to see family and friends, eat lots of apples and honey as well as other sweet things and just have a great time,” Bucholtz said.