Sukkot

🎉 🇮🇱 Israel • September 26, 2026

Days off: 7 days • Falls on Saturday

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Sukkot — holiday, Israel (September 26, 2026)

Sukkot Description

The Feast of Tabernacles, a seven-day biblical festival commemorating the Israelites' 40-year journey through the desert and the fall harvest. Jewish families build sukkot — temporary booths with thatched roofs — in balconies, gardens, and public spaces, where meals are eaten and some even sleep. Synagogues hold services with the ritual waving of the Four Species: lulav (palm branch), etrog (citron), hadass (myrtle), and aravah (willow). Government offices, banks, and most businesses close for the first day fully, with intermediate days (Chol HaMoed) seeing partial closures. The holiday is a time of national vacation, with families traveling to nature reserves, festivals, and Jerusalem's sukkah-filled streets.

📜 History & Origins

Sukkot is one of the three biblically mandated pilgrimage festivals (shalosh regalim) when Israelites ascended to the Temple in Jerusalem with agricultural offerings. The Torah commands the Israelites to dwell in booths for seven days 'so that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of Egypt' (Leviticus 23). It also marked the fall harvest, and King Solomon dedicated the First Temple during Sukkot.

🎉 How It's Celebrated

Families construct a sukkah — a temporary hut with walls but a roof of loose branches (schach) through which stars must be visible — on balconies, in yards, and in public squares, then eat and sometimes sleep inside it for the week. Each morning worshipers perform the waving of the Four Species (lulav, etrog, hadass, aravah) in six directions. In synagogues, congregants circle the bimah with the Four Species during Hoshanot, and on Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day, willow branches are beaten against the floor.

🍽️ Traditional Foods

Meals are eaten inside the sukkah whenever possible. Stuffed foods — kreplach, stuffed cabbage, and stuffed peppers — are favored, symbolizing a year 'stuffed' with blessings. The harvest theme brings fresh autumn produce, fruit, and nuts to the table. Among Ashkenazi families, holishkes (stuffed cabbage in sweet-and-sour sauce) is a classic Sukkot dish.

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