Rosh HaShanah (literally “head of the year”) is the Jewish New Year. The biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah (“day of shouting/blasting”) It is the first of the Jewish High Holy Days, hat occur in the late summer/early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere. Rosh Hashanah begins a ten-day period of penitence culminating in Yom Kippur, as well as beginning the cycle of autumnal religious festivals running through Sukkot and ending in Shemini Atzeret.