Sukkot 2024: Festival "Shalash, Shalom!" kicks off in Moscow

Jewish people around the world began celebrating the most joyful holiday of Sukkot today. In 2024, Sukkot begins on October 17 according to the Gregorian calendar. The Feast of Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles, will be celebrated until the evening of October 23.

This year, the charity festival "Shalash, Shalom!" ("shalash" is a tent in Russian) is being held in Moscow for the first time. The week-long festival, organized by the Russian Jewish Congress in partnership with the Moscow Architecture School MARCH, is open to all people, regardless of nationality and religion.

The festivities are organized at the Memorial Synagogue on Poklonnaya Hill. Art objects were placed around it, which are creatively designed tents several meters high. The tent is the semantic axis of the Sukkot holiday, commemorating the time when they wandered in the desert for 40 years after their exodus from Egypt, living in fragile temporary tabernacles.

Today, the opening ceremony took place at the festival site. Mini-excursions to the art tents were held for the guests. A performance created for the Memorial Synagogue was shown, directed by Mikhail Plutakhin, the founder of Object Theater, winner of the Golden Mask award. And, of course, everyone congratulated each other on the holiday in Hebrew, saying Chag sukkot sameach!