Sukkot is here, and judging by the accounts of consumers and retailers alike, many suburban streets are seeing more of those temporary huts spring up for the fall holiday.
Temporary Huts Popping Up Everywhere for Sukkot Holiday
Sukkot is here, and judging by the accounts of consumers and retailers alike, many suburban streets are seeing more of those temporary huts spring up for the fall holiday.
As with many Jewish traditions, the observance of the seven-day holiday of Sukkot has seen a resurgence over the past few years. More and more people are buying the Four Species that are held together in a special holiday ritual; and an increasing number of people, like northern California resident Larry Friedman, are choosing to construct the booths that Jewish law prescribes should be eaten in as a remembrance of the Jewish People’s sojourn in the desert.
“It’s been at least 20 years since we’ve had one,” says Friedman, who attends services at Chabad-Lubavitch of Stockton. “We felt it was time to start doing this mitzvah again: Rabbi Avremel Brod has his sukkah, and for years, we’ve been itching to buy our own.”
Like many new buyers, Friedman bought his sukkah online. Jewish law stipulates that the temporary structure have at least three walls and be covered with an organic material, such as cut branches, known in Hebrew as s’chach.
Baruch Cohen, an employee of a Five Towns distributor of sukkahs affiliated with Sukkah Depot – an operation that has of late expanded into dozens of locations nationwide – attributes the rise in his company’s sales to a greater interest in Jewish traditions among families.
