Food, sound, prayer, reflection, celebration. Jewish people around the world will soon wish one another “Shanah tovah” (Hebrew for “good year”) during Rosh Hashanah, the observance of the Jewish New Year. 

The holiday, which takes place this year between sundown on September 25 and sundown on September 27, kicks off the Jewish high holy days. Here's what you need to know about how the holiday is celebrated—and the history of the traditional blowing of the shofar horn.

Jewish people welcome the new year in September or October, not January, in observance of the lunisolar Hebrew calendar. Rosh Hashanah begins on the first day of Tishri, the first month of the calendar’s civil year and seventh month of its religious year. Given