History | Culture

The Origins of Rosh Hashanah | Jlife

While we celebrate Rosh Hashanah as the Jewish New Year, as the day the Hebrew calendar begins, that wasn’t always the case.

Nowadays we celebrate Rosh Hashanah on the first day of the fall month of Tishrei. But in biblical times, that period was explicitly called “the seventh month.” During the First Temple period (8th to mid-6th century BCE), the year began in the spring, on the first day of Nisan.