The High Holidays of 5787: the dates, and the names the community carries for them

The dates

Dates checked against Hebcal's Jewish holiday calendar.

The names the community carries

In Beta Israel tradition the Tishrei holidays have names of their own. Rosh Hashanah is called Berhan Saraqa — "the light has risen"; Yom Kippur is called Astasreyo; Sukkot has its own separate name. These are not translations of the Hebrew names but independent ones, from a calendar that developed for centuries without contact with other Jewish communities.

The prayer — in Ge'ez, and by heart

Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, in a survey published by the Shalom Hartman Institute on 5 December 2024, describes the Beta Israel liturgy as an ancient and autonomous Jewish tradition — and not, as a widespread scholarly working assumption had it, as an influence of Ethiopian Christian tradition.

Per that survey:

• The prayers are built from fragmented biblical verses from the Torah, Prophets and Psalms, assembled so as to create new meaning — midrash, not citation.
• They are transmitted orally and recorded in Ge'ez, the community's sacred tongue.
• The Berhan Saraqa liturgy carries themes of kingship, remembrance and the shofar — paralleling the malkhuyot, zikhronot and shofarot of the Rosh Hashanah service.

Shalom quotes kessim who told him plainly, about sacred texts held by Christians in Ethiopia, "they took that from us".

What this means in practice, this year

Anyone who grew up in a home where the kessim led prayer in Ge'ez, and who today prays in a synagogue with a Sephardi or Ashkenazi rite, knows this gap. It is not a gap of "less" or "more" — it is a gap between two Jewish traditions that developed apart.

Ahead of the High Holidays it is worth finding out in advance what is happening in your city: in some communities the kessim lead a separate or a combined service, and in some places there is none. The kessim-by-city page is the starting point.

A note on sources

The civil dates come from Hebcal's holiday calendar. The description of the liturgy comes from Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom's survey at the Shalom Hartman Institute. The names Berhan Saraqa and Astasreyo also appear in the Hebrew Wikipedia entry on Beta Israel holidays — a secondary source, which we cite alongside the scholarly one rather than in place of it.

Read also

• Kessim by city
• Beta Israel — the heritage page
• Sigd 5787 — 9 November 2026

Sources

• Hebcal — Jewish holiday calendar 2026 · verified 8 Sep 2026
• Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, "Research on the liturgy of the Beta Israel community — distinctive features", Shalom Hartman Institute, 5 Dec 2024