High Holidays at the Peretz Centre
Sun, Sep 28
|Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture
Join us for the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture's High Holidays Observance as we mark the new Jewish year of 5786!
Time & Location
Sep 28, 2025, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, 6184 Ash St, Vancouver, BC V5Z 3G9, Canada
Event Description
The Peretz combined/condensed Rosh Hashana (New Year) & Yom Kippur observance is based in Secular Jewish Humanist practices that reflects our community's progressive values and history. With family activities, our High Holidays event offers a space to connect with family, friends, and the Peretz community, remember those we have lost in the last year, and welcome the new year together.
Sunday, September 28th, 2025 (1-4pm)
Ben & Gallia Chud Auditorium, Peretz Centre
6184 Ash Street, Vancouver
➤ How to Get Here / Building & Accessibility Information
Free street parking and underground parking available (elevator access)
Schedule of Events:
1pm: Craft activities for all ages
2pm: Jewish Secular Humanist observance
3pm: Kiddush (refreshments)
Children and adults are invited to participate in card-making crafts! Sylvia Arce-Gonzalez will offer a paper quilling and new year card-making workshop for all ages (starting at 1pm).
The Peretz tradition is to engage with and adapt traditional rituals, songs, and practices from Jewish cultures that are still meaningful to us and create new ones for our present and future generations. After candle lighting, songs (with the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir), and accessible readings focused on the meanings of the holiday, we blow the shofar. The observance ends with Kol Nidre and Yizkor, sung by Stephen Aberle.
We invite our community to share names of loved ones who have passed since last Rosh Hashana to read out during the Yizkor observance in the event registration form (or by emailing info@peretz-centre.org).
Bring food items for the Jewish Family Service's Annual Food Drive (or donate online)
Each year, Project Isaiah unites synagogues, schools, community organizations, and individuals throughout Greater Vancouver to support the JFS Food Security programs providing critical assistance to over 1,600 people per month.
This year, food donation bags will be available for community members to pick up (empty) or drop off (filled) at participating locations (including the Peretz Centre) from Sep. 22 to Oct. 6. Fill your bags with nourishing pantry items, especially healthy cereals and granola bars, pastas, beans and lentils, and rice. Learn more about what to bring. Or, donate to the virtual food drive and JFS will do the shopping for you!
The Jews for Food Aid for People in Gaza High Holidays Tzedakah Campaign aims to raise $180,000 for the Gaza Soup Kitchen before Yom Kippur. The campaign helps create the political conditions necessary for Israeli government policies to change, and in the meantime, support the Gaza Soup Kitchen to help people in Gaza survive this unimaginable crisis. Donate here
Register for the Peretz High Holidays
Peretz members, friends, and new faces are welcome to attend. Our doors are open to people of diverse cultures, beliefs, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities.
Actual Cost: $13 per person (14 and older)
Community-Funded: $5 per person (no one will be turned away for lack of funds)
Children & Grads: free (under 13 or Pnei Mitzvah graduates)
*Cash or cheques will also be accepted at the door
We encourage people to register before September 22nd to ensure we have enough food for everyone!
A gut yontif!
A gut yor!
L'Shana Tova!
Image Credit: Illustration by Tsirl Waletzky for a Yiddish language learning book for children, printed by the Educational Department of the Workmen's Circle (New York, 1971).